A couple of hours freed up for me Saturday, so I managed to get something done on this. I have found that if I have everything ready to go in advance, just like having my range bag stocked and ready to go to the range, I can get out and make progress when the chance presents itself.

I had ordered the drills, tap, and a 36" long, 1"x1" 6061 aluminum bar for making into a barrel wrench for removing the 63 barrel, so I was ready to go. I lopped off a small 8" piece from the end of the long bar and drilled three holes through the short and long pieces simultaneously (to ensure they all line up properly) using a "F" drill bit, the appropriate size for a 5/16"x18 tap. I then opened up the holes on the shorter piece just large enough to allow passage of 5/16" cap screws. I then just tapped the three holes in the main bar. The purpose of three holes is to allow the use of two types of jaws of differing configuration, one for the current 63 barrel ,and also one for the round Hart barrel.

The 63 barrel is tapered but features that convenient rib on the top. I simply machined a round-bottom trough just deep enough for the flat shoulder to mate with the flat side of the barrel rib, to achieve maximum purchase when removing and torquing the barrel. A 5/8" ball-end mill was just about perfect for this.

The Hart barrel is still a true cylinder, with no shoulder, about .875" in diameter, so a 7/8" ball end mill was used for its jaw, but I milled it much deeper to again allow as much bite as possible:



Here it is clamped firmly onto the original 63 barrel as close to the frame as possible:


Next, I made some card stock templates, ala, J.M. Browning, for the right and left sides of the petite J- Frame to use as a pattern for the Delrin inserts:


So, hopefully, sometime soon, I'll scribe the outlines onto the Delrin blocks, cut them out, and fit them to the actual frame. There's probably enough flex and elasticity in the Delrin to form fit to the frame without meticulous fitting, but I'd like to get the fit as precise as possible to avoid any avoidable strain on the frame when removing and torquing the barrels.


TBR