OK - who has changed-out a levergun barrel hisself...???

[AJMD429]

(...or herself...)

It's time for me to decide on whether or not to take the .44 Mag barrel off my pre-safety 1894 Marlin, and replace it with a same-length, identically-contoured and 'hooded' Marlin factory .45 Colt barrel I purchased new from Numrich.

None of the local gunsmiths I've asked say they have "the proper equipment" to swap-out barrels on the 1894 Marlins, but I think some of these gunsmiths re-barrel Mausers and other guns sometimes, so I'm confused (...nothing new there... ). The one who originally Parkerized the gun doesn't even do that anymore, so dunno what I'll do for final finishing, but can cross that bridge later I suppose. It wouldn't be the first Franken-finished gun I've owned, with some Parkerized, some factory-blued, and some Cerro-Coated parts. Once I know the gun is mechanically sound and so on, I'll have to decide which finish I like best and/or which ones can most easily be removed and/or finished over. Anyway - first I have to decide on the barrel-swap...

It looks like a set of good barrel-clamps in a bench-vice, and a couple 1"x4" oak scraps bolted together around the flats of the receiver, fastened to a longer piece of stiff wood or pipe, and it should work, but maybe there's something I'm missing...?

I'd be interested in the experiences of other forum members swapping barrels; I know some here are professional gunsmiths, but many are just 'regular' folks with common-sense and reasonable mechanical skills like myself.

[J Miller]

I haven't done it ... yet.

I have the barrel vise I got from M.M. Wright, and the blocks for it I got from Pitchy. But it's still sitting under my computer table as I haven't pulled up the courage to do it. And I don't have a suitable receiver wrench.

Maybe we should get together and confer on these projects.

Joe

[Thunder50]

Done it

Put the barrel(padded) in the vise and used a piece of leather over the front of the receiver, then some pieces of 1/4" brass flat stock over the leather, then an 18" adjustable wrench. Opened the lever about half way and went too it. Took a bit of force, but barrel popped loose.

Thats the easy part.

Screwed on the new barrel, which wouldn't index properly, of course. Had to take the barrel off and put it on the lathe and take a few thousandths off the shoulder and refit. Do this until you need to turn it about 20-30 degrees to fit. Then torque the barrel down (before I would just hand tighten it, to check fit) and see how it lines up. Its a trial and error thing. You can see how much the barrel moves when you torque it down. You want to have it to when you hand torque it, you have that degree of turn left to go, so you can final torque it into place. I am sure a professional gunsmith would cringe at how I did it, but it worked fine. I was fitting a 336A barrel to a 444 action. Headspace was good.

Now, if the barrel goes past center, when you screw it on for the first time, you are kind of SOL, as it is quite a bit of work to go another thread and recut the back of the barrel. But a factory new barrel, unfitted, should be OK.

[sullkat]

+1 on what thunder50 said, the only thing different I used a home made action wrench fairly easy to have made.
Use kroil on it for about 5 days and it took a quick snap to free. put a little heat on it until the kroil bubbled.
Just be careful around the area where the forend goes that is pretty thin there.

[pwl44m]

Go for it Doc, I have a project in mind.
Perry

[Catshooter]

Only thing I could ad is it does need to be a real vise. A four inch Craftsman ain't gonna do it.


Cat.

[Chuck 100 yd]

I have, not that difficult. I made an action wrench similar to the one sullkat shows and a barrel vice that bolts down to my welding table ( table= 540 lb.)
A 3' cheater pipe on the handle and they come off very easily.

I gut the receiver and place blocks of steel and shims inside to prevent it from collapsing when the wrench is clamped firmly on and use paper card stock to protect any finish I am not going to re do.

A new barrel should turn in and index right on and also the head space should be within spec. Those barrels are usually made to very good tolerance.
Have fun!!

[Griff]

+1 on what thunder50 said, the only thing different I used a home made action wrench fairly easy to have made.
Use kroil on it for about 5 days and it took a quick snap to free. put a little heat on it until the kroil bubbled.
Just be careful around the area where the forend goes that is pretty thin there.

+1. Since my .44Mag barrel was junk, I just locked the barrel in the vise in the pipe section, below the flat jaws... kept the bolt closed and the bottom (floor) plate in, padded the jaws of my 15" crescent wrench and cranked away. Came loose fairly easy, given how rusty the thing was.

