gunsmithing, toolsI presume a lathe is needed, but what specific tools are needed to craft barrels?
Are they different for handguns than rifles or shotguns?
If so, what would be needed to setup a shop to be able to work on all three?
Check out http://www.lasc.us/RangingShotBarrelMakingFeature.htm
http://riflebarrels.com/articles/barrel_making/making_rifle_barrel.htm
Looks like you’ll need:
Pretty significant tooling investment, might as well throw a subscription to the http://www.homeshopmachinist.net to boot.
A much shorter path towards firearms building is one of the “expedient” build guides like this one, http://thehomegunsmith.com/, just don’t build the automatic version. There are forums dedicated to firearms building, your question should find a better audience there and something like this is likely answered in the FAQ. Good luck!
The best fixture for making barrels isn’t a shop lathe, it’s a custom machine. They’re not small, but they can be surprisingly easy to make.
The machine is basically a special-purpose lathe with a long chuck (in order to hold the stock concentrically over its length). You’ll need a high-pressure oil system in order to run the gunn drill (deep hole drill). Then a reamer (no biggie), then a rifling head. If you wish to do cut rifling, some indexing features are needed.
While not really plans, there’s enough information in This Guy Lautard Video to construct a good machine.
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