birdiemc
Well-Known Member
The question of whether or not a regular guy can chamber a rifle at home comes up a lot. Depending on the day, the particular forum, the mood of those responding, the answers range from "you're gonna cause the world to crash into the sun if you try" to "attaboy, good on you for trying to build something with your own 2 hands."
I started asking the question several years ago and got more of the former responses than the latter, but over time learned enough to decide to give it a go.
I wish I saved my receipts so I could share with the next guy how much I've spent on tooling and equipment. I spent 3 years getting familiar with my lathe, very little experience before purchasing one, and finally this year I set a goal that by the end of the year I would cut my first chamber and build my first rifle.
It's almost the end of the year and it's still not done. I spent the past week chasing my tail. The first time I chucked up that barrel through the headstock and got it dialed in just perfect I took my first cut and now all the sudden i have .006 taper across the length of the shank...no good. It didnt occur to me, but I had some dirt work done around my shop recently and it seems moving dirt right outside the wall that my lathe sits against caused things to settle just enough to throw my bed out of whack. So finally today I got out there and re-leveled my bed and got the taper down to .0003 over 6" which I can accept. So now the barrel is dialed in and just sitting there waiting.
I'll get it done. And hopefully it will be a shooter, but even if it's no better than the model 700 tomato stake that sent me down this path in the first place it will be worth it to me. And I'll keep at it because I enjoy it. Sure I could have bought 3 custom rifles for what I've spent so far, but that's not the point. If it all works out then I will have the satisfaction of having built a rifle myself.
So if you're sitting there thinking you might want to go down this path yourself I'll tell you it's a lot of research, countless hours of practice, and its freaking expensive. You aren't going to save any money. And you aren't going to magically be good enough that people flock to you and want to pay you thousands of dollars to build them one. That's best left to the guys with experience, and insurance, you know, real gunsmiths. But if you like getting your hands dirty and do it yourself and you're willing to throw away your hard earned money on equipment and tooling that you currently don't even know exists then knock yourself out.
I started asking the question several years ago and got more of the former responses than the latter, but over time learned enough to decide to give it a go.
I wish I saved my receipts so I could share with the next guy how much I've spent on tooling and equipment. I spent 3 years getting familiar with my lathe, very little experience before purchasing one, and finally this year I set a goal that by the end of the year I would cut my first chamber and build my first rifle.
It's almost the end of the year and it's still not done. I spent the past week chasing my tail. The first time I chucked up that barrel through the headstock and got it dialed in just perfect I took my first cut and now all the sudden i have .006 taper across the length of the shank...no good. It didnt occur to me, but I had some dirt work done around my shop recently and it seems moving dirt right outside the wall that my lathe sits against caused things to settle just enough to throw my bed out of whack. So finally today I got out there and re-leveled my bed and got the taper down to .0003 over 6" which I can accept. So now the barrel is dialed in and just sitting there waiting.
I'll get it done. And hopefully it will be a shooter, but even if it's no better than the model 700 tomato stake that sent me down this path in the first place it will be worth it to me. And I'll keep at it because I enjoy it. Sure I could have bought 3 custom rifles for what I've spent so far, but that's not the point. If it all works out then I will have the satisfaction of having built a rifle myself.
So if you're sitting there thinking you might want to go down this path yourself I'll tell you it's a lot of research, countless hours of practice, and its freaking expensive. You aren't going to save any money. And you aren't going to magically be good enough that people flock to you and want to pay you thousands of dollars to build them one. That's best left to the guys with experience, and insurance, you know, real gunsmiths. But if you like getting your hands dirty and do it yourself and you're willing to throw away your hard earned money on equipment and tooling that you currently don't even know exists then knock yourself out.