Since I don't have a lathe, I needed to have a gunsmith install the new barrel, as it was about 30º off when down to needing a wrench to tighten it up. I also had him cut it 16-½"... and I tell ya, it's handier than anything I got in the safe.

[20cows]

I have taken 'em off and put 'em back on. I made similar action wrench and made a barrel vice that used a 2 ton bottle jack, 2 7/8" all threads and blocks of oak inletted to hold the barrel.

[pokey]

done a few, paying attention to what everybody else said will pay dividends.
don't be surprised at the amount of force the first pop will require. [ alot ].

[20cows]

I was poking around in my shop today and came across my "new and improved" barrel vice. It had been long enough since I made it, I had forgotten it.

Here's the old one that used the jack.


Here's the new and improved.


The jaws are tractor tool bar clamps and the blocks are oak.

Edit: I just noticed the receiver wrench is hanging on the wall behind it. I made the wrench out of bar stock and wrapped them in sheet aluminum to avoid marring the receiver. It bolts together.

[BenT]

Marlins are a little harder to headspace, but I've done a half dozen Winchesters and only had a problem indexing one.

[AJMD429]

The day I get the time and gumption saved up to do this, I'm either gonna feel like a real gunsmith, or a total idiot, depending on whether or not I scratch or bend something I shouldn't. I've sprayed a liquid-wrench type oil on the threads a couple times this past week.

[20cows]

I have rebarreled six and never had any headspace issues.

[20cows]

...or is it seven.

[AJMD429]

Well.... I got the receiver-wrench built - that was easy since the receiver is flat, but as for the barrel. . .

It is about 15/16ths", so I tried first drilling a 7/8" hole in a section of hard 3"x4" wood, splitting it, and clamping the barrel with that in a very heavy bench-vice. The barrel slipped in the wood. Then I tried a 1-1/8" hole and a piece of slit polyethylene tubing as a spacer, hoping it would add friction. It slipped on the barrel too. Then I tried a piece of 4"x3" lead-sheeting 1/8" thick or so, and all it did was 'plate' the parkerized barrel with lead all the way around.

Would a piece of rubber inner-tube get the friction I need...? How about radiator hose...?

I don't want to just 'sacrifice' the perfectly-good .44 Mag barrel by using a pipe-wrench. Plus, I'll need to figure out a non-marring way to tighten the new barrel anyway.

Ideas...?????

[BenT]

I've used a piece of leather to wrap the barrel with one wrap and them into the very vise as hard as you can tighten it. Now take a 4 or 5 lb plastic mechanics hammer and hit the action wrench handle like you are swinging a bat . That seems to break loose the tough ones better than a long piece of pipe. I've only had one that I had to take to my friends vise which uses the correct 94 barrel contour inserts.

[cfplinker]

A friend of mine made his barrel vise jaws by drilling an oversize hole in the wood block, centering the barrel in it, then filling the space around the barrel with bedding compound. After the compound had set up he removed the barrel and cut the block in two. This gave him a set of jaws that were custom fit the the barrel.

[FWiedner]

I've had good luck preventing slip by using rosin powder in the barrel channel on the wood blocks.

... or maybe I just had the vice dang tight.

One or the other.

[Ben_Rumson]

Rosin is the key to stop the slipping.. I have read this repeatedly over the years... I believe Brownells has it... Not too long ago I read a thread on this subject and someone said that regular brown paper grocery bags are treated with rosin to keep them from sticking together and recommended trying it between the jaws and barrel first before buying a quantity of rosin... It worked...

[rbertalotto]

I've done it a few times. You can find full article about it in here
Www.rvbprecision.com

[O.S.O.K.]

I've done it too. I recommend the Wheeler barrel vice and yes, do use rosin.

I also recommend applying some kroil the night before and letting the barrel threads soak in that before removing.

When I did my Win 94 project, I was cutting the AI chamber, so I simply removed a tad bit more until the headspace was good. Fortunately, the barrel indexed nicely for the sights. As I don't yet own a lathe, that was fortunate.

[AJMD429]

Well, I finally did it... http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewt ... =1&t=43325