Not to throw water on a project, but milling with a drill press just won't work unless the drill press has some kind of screw in chuck. The side pressure and vibration of milling will cause the drill chuck to come out of the normal socket type way of holding a chuck. Milling machines use several different types of tapers...R8, Jacobs, Morse, NMTB, Cat, BT, etc that use a long threaded rod screwed into the top of the tapered socket or other ways of locking the endmill in place against side pressure and vibration. Look into it before you try it. I know...I tried to do the same thing many years ago...I wasted a drill press except for parts use, trying to make a drill press into a mill.
The best way is go with a Mill/Drill and R8 spindle and as big as you can afford. Harbor Freight has several table top styles but looking around the net and getting on one of the many mill/drill forums will get you where you want to go.
Practical Machinist,
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi, is a very good place to go to start with.
Yeah...breaking the shank totally blew my mind, but I think it was already cracked already. The break look like it was held together by a very small area and was so hard I couldn't scratch it with a file. Probably a defect in the bar used in the cutting and grinding process...or could have been bad heat treatment...doesn't take much to make a piece of high carbon steel very hard and very brittle. I've broken endmills getting hamfisted with the feed or too high a speed or the piece shifted or slipped...in steel...but never in aluminum...material that soft WON'T break a 1/2" shank unless something strange is going on.
Good luck on your project...I've never worked with Al-bronze, just know it's used as wear plates and BIG ships propellers.
Got the 6mm barrel chambered to 6mm BR...had a few problems but the chamber came out great. Made up 4 pieces of 6mm BR brass to check out the chamber. I used a .242 neck reamer so had to turn the necks to 0.009" thick and order a .258 bushing. Very nice fit between the sizing die and the chamber...the sizer just barely sizes the base...hardly feel it. Loaded up the 4 with 87 gr Hornady and 28 gr Varget, 2.15" long and they just fell out of the chamber...I don't have a ejector for that sized case yet...on order...pressure was around 45Kpsi. I will slowly work up the pressures and go to Hornady 58 gr V-Max and Nosler 55 BT's. Don't expect to much velocity with a 16 3/4" finished barrel length...33-3500 f/s. If I decide to do another 6mm BR stub barrel I will go use a 6mm BR Lapua or Norma reamer and not have to futz around with neck turning, plus a 20-24" #3 taper barrel.
Next up is the 17 FB...only 12 rounds of 17 HMR left...which will be gone by Sunday...and the Ruger SS 223 rechamber. Won't get to those much before next month tho'.
'Njoy
