# Cut and Crown a Barrel



## rkwrichard (Aug 23, 2009)

Where is a good place or a good person to get to cut an crown a barrel? I would love to have a good target crown put on a Varmint Barrel and have it cut down about 4 inches.


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## NOYDB (Aug 23, 2009)

Where are you located?


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## blackbear (Aug 23, 2009)

Call the Gunsmith at Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna,Ga. or Zack at Deer Creek Guns or John at NiCK'S firearms both are in Marietta,Ga.Hope this helps..


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## germag (Aug 23, 2009)

Whatever you do, DO NOT use Larry Williams (Eagle Mountain Gun Repair) in Adairsville. He BUTCHERED one for me a while back.

I just got it straightened out by Andy Gazaway in Alpharetta. He did a jam-up job in it and did it in 2 days. He had to cut off the threads that Williams had cut for the muzzle brake and rethread and recrown, then rethread the muzzle brake and crown it, and then make a thread protector for me, and Moly Coat the brake and thread protector. The thread protector is so I can take the brake off for hunting.  He charged me a total of $120. Very reasonable.

I know NOYDB has 11 degree crown cutters, but I'm not sure about target crown cutters....and I don't know if he has the machinery to cut the barrel off, but I'd trust him to do anything he says he can do.....he's a good man. If he can't do it, he'll just straight-up tell you that.


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## rkwrichard (Aug 24, 2009)

NOYDB said:


> Where are you located?



I am near Marietta but I am willing to travel.


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## rkwrichard (Aug 24, 2009)

Thanks for the replies Adventure Outdoors and Deer Creek are people I have worked with before but not for this type of thing.

I would like to talk with several people.

Thanks germag I am not going to get this one threaded but that may be a option for one in the near future.


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## germag (Aug 24, 2009)

No, I understand that you aren't threading it...but you need the same sort of equipment to cut a barrel and cut a target crown in it. It has to be cut and crowned very precisely and exactly perpendicular to the bore. If it's off by .001", it can throw the bullet off....it will allow gasses to escape on one side of the crown before the other side...when that happens you lose pressure unevenly and the bullet cants to the side.


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## NOYDB (Aug 24, 2009)

Germag, 

Cutting the barrel is not that critical, it can be done with any metal cutting tool including a hack saw (if you have that much energy). The outside rim can be left bare or shaped, pretty much any way you want. The recessed crown style with a shaped rim is easiest done with a lathe. The 90 degree face can be done with a lathe or a hand held piloted cutter either chucked in a drill or just by hand. But if your original cut was close to 90, you can get away with out facing it any further (ugly and the sign of a personal  character defect, but it can be left that way). The inside rim is the part that affects bullet flight. It can be done with a piloted cutter like I use, 11 degrees (also sometimes called 79 degrees (because some just HAVE to be contrary)) or 45 degrees, the two most commonly offered cutters. But there's nothing special about those angles, you could use a standard drill bit if you wanted. They also offer brass bits with a round ball thats self centering, with some 400 grit lapping compound and you're there. Another technique is lapping compound and brass round head screw, chuck it in a drill or tap handle.

The critical part of the crown around the inside rim is not that deep or wide, whats important is that it be even, with no pits or nicks. Where the rifling meets the crown that are "cuts" in the crown but since they are evenly spaced, they cancel out.

Everything from there out is "make pretty", which has value in itself and no craftsman with any self esteem would leave it raw, and one that would, would probably vote for Liberals.


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## deadend (Aug 24, 2009)

Deercreek on Fairground st. has done several for me and they are always perfect.  A target crown is $35 and a cutdown is only a little more.


