"Smithaconda" - is it possible?

[D1911]

I made a 44 Mag Ruger 29. Put a Smith 8 3/8” 44 mag barrel on a Ruger SUPER BLACKHAWK single action which I ended up making a 7 1/2” barrel after re-threading. Milled off the extractor rod shroud and attached a 5” Ruger ejector rod/housing from a 10” Ruger SBH. I polished to a high gloss finish for the owner to send off for bluing. But he liked it so much in the white that he never had it blued. Never rusted which in my experience is typical for a highly polished gun surface with normal care.

I have a photo I can email to anyone willing to post it here.

Here she is. Looks sweet!

 

[Hondo44]

Thanks Don!

 

[mtgianni]

Threads like this make me glad I have never owned a lathe. I would be into time and materials that my wife would really not enjoy.

 

[D1911]

Thanks Don!

My pleasure Jim. Beautiful work!

 

[Hondo44]

Thank you. I didn’t take a very good photo way back when I had it in my possession. The frame has reflections that make it look wavy and murky.

 

[steelslaver]

Threads like this make me glad I have never owned a lathe. I would be into time and materials that my wife would really not enjoy.

So far I have bought 2 right angle drives, several reamers, a J frame 32 cylinder and they have started showing up at the house. My wife will just stack them up for when I get home and be happy once I am home she can find me tinkering in the shop if she wants me.

I am going to use one of the small right angle drives to connect my mills table drive to a rotary table mounted on it so I can make shafts with a groove that spirals ate the rate I want to rifle barrels at. I will be able to adjust the twist rate because I will use bicycle gears and chain to drive the rotary table. I have already mounted a small 3 jaw chuck on the rotary table. Mount it and a tail stock aligned on my mills long axis. Then as the table is moving while a end mill cuts the groove the shaft will slowly rotate at my chosen rate,

Once I make a shaft with say a 1 in 14" twist groove in it I will mount it on the end of a drive to pull it back and forth with it trapped between 2 blocks with a heavy pin that rides in the groove and makes it turn at the 1-14 rate as it pulls a small cutter through the barrel.

The reamers are the .297 to make my bore then if I cut the grooves .0065 deep i will end up with a .312 barrel. I already have a couple .440 reamers to make .452 barrels

They were rifling barrels since the 15th century, long before they had electricity and mail order tooling. My step dad had a perfectly good lathe yet, made a muzzle loader barrel using a jig set up on a long 2x12 plank, wooden bearings, a pipe with a piece of 1/4 x 1/2" flat bar that slowly spiraled down its length. He pulled it and his cutter by hand. He used the same jig to originally turn a piece of round stock and drill it. He did cheat and used an electric motor to turn his piece when he drilled it. Why, because he wanted to make his own muzzle loader and did.

Anyone with some money can buy a gun. Considerably fewer can maintain them well, fewer still repair them. Fewer still can make custom guns and only a tiny number of people can actually make them.

The day I stop learning and doing is the day I actually start dying