How long?

W

William Suter

Well-known member
If a smith had a barrel in hand, no contouring, just crown, thread and chamber and head space and then screw it on the action. How long does it take in hours? I'm trying to understand why some places take 6 months and some only a week or two. Start to finish???
 
This is where my opinion is different than others. If you're just looking to fit a barrel to a action and chamber. I will take a Machinist over a Gunsmith any day. A Machinist deals with very small tolerances every day. So they get the job done real fast. There is a guy on Accurate Shooter that is a Machinist by trade and threads and fits barrels to actions and chambers them. Way faster then everyone else. And cost is less than have and his rifles really shoot good.
 
I'm not a GS so I don't know about actual time involved. He's my thoughts...
* Some GS have regular jobs and do gun work on the side.
* Some GS are a one "man" show and may have a huge backlog . Just like taxidermists you get in line.
* Some GS only do barrel installs and or muzzle threading.
* Some GS do complete builds from barrel chambering to stock inletting, paint, ect..
* Some are full time shops with multiple GS employed and doing any of the things listed above.
* Add in, fixing hack jobs from others that don't really know what they are doing.

* People and places that do good work are not sitting around waiting for the phone to ring or the work to walk in the front door. They are busy !

Now add in... Taking and making calls/emails . Packing and shipping . Talking face to face with customers . Health issues / life in general . Never mind the stupid crap people come up with ,that takes away from working.

So, How many jobs are ahead of yours ? How many phone calls or emails did you make asking " What's the hold up ?" I mean you said it would be done Tuesday afternoon and it's Friday !
 
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While I understand "one man show GS",but companies like Hart and Pacnor are not one man operations or at least I don't think they are. Their wait times are 6 months minimum where Douglas gets you in and out in a couple of weeks. I don't want an Earl Scribe barrel job where its in and out in a day or two but I don't understand 6 months either.
 
Barrel makers that are doing installs . I'd say it's work load vs number of staff .
PN had their fire ,so that's a huge setback.

Who's doing what and who's winning shooting events. If 10 Hart shooters placed in the money and only 1 Douglas user , which barrel is going to get ordered the most ?

Supply and demand is a huge factor.
 
Something I always wonder is how many aftermarket / custom barrels are getting installed ? It must be insanely large numbers . Go look at companies and or vendors selling barrels , they are almost always out of stock. They can only make them so fast.
 
Setup (60 to 75% of time), Thread for action, Short chamber, check fitment to action, Concentric ( parallel ) to bore? (not in that exact order, some check barrel to action fitment). Now this part some smith remove the barrel from the lathe for checking fitment to action, most the one I know don't because if incorrect not, now got to re-set up. To crown the other end again same applies, setup, crown, check concentric ( parallel ) to bore?. The final chambering can be done once the barrel is installed as well as the headspace checks. Reassemble function / feeding /extraction checks. Test fire, some will shoot for groups, some will just test fire for function. If anything is amiss it's back to the lathe.
Of course this is assuming that the action is not barreled or requires any truing or fixing / cleaning the gunk in the thread. Lapping of the lugs etc. I've pulled barrel from 1903's that was in place for almost 100 years, they can be quite challenging at times (I usually did this to reduce rebarrel cost /time before dropping of with the smith a time or two). 8 foot cheater bar, penetratingly oil, lots of heat some times (On the barrel not the action), or having to cut small relief in the barrel to get it to break lose. Then eventually rewarded with that loud crack noise which 75% of the time you swear you broke it.
There is way more involved in it than just chucking it in a lathe and go. Pre-fits, your action isn't even present, or a consideration. They have a pattern action to go by.
Time that this takes is not dependent on gunsmithing skills rather the gunsmith skills as a machinist. Fast turn around doesn't equate to job done correctly.

Which many times multiple other small repairs can be done time wise to one barrel installation. The smith's promise time and backlog will dictate what's on the bench. As well as $$ per day.
(in the case of large company it very well maybe a one man operation, as everyone else is making barrels.)
 
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My gs has a store/machine shop. He generally does general repairs all year round. July/Aug/Sept is busy with shotgun repairs(early waterfowl/upland guns). He sets up hot tank blueing 2 times a year(spring/fall). Custom rebarreling (needing machine work) is winter. So I have my barrel blank, action (reamer if custom) ready to drop off in early Dec, usually pickup is in Feb.
 
My old riflesmith, last couple he did for me, one year. And that was just because he likes me. If he was still taking fit and chamber jobs I'd gladly pay the high prices he charged and wait the long wait. Everything was perfect, exactly to my specs, every time. Never any trouble getting him on the phone to bench race a new build. Always enthusiasm for my esoteric chamber specs, he understood why I wanted them that way and whole heartedly agreed. None of this "we don't have a reamer like that..." and "you should use heavier bullets for this much powder capacity..." that I have gotten everywhere else. He did necking and throating as separate operations, so custom necks and freebore were "no problem".

- DAA
 
That said... It's looking like I'll be a minimum of 9 months to get the barrel fit and chambered I sent to LRI. With almost no communication. And an extra four month wait because I wanted it the way I wanted it and they waited four months to call me back and find out I was serious about that and wouldn't accept the reamer they had rented for the job.

- DAA
 
I've been doing my own barrel work for more than 30 years. It takes me about 4 hours to set one up, turn the tenon, thread, time the action to the curvature of the barrel, drill, bore concentric to the spindle bearings and then chamber. I takes another 2 hours to set it up to crown and thread the muzzle for a suppressor. It's not a simple job and it's worth every penny that you pay to a good gunsmith to do the job. As for it taking 6 months to get it done, if that's all it takes consider yourself lucky. Those few people who can get a chamber dead center in the blank are few and far between. It should look like this when finished........