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## germag (Aug 24, 2009)

NOYDB said:


> Germag,
> 
> Cutting the barrel is not that critical, it can be done with any metal cutting tool including a hack saw (if you have that much energy). The outside rim can be left bare or shaped, pretty much any way you want. The recessed crown style with a shaped rim is easiest done with a lathe. The 90 degree face can be done with a lathe or a hand held piloted cutter either chucked in a drill or just by hand. But if your original cut was close to 90, you can get away with out facing it any further (ugly and the sign of a personal  character defect, but it can be left that way). The inside rim is the part that affects bullet flight. It can be done with a piloted cutter like I use, 11 degrees (also sometimes called 79 degrees (because some just HAVE to be contrary)) or 45 degrees, the two most commonly offered cutters. But there's nothing special about those angles, you could use a standard drill bit if you wanted. They also offer brass bits with a round ball thats self centering, with some 400 grit lapping compound and you're there. Another technique is lapping compound and brass round head screw, chuck it in a drill or tap handle.
> 
> ...



Yeah, what I found out through unhappy experience is that it's the actual cutting of the barrel that's critical, not so much the crown. If you have a good, square cut to begin with, you're in good shape...using a piloted crown cutter you can do a great job, at least on a standard 11 degree crown. I'm not really sure how you would manage to cut a recessed target crown like that, but I suppose it's possible,

If you don't get that barrel cut nice and square, then there's no way possible that you're going to get a straight crown on the barrel...you may get it even and uniform around the crown, but it's not on the same axis as the bore....if you drew a straight line along the axis of the bore and another one exactly perpendicular to the crown, they would diverge. Asmall amount of divergence doesn't mean that much at 25, 50, 75, 100 yards....but it starts to get bigger at 400 yards and 500 yards and more. Most people will NEVER shoot at 500 yards, so you're right...in most cases it's probably not critical. But the plane of line of sight through the scope (aligned with the bore) and the plane the bullet path is on are divergent.

The problem with what that jackleg did to my rifle to begin with was that he DID cut the danged thing off with a hacksaw or a cutoff wheel or something like that, I guess because he didn't have the right kind of lathe to be able to chuck it up and cut it straight....then he tried to face it with a file. He failed miserably. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't care if he cut it off with a fingernail file as long as he got it reasonably (within tolerance) straight. It was probably at least 2 degrees or more off perpendicular to the axis of the bore....you could actually see it with your eyes. If it's that much off, it's definitely going to affect the bullet's exit. I can attest to that. The rifle was shooting 1 1/2" or so at 100 yards before I took it to him....when he got through with it it wouldn't shoot less than 3 1/2 inches. There was just no way it could shoot...the muzzle end was crooked and there was no crown at all....just rough file marks. It was unbelieveable.....I'm still steaming about it. He held himself out as a qualified gunsmith. I could have done what he did myself with the hand tools I have in my garage. I hired him because I wanted someone that could do it _better_ than I could.

I guess if you get down to brass tacks, the fact that the barrel isn't chopped off perfectly square really doesn't mean that much if the rifle will produce sufficiently small groups....it's a fact that the bullet will cant and leave the barrel in some amount divergent from the axis of the bore if the crown isn't square...depending upon how much out of square and which side the pressure is reduced on. As long as it always leaves the barrel the same way, it should produce small groups...just maybe over there instead of over here. You can always zero the scope to wherever it's throwing the group. If the crown is rough or if the barrel is not crowned at all, then all bets are off. The group opens up and you can't tighten it up...I didn't expect him to gain me any appreciable or noticeable accuracy just with the work I had him doing, other than what you would expect from better controlled recoil and muzzle jump resultant from the muzzle brake...I expected to gain the accuracy from the work that I did afterwards...bedding it into a laminate stock, free-floating the barrel, and working up a good handload for it. But I sure didn't expect him to _lose_ more than two minutes of accuracy for me.

Maybe it's just a quirk on my part. I paid the guy for precision and got anything but. I paid him specifically to get everything on the same axis...lap the bolt face and the locking lugs...make everything line up right. I'm picky like that, but when I pay someone good money to do a job for me, I think I have a right to be a little picky. I'm the guy when handloading that you see with a pair of tweezers taking out one little particle of gunpowder to get the weights _exactly_ right and _exactly_ uniform....I'm the guy that weighs the brass and bullets and groups them in groups that are within 1/10 of a grain of the same weight....I'm sort of anal about this stuff. Can't help it. It serves no practical purpose, I know...it's just the way I do it. But...when I get a rifle shooting and find the right load for it, the danged thing will _shoot_. If I can't get it consistently _under_ 1 MOA, it's gone and I'm starting over on something else. I'm shooting for the .5 MOA rifle.

