m134b

What you ask isn't rocket science, but it's not exactly EASY either.... "best" would be to pull the barrel and re-index after the job is done... Otherwise, it's a funky mandrel, or a 4 jaw chuck, either one takes some decent talent, and a really good amount of time. I've done, and used both setups for various things. Expect to pay at LEAST $120 to get the job done properly. And, IMO, that's far from overpriced given the time involved. Ken

Crush washers were designed for "mass production" rifles.... Torque the ever livin' SNOT out of it til' it lines up.... Used quite a few of'em...... but, they won't hold concentricity worth anything, and are a cruel joke upon those that try to use them for precision rifles. Get a couple of peel washers, or some ground shims, like KAC uses, and make life easy Speaking of which, I need to go see if I still have some of those things.... may need to order more myself! Ken

A 1.500" radius worked like a champ, it's not PERFECT, but you can't see daylight between receiver/rail Hope to get around to takin' pics this week sometime... Ken

Thank all of you for your support! Those that voted and posted, or just went and voted. The final announcement was made just a little while ago, and SHE WON! We couldn't have done it without your help. She has been working extremely hard to get into shape, and this just gave her a huge boost! We're trying to figure out all the comments on her blog, so if you entered the giveaway, we'll have that done tomorrow at some point. Thank you again, from both of us! Sincerely, Ken & Jess BPI

It's EXTREMELY close right now! Voting lasts until tomorrow evening, so if you've not voted today, PLEASE do! My wife and I can't thank you guys enough for your support in this! Thank you! Ken & Jess BPI

The curve on the top is what I'm after. It's not a complete radius, but one could get close by measuring the width, and then measuring the height from centerline to the edge of receiver. A "close" measurement will get me where I need to go. Probably just need to take about 10 measurements from a baseline to get the true dimension.... unfortunately it'll be Monday til' I can get my hands on one of mine! Ken

Does anyone have a receiver they could check for me, or know offhand the radius of the top of the Ruger 10-22 receiver? Thanks in advance! Ken BPI

My wife and I can't thank you guys enough! The top 3 spots were within 50 votes of each other as of earlier today, so if you haven't voted today, PLEASE do! Don't forget to comment on her blog to be entered to win one of the items! Thank you again! Sincerely, Ken & Jess BPI

You can tighten and loosen the thing a few times to get it to "line up". While others are correct that you can grind the offending tooth off without detrimental effect, it's still best to do things right. Apply either silver anti-sieze, or high temp bearing grease, and torque the thing til' it ALMOST lines up, back off, repeat, then tighten to where it needs to be. Little more work, but no grinding slivers and dust, looks better, and allows you to reuse the nut if you ever decide to swap barrels! Ken

I had a loose Federal .22lr cook off in the console of my truck..... Nothing in there for it to bang against that'd set it off, but that it did. scared the livin' daylights out of me! Who knows how long it'd been in there, at least a year, and extreme temperature fluctuation HAD to have played a factor. Fortunately, other than a underwear inspection, no harm was done. Ken

My wife is in an online weight loss competition at My link . If she is voted into the top 2, she'll get a LOT of assistance with reaching her goal! To further this end, we're putting up a few prizes (choice of one) A Wii system, Amazon Kindle, OR an Ipod 16GB Nano. Once on mamavation.com, vote for all_about_savin , THEN go to her blog link . You can vote from every computer/phone/etc you have once each day for the week this is going on. Be SURE to comment on her blog each day you vote, and how many times you voted. An entry for the stuff for every time you vote! This is really important to her, and we REALLY appreciate your help. The stuff we're giving away is coming out of our own $, noone is sponsoring the giveaway, so please be honest. If she doesn't make the top 2 those prizes won't be available, but there will be a couple consolation prizes given out to random people who voted. Thank you all again! (mods, if you feel this isn't the right place, or inappropriate, move or delete at will) Sincerely, Ken BPI

