Is it possible to turn down a heavy barrel to a govt profile? maybe .650? or it done before rifling? I have a friend who has a shop. but isn’t too familiar with firearms. he said he can do turning down. but is afraid that it might “warp”? or disturb the rifling? or barrel straightness or something like that? or stress relief??
anybody have experience on this?
ADCO used to preform this service awhile back, perhaps they still do.
If I recall correctly, it wasn’t a true government profile, but it did simulate the feel and weight of such a barrel. I seem to remember an unhappy camper complaining that the barrel didn’t look like a true government profile.
looks doesn’t matter much to me. it’s under the handguard anyway.
I was hoping to do a 12.5in. but 12.5in barrels from novesque are HBAR.
Im not from the U.S. so I was hoping to do it in my place… so is it that hard to turn it down? same as turning down a piece of bar? Id hate myself if I ruin the barrel…
Yes it can be done as the barrel is being built or after, obviously after you’ll need to refinish. One of my 3gun sponsors Drew of W.A.R. rifles/aka Walts Auto helped me turning my White Oak 18" SPR barrel to .650" under the rail. He does great work and can shorten and thread barrels too.
He did the precision threading on this Butler Creek 10/22 barrel too, he shortened it from 20" to 18".
gotm4
so basically anybody with Lathe machining skills can get the diameter down to .650 of an inch. right? basically that answers my q.
another noobish follow up q.
can we go below .650? say… 0.600 of an inch? the old m16a1 were 0.600 of an inch right? or is there some safety issues?
I always thought there was some issue with over-turning a stainless barrel and that stainless barrels shouldn’t be turned down to diameters as small as chomoly barrels.
FWIW, a Colt “pencil” chromoly barrel is .625", and that’s as skinny as I’d personally go regardless of material.
Some barrel profiles from http://ar15barrels.com/
Featherweight
This barrel profile is only available in 17 Remington, 223 Remington,
22 PPC and 6 PPC due to barrel wall thickness safety restrictions.
This barrel can be made to any length from 16.5" to 20".
Lightweight
This barrel profile is not available in 357 Rimless Max, 357 PPC,
40PPC or .416x39 due to barrel wall thickness safety restrictions.
This barrel can be made to any length from 16.5" to 22".
Government Type Barrels
These profiles are shown mostly for comparison purposes.
Gov’t barrels usually have a long taper from 0.675" to 0.625" under the handguards.
About .610" is the lightest. Randall (www.ar15barrels.com) used the make a featherweight barrel at .610" with a gas block seat of .625". I wouldn’t go that light unless it were a 10.5-11.5" barrel.
so to be on the safe side, 0.650 of an inch should be it. specially if im using mil NATO 5.56mm ammo. Is this right?
.650" is plenty safe, I have a few barrels at .625" with no problems. JP takes some barrels down to .500" under the handguards. Too thin for me.
For a friend of mine I had Drew (W.A.R. rifles) turn his DPMS stainless 20" bull barrel to .650" and install a huge JP Bennie Cooley brake and he has no problems. That rifle recoils flat like a .22LR.
Easily done. KKF did mine. ADCO did a near-gov profile on the gun of a buddy, and was nice work.
I would stick with a smith or machinist that was experienced with this particular work.
alright 650 it is . thanks for all the replies.
that barrel looks good
For a friend of mine I had Drew (W.A.R. rifles) turn his DPMS stainless 20" bull barrel to .650" and install a huge JP Bennie Cooley brake and he has no problems. That rifle recoils flat like a .22LR.
Is that something he just did as a favor for you, or does he accept this sort of work in general? I’m still thinking of getting a RRA barrel lightened under the handguards one of these days, and having the integral brake on my DSA FAL chopped off and the barrel threaded. It would be nice to have someone close enough to not have to ship to.
He’s open for business. He doesn’t do FAL work at least not yet. M4C member Gunfixr does FAL work and does it well, he’s located down near Richmond VA.
I had ADCO turn down my 16.1" Operator barrel to gov under the guards, the reparked the whole barrel which was very nice!
xxxxx
0.700 would be a nice compromise too… or maybe a 0.675?
If you are using GI style barrels, the appropriate action to take is a barrel swap.
Barrel reprofiling should only be done on custom barrels.
when do you say GI style barrel?
I was planning to doing it on an HBAR
Awesome, thanks for the info.
If you have a regular FSB and parked barrel, then I would do a barrel swap.
Reprofiling should be done only for the custom stainless barrels posted above.