My thoughts are that I should be able to take a new rifle align the rings (as we discussed in a previous thread), mount the new scope and I should be within just a few inches at 50 yards without adjusting anything....a bore sighter should really theoretically be unecessary. The scope comes new from the factory with the reticle exactly dead center. If everything is aligned correctly on the rifle...the mounts are in alignment with the bore, and the rings are aligned properly with each other, then that should be the case...and, in fact, it's usually pretty close _if_ everything is right.


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## THE1WINSTON (Aug 24, 2009)

bob's custom firearms i n palmetto ga    he just did two of my savage ss  one to 18.5 and the other to 19  $140 for both


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## NOYDB (Aug 25, 2009)

Germag, 

Any process has steps that are critical, dependent on subsequent steps. Cutting the barrel is only critical if the following cuts aren't taken. A piloted facing cutter trues up the cut to 90 degrees, reguardless of the angle of the original cut. The cutter pilot is aligning off the bore. Same for 11 degree cutter, it's piloted off the bore. 

I found some pics http://riflestocks.tripod.com/targetcrown.html

Just me but I like a modified versino of the 11 cut. I face off the muzzle then cut about 2/3 out at 11. No effect on performance, but I just think it looks better.

There's two schools of thought about the actual inside edge of the muzzle. Some like to have it as sharp as possible because they can see better if erosion or damage occurs. Other like to finish it at about 60 degrees (about what you get with the brass/lapping method) which they feel prevents erosion in the first place. 

I figure either way, depending on what tools you want to spend money on, but you should inspect and touch up as needed. 

Of course most will not need to do any of this and will go their whole lives with factory crowns and kill just as many deer. Us A/R types are the ones who lay awake nights worrying about if our muzzle crowns are "perfect".


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## Bruz (Aug 25, 2009)

RKW,

Call and speak to Mike at Top Gun in Buford. He does good work at a reasonable price and you and he would get along great. He restores a lot of older firearms.

Robert


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## germag (Aug 25, 2009)

NOYDB said:


> Germag,
> 
> Any process has steps that are critical, dependent on subsequent steps. Cutting the barrel is only critical if the following cuts aren't taken. A piloted facing cutter trues up the cut to 90 degrees, reguardless of the angle of the original cut. The cutter pilot is aligning off the bore. Same for 11 degree cutter, it's piloted off the bore.
> 
> ...



You're right...the pilot would serve to true you up to the bore if it can remove enough material to compensate for the error in the cut. I guess if you can end up with a uniform crown around the circumference of the crown, you're OK. 

I've never used one of the crown cutters before. I've always taken my guns to a gunsmith when I needed work done on the crown....I'll work on my own triggers, I'll bed my own stocks, all that sort of stuff, but I haven't ever tried doing any of my own machine work at all. Is there any possibility of that pilot damaging the rifling in the end of the barrel? Is it on bushings or does the whole pilot turn inside the barrel as you cut?

Disregard that last question...I went to the site you linked and saw that it's a brass pilot...that wouldn't damage the rifling. Now that I see the process, I understand a little better why you say the actual initial cut isn't that critical. You are actually facing the muzzle off square as you cut the crown....as long as the end result is a crown that is aligned with the bore and allows a uniform release of pressure at bullet exit, it's all good.....


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## rkwrichard (Aug 25, 2009)

Robert,

That gun I bought from you sure shoots good. Below is a 10 shot group with the Boomer. It has also taken several heads of game. 

By the way did you ever make it up to hunt the tundra?


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## jglenn (Aug 25, 2009)

I'm with NOYDB


I use a 11 degree cutter form Brownells after squaring the face with a 90 degree. we leave a bit of the face at ninety just for looks.

we finish with a brass ball of appropreate size and 320 grit lapping compound.