Of electric fences... Like many of us, I'm very fortunate to have survived to reach adulthood (a hotly contested topic in and of itself). Rewind to the summer between freshman/sophmore year of high school. My best friend and I decided to camp out on my farm, needless to say, We brought everything we needed, except a source of fire, food, and common sense. I shouldn't say that... on leaving the campsite to retrieve the fire and food, we left the latter in the tent.... Me being the scrawny, muscular type, decide to take a shortcut over one of the many electric fences that criss cross the property. This happened to be a corner, with wooden posts, which I brace on, and bound over with ease. Chris, on the other hand, is 6'5" 240~ and about as graceful as a B-52 flying into a gardenhose..... attempts to do the same thing, of course, he gets one leg over the top wire and the horizontal post his OTHER leg is on snaps.... He is left with one leg on the ground, the other supported about mid thigh by one VERY pissed off electrified barb wire fence! Being the true friend I am, I try my best to extricate him from this predicament, all the while laughing so hard I can't see straight. Every stick I pick up to push down on the wire breaks, only releasing tension for a brief instant only to snap the wire back into his leg. I finally grab hold of a stick that doesn't break, and after about 2 minutes of jumping on one leg and screaming like a chimp on crack my friend finally has both feet back on solid ground. He laughs about it now..... but he CERTAINLY didn't find it very funny at the time! Man those were fun times..... miraculous that we survived... but fun! Ken

You can usually see even a slight bulge by looking at a bright light through the bore. It won't "look" right..... Sometimes you can feel it when cleaning with a really tight patch being pulled through, there you'll feel a slight change in resistance at the bulge. A lead slug can definately tell you if you're careful. There are other options, but I've no experience with them, like the Hawkeye borescope, air gage, etc. both are NOT cheap, the above will usually tell you though Ken

Yeah... Just spitballing, but that's a solid $170,000 right there........... That's more than what I've got in my whole shop! Building an' all! Ken

It's pretty hard to make an AR NOT shoot... Exceptionally rare are the lemon barrels. After that, the barrel nut can be torqued TOO much, or not enough... Check for a bulged bore, that'll send projectiles into the next time zone. Also, pull your brake and check the pattern escaping gasses have left, if it's not even your crown is bad. You've checked your optics and mount, so that rules all those variables out. I'd be VERY suprised if it's not one of the above! Ken

Figured it out.... I just had to be smarter than the problem. Rather than trying to mill the flat that far down with half the stinkin' thing umsupported, I'll simply pre-drill the hole, ream to proper diameters, and finish the VIS with a reamer modified to center cut. The rest I can finish conventionally and with files. Ken

You an' me both! I'd only be concerned about tool rigidity, but there again, it IS Mazak..... I don't have a great deal of experience with their machines but have heard excellent things about their accuracy and longevity. Ken

It can use everything a standard lathe can. although, I'd not advise high speed tooling, other than drills. fleabay has tooling uber cheap, where I got a LOT of my stuff Ken

Thank you Russ Makes me humbled to not have known that Ken

I may wind up going with a ramped barrel. The only end mills I can find that are long enough to reach this area are more expensive than the barrel itself! Ken

I've likely used incorrect terminology.. As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words" The area I'm talkin' about is in yellow Ken

Anyone have any ideas for this? Trying to reach 6" vertically into that tiny area inside the dust cover has me somewhat stumped.... I'm trying to make a single stack frame with a full length dust cover for a 6" upper. This is the last obstacle to stand in my way!! I KNOW it "can" be done, I'm just not finding a practical way of doin' it! Ken

If it's a boosted can, pull it apart and clean the ever livin' snot out of the booster assembly. Check and make SURE it moves freely, without any binding or excess drag. Also make sure there isn't any wobble between the booster body and the piston that threads to the muzzle. That can cause binding, not to mention baffle strikes and other such ugly happenings. If it's a non boosted can, make sure of its weight. IIRC, you can't expect anything over 10 oz to cycle on a 1911 without a booster. It MAY be less than that, I'll do some digging for the actual numbers. Ken

I'm using stainless steel media to tumble my brass now. http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1153883#Post1153883 http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1513345#Post1513345 I got one of the BIG Lortone tumblers though.... LOL 40# capacity, have 15# media and about 10# of brass, that with some dish soap and a dab of Lemishine makes the brass look like brand spankin' new. It takes about 4 hours for even the nastiest of brass. Ken

If you're wanting stupid easy, check out the Haas TL-1. conversational programming, full CNC capable, at a "reasonable" price. If you're making runs of parts <150 at a time it's the best thing going. http://haascnc.com/details.asp?ID=TL-1&webid=LATHE_TL#CNCLatheTreeModel Base price is just over $22K, but worth it if you're wanting CNC without build it yerself hassles. I've used just about every machine they make, and can honestly say they've got the easiest learning curve of any I've ever used. Ken