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Mass-produced rifles are so readily available these days that few bother to think about how rifle barrels are made. However, for a variety of reasons, many of us choose to learn the secrets of the riflesmith in order to fabricate our own custom rifle barrels. My own desire to learn how to drill, ream and rifle a barrel from a solid bar of steel came from my quest to find a truly accurate large-bore muzzleloader. After years of frustrating searching, I finally realized that, if I really wanted such a rifle, I was going to have to build it myself from scratch. That decision was the beginning of a journey that spanned years before reaching the destination. The journey still isn't over and likely never will be; there is always something new to learn and another new gunsmithing technique to try. But I have traveled far enough along the road to acquire a sound, working knowledge of the landscape. Now, in an effort to serve as a guide for like-minded machinists, I have compiled my experience into a comprehensive body of work on the subject of fabricating rifle barrels.

The topics covered include:

• The methods available to create rifle barrels with modern machine tools
• The four most common methods, both old and new, to rotate a rifling cutter box during the cut-rifling operation
• Designing and fabricating a machine capable of drilling, reaming and rifling a solid bar of steel
• Designing and fabricating the cutting tools necessary to carry out the required machining operations
• A full discussion of the steel alloys that are commonly used to make rifle barrels
• Proof-firing practices and procedures for both centerfire and muzzleloading rifles

Never before has all of the information needed to fabricate rifle barrels from solid bars of steel been presented in one volume of work. Until now, it took years of gathering data from several different sources to learn everything that is required to successfully fabricate rifle barrels. This book was written in an effort to condense and compile all of the machining know-how of the barrel maker into a single, comprehensive reference. Everything that the home shop machinist needs to know to start making his own custom rifle barrels is right here in the pages of Steel Helix.

Code No. 016681, 190 pages, ISBN 9780615862828, $130.00

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