I highly recommend the Brownells' kit. they even make a Rem 700 receiver facing tool that uses the same style pilots and handle.

I've done several with the kit and all shoot just as  well if not better than new.

BTW you can also do a recessed cut simply by having a smaller dia. 90 cutter


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## SnowHunter (Aug 25, 2009)

If you can get to Toccoa (just a bit of a drive for ya  ) GunnDoc can do one for ya. He's done several for me (11deg target crowns), while I sat and watched, and all have come out perfect! Plus you can see his competition sweet shotgun


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## rkwrichard (Aug 25, 2009)

Sounds like a bunch of options out there for those of us that like something a little out of the ordinary. Good thread and I hope others will get as much use out of it as I have. 

Richard


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## ScottD (Aug 25, 2009)

11 degree crowns kinda went out of style in the 90's.  I think now everybody goes with a straight 90 degree.  Pretty hard to screw up a straight crown.

If you want to see how it is done - check here

http://benchrest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59097&highlight=crown

This is Jackie Schmidt from Texas.  He knows how to do barrels.


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## SCPO (Aug 25, 2009)

Roger ferrell in fayetteville, ga. 770-460-0533.


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## NOYDB (Aug 25, 2009)

I guess some wouldn't want to be un-fashionable.


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## germag (Aug 25, 2009)

NOYDB said:


> I guess some wouldn't want to be un-fashionable.



I'm out of fashion, I guess.....I never knew it changed.


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## germag (Aug 25, 2009)

ScottD said:


> 11 degree crowns kinda went out of style in the 90's.  I think now everybody goes with a straight 90 degree.  Pretty hard to screw up a straight crown.
> 
> If you want to see how it is done - check here
> 
> ...



Cool pictorial. Thanks.

Hey, Scott...you don't know anybody that's looking for a Harrell's Precision powder measure, do you? I have one I really don't need.....I just can't seem to get the hang of it.


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## ScottD (Aug 25, 2009)

Sorry no offense meant by the 11 degree crown thing - 

I actually have a spencer barrel and a Savage BvSS with 11 degree crowns.

Germag - which harrells do you have?- i might be interested.


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## NOYDB (Aug 25, 2009)

No offense taken, I'm just a smar... wiseacre.

BL, anything can be done with the right tools and tooluser. That doesn't mean some things *should* be done.


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## germag (Aug 25, 2009)

ScottD said:


> Sorry no offense meant by the 11 degree crown thing -
> 
> I actually have a spencer barrel and a Savage BvSS with 11 degree crowns.
> 
> Germag - which harrells do you have?- i might be interested.



It's the Custom 90 Culver. I had someone else PM me just now too.... I've had it listed in S&S for a week...go figure.


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## ScottD (Aug 25, 2009)

Thanks - but i have a Custom 90 now.  Great powder measure!

I have been eying one of the BR Premiums






can't have too many toys.


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## pemop (Aug 26, 2009)

jglenn said:


> I'm with NOYDB
> 
> 
> I use a 11 degree cutter form Brownells after squaring the face with a 90 degree. we leave a bit of the face at ninety just for looks.
> ...



+1 on the brownells kit works wonders.


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## deadend (Aug 26, 2009)

rkwrichard said:


> I am near Marietta but I am willing to travel.



No need to spend as much on gas as you would on a crown job when there are plenty of places in Marietta that do great work.


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## Scott 40s&w (Oct 8, 2009)

I use Fullers Custom Custom Guns in Woodbury
he will get you a .5Moa gun with the accuracy package.
I have a 308 match gun that will shoot .25moa that he built on a 700 action call them at 706-553-2352
You can shoot the gun when you pick it up to verify the accuracy.
I would not use Bob Sims for any work


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## Clarke123 (Oct 10, 2009)

*A Link on the Subject*

Give this a look:


http://drop.io/unclenick

Interesting information of a scientific nature and appears to be based on a lot of experience ... Your Thoughts?


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