Some barrel making history

M

martin zuck

Member
Years ago when I was a young man I spent three years down in Pittsburg learning a few things about the gunsmith trade and spent one summer working up at Flaig’s Lodge fitting barrels. At that time they were using Douglas barrels and calling them
Flaig Ace barrels. At the time we noticed the lack of reamer marks and Douglas claimed he was using a new process he called
bore honing but was not ready to share the process. Shortly after that Douglas died and his right hand man Arlie Gardner took
over. Arlie was Tim’s dad. At some point this practice was discontinued. Forward some fifty years and I finally discovered what he was doing. Tim was showing me some of the original patent drawings (Aug.5, 1954) of the original button rifling machine that they still use today. On the drawing I also noticed a picture of what looked like a VLD bullet but at the time didn’t make the connection. Shortly after that I came across an old newspaper article that finally satisfied my curiosity. What I had been looking at on the patent drawing was a carbide plug he was pushing thru the reamed barrel. It was .0005 per side larger than the reamed diameter. As near as I can tell Gerald Douglas started making cut rifled barrels full time in 1948. Also of interest was that
Bill Atkinson of A&M barrels worked for Douglas in his early days. I think his first button barrels were around 1956 which would
mean he was (bore honing) his barrels when he was still cutting them. Hart thru the help of M.Walker started making button barrels around 1956 also but I have never found a connection between the two. I asked Walker once about Douglas and he told me he had never met the man.
 
martin zuck said:
Years ago when I was a young man I spent three years down in Pittsburg learning a few things about
the gunsmith trade and spent one summer working up at Flaig’s Lodge fitting barrels. At that time they were using Douglas barrels and calling them
Flaig Ace barrels. At the time we noticed the lack of reamer marks and Douglas claimed he was using a new process he called
bore honing but was not ready to share the process. Shortly after that Douglas died and his right hand man Arlie Gardner took
over. Arlie was Tim’s dad. At some point this practice was discontinued. Forward some fifty years and I finally discovered what
he was doing. Tim was showing me some of the original patent drawings (Aug.5, 1954) of the original button rifling machine that
they still use today. On the drawing I also noticed a picture of what looked like a VLD bullet but at the time didn’t make the
connection. Shortly after that I came across an old newspaper article that finally satisfied my curiosity. What I had been looking
at on the patent drawing was a carbide plug he was pushing thru the reamed barrel. It was .0005 per side larger than the reamed
diameter. As near as I can tell Gerald Douglas started making cut rifled barrels full time in 1948. Also of interest was that
Bill Atkinson of A&M barrels worked for Douglas in his early days. I think his first button barrels were around 1956 which would
mean he was (bore honing) his barrels when he was still cutting them. Hart thru the help of M.Walker started making button barrels
around 1956 also but I have never found a connection between the two. I asked Walker once about Douglas and he told me he had
never met the man.
Click to expand...

A well done cut rifling setup with a final push/pull through reamer probably has a lot of good points.
I have seen enough reamed barrels with horrid chatter marks to question the use of reaming for the entire job.
Once bore scopes came down in price due to a smarter optical design a lot of details that had been hidden from
the vast majority of people came to light.

The breakthrough in bore scopes came from doping the glass lenses instead of simply polishing them to the required shape.
 
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martin zuck said:
Years ago when I was a young man I spent three years down in Pittsburg learning a few things about the gunsmith trade and spent one summer working up at Flaig’s Lodge fitting barrels. At that time they were using Douglas barrels and calling them
Flaig Ace barrels. At the time we noticed the lack of reamer marks and Douglas claimed he was using a new process he called
bore honing but was not ready to share the process. Shortly after that Douglas died and his right hand man Arlie Gardner took
over. Arlie was Tim’s dad. At some point this practice was discontinued. Forward some fifty years and I finally discovered what he was doing. Tim was showing me some of the original patent drawings (Aug.5, 1954) of the original button rifling machine that they still use today. On the drawing I also noticed a picture of what looked like a VLD bullet but at the time didn’t make the connection. Shortly after that I came across an old newspaper article that finally satisfied my curiosity. What I had been looking at on the patent drawing was a carbide plug he was pushing thru the reamed barrel. It was .0005 per side larger than the reamed diameter. As near as I can tell Gerald Douglas started making cut rifled barrels full time in 1948. Also of interest was that
Bill Atkinson of A&M barrels worked for Douglas in his early days. I think his first button barrels were around 1956 which would
mean he was (bore honing) his barrels when he was still cutting them. Hart thru the help of M.Walker started making button barrels around 1956 also but I have never found a connection between the two. I asked Walker once about Douglas and he told me he had never met the man.
Click to expand...

I think you will find that Hart went to Douglas to learn how to make button barrels ..... Jim
 
brickeyee said:
The 'push' style button rifling is about as weird as it gets.
The pull makes sense, but not the push.
Click to expand...

I agree with you! But that’s the way Douglas still does it. Remington ( Walker) used the same method back when they plug rifled. I think part of the reason was that in the early days they were having a hard time finding the right lubrication. In the early days before Walker if I remember right a fellow by the name of Henshal who worked for Remington was trying to pull button and having bad results. Apparently either method works.
 
Prior to the fire

I had read PacNor had developed a new process to hone barrels before engraving them at least I remember they were buttoned barrels. I had one of their barrels years back and it was one of the best barrels I ever had. Wonder if they are honing now?

Pete
 
Pete Wass said:
I had read PacNor had developed a new process to hone barrels before engraving them at least I remember they were buttoned barrels. I had one of their barrels years back and it was one of the best barrels I ever had. Wonder if they are honing now?

Pete
Click to expand...

Well I've got three in the pipeline, like several months along..... I just spoke to them yesterday and they are being contoured so I'll be talking with them again soon, I'll ask 'em :)
 
In 2019 I ordered a polygonal 1 in 16 from pacnor for my rimfire rifle. It was a good barrel but needed more testing. We were in the middle of the season so we pulled it and went back to a known good ratchet. With ammo the way it is it looks like we are going to have plenty of time for shop work and testing. Good time to pull it out. Super nice people to work with. I got this barrel right before the fire.
Todd
 
Benchmark Barrels

Sometime back I came across a You tube video showing the barrel making process Benchmark uses. It was done by some folks who arranged the tour of the shop.

For me the most interesting part was seeing the large Sunnen hone they had for honing an entire bore of a barrel blank. It was capable of identifying tight and loose spots, and giving the exact diameter of the bore to four digits. They make button rifled barrels, and I understand now they are making cut rifled too.

FWIW
Steve kostanich
 
Honing straightens and makes a truer round hole in addition to controlling the size and finish. It's how some cut rifled barrel makers hold the tolerances they do on the bore.
 
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