Photo on 12-17-24 at 3.22 PM.jpeg
 
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One smith, that has retired and no longer does any work, crowned a barrel for me. It took longer for him to index my barrel than the crown took.
 
DAA said:
That said... It's looking like I'll be a minimum of 9 months to get the barrel fit and chambered I sent to LRI. With almost no communication. And an extra four month wait because I wanted it the way I wanted it and they waited four months to call me back and find out I was serious about that and wouldn't accept the reamer they had rented for the job.

- DAA
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Just to update this... LRI called today. To tell me the same thing they told me four months ago. They can't find a reamer to match the specs I sent. Four months ago, they said they would order one. But, they didn't. So now, four months later, we are no further along than day one. Everything about this chambering job trying to work with LRI has been a total cluster and they haven't listened to one word I have said or written, or followed through on one single thing they said they would do.

I will never, ever, use LRI again. This is getting beyond frustrating just trying to simply communicate with them. I'm way sick of it. Today it was like I hadn't ever spoken to anyone before and nobody had any clue what was going on. It's ridiculous. Reminds me of when I had an ATT&T cell phone many years ago trying to get any help with anything. I'll never do business with AT&T again either. Same reasons. At this point, it's going to end up being a solid year to get a barrel chambered - if I'm lucky.

- DAA
 
Just a side note on gunsmiths. I was in one picking up a gun a couple months back and another guy came in asking about having a stock cut down today and a new butt pad put on it for his son. The smith said 6 weeks if you bring it to me today. He looked surprised and the smith said “30 minute job in the jigs but i have 5 weeks, 6 days, and 23 hours of work in front of you”. All 3 of us chuckled and he said he understood and then asked if he could order a youth stock instead and they went off looking that up.
 
DAA said:
Just to update this... LRI called today. To tell me the same thing they told me four months ago. They can't find a reamer to match the specs I sent. Four months ago, they said they would order one. But, they didn't. So now, four months later, we are no further along than day one. Everything about this chambering job trying to work with LRI has been a total cluster and they haven't listened to one word I have said or written, or followed through on one single thing they said they would do.

I will never, ever, use LRI again. This is getting beyond frustrating just trying to simply communicate with them. I'm way sick of it. Today it was like I hadn't ever spoken to anyone before and nobody had any clue what was going on. It's ridiculous. Reminds me of when I had an ATT&T cell phone many years ago trying to get any help with anything. I'll never do business with AT&T again either. Same reasons. At this point, it's going to end up being a solid year to get a barrel chambered - if I'm lucky.

- DAA
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Dave, at this point, if I were you, I'd have them send my parts back and be done with them. That kind of BS has no place in your life. If they can't get a simple reamer ordered to spec, I would have no confidence that they can get the rest of the job done correctly. This is the very reason I decided to do my own barrel work a long time ago. I get a barrel blank on my door step, and shoot it the next day. It's discouraging to have that type of crap happen.
 
DAA said:
Just to update this... LRI called today. To tell me the same thing they told me four months ago. They can't find a reamer to match the specs I sent. Four months ago, they said they would order one. But, they didn't. So now, four months later, we are no further along than day one. Everything about this chambering job trying to work with LRI has been a total cluster and they haven't listened to one word I have said or written, or followed through on one single thing they said they would do.

I will never, ever, use LRI again. This is getting beyond frustrating just trying to simply communicate with them. I'm way sick of it. Today it was like I hadn't ever spoken to anyone before and nobody had any clue what was going on. It's ridiculous. Reminds me of when I had an ATT&T cell phone many years ago trying to get any help with anything. I'll never do business with AT&T again either. Same reasons. At this point, it's going to end up being a solid year to get a barrel chambered - if I'm lucky.

- DAA
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I would be real tempted to give this guy a try. He did do some training with greg tannel. He seems like he at least cares. accurate rifles and restorations and enjoys his work. this is just one of his videos. here is his site. Precision at its Finest: Accurate Rifles, Restorations & Custom Work | Accurate Rifles and Restorations LLC I also think you're going to just have to call and get the reamer yourself.
 
DAA,
I'm sorry to hear of the troubles you are having with LRI. Pure BS !

Thank you for making it known. I will put them in the never use them file.
 
1lessdog2 said:
This is where my opinion is different than others. If you're just looking to fit a barrel to a action and chamber. I will take a Machinist over a Gunsmith any day. A Machinist deals with very small tolerances every day. So they get the job done real fast. There is a guy on Accurate Shooter that is a Machinist by trade and threads and fits barrels to actions and chambers them. Way faster then everyone else. And cost is less than have and his rifles really shoot good.
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You’re spot on, for pure barrel threading and chamber cutting, a skilled machinist can outpace many traditional gunsmiths on speed, cost, and tolerance. Their daily work revolves around microns and perfect alignment, so when you hand them a barrel blank and an action, they’ll dial it in faster and often at a fraction of the price.
 
I gunsmithed part time for about 30 years, long retired now. The job described could be done in an hour or less if everything clicks without any hangups. Why do some take months? Backlog is number one but for reasons I cannot explain some smith put guns on back burning for another time. When I served my apprenticeship I could often put out twice as much work as my mentor. There were jobs or customers he didn’t like and put them aside. Sometimes he spent more time chewing the fat with customers then working. I would go through the backlog and find guns that had been there a year or more for no good read and fix it up same day. Many gunsmiths are just wierd and cannot be explained
 


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