Cut and recrown a barrel?

[Csbishop]

If you have the right tools it is pretty easy to recrown a barrel right?

I was thinking about cutting down a couple of barrel's and it would cost alot less just to order the tools to do it then to send them to a gun smith.

This is what I was thinking cut the barrel with a hack saw square it with a  90 degree facing cutter and then recrown with a 11 degree crowning cutter.

The barrel after cut will be .950 at crown if I could get a crown cutter that is 1" around that would square it and recrown it right?

And where is the best place to buy these tool's I looked in my brownell's catalog and the biggest crown cutter they had was a 3/4".

Thank's
Cary

[Judson]

You do not need any fancy cutters!!!    It sounds like you have a lathe or one you can use.    Set your compound at the correct angle and cut the 11 degree cut then chamfer the outer edges of the barrel.

[Csbishop]

I dont have a lathe that I can use I would have to use hand tool's
Thank's for the reply

[gunnut69]

Brownells has 2 different sets of crowning tools..  I am too lazy to get the catalog but a call to their TechLine will get you the answer.  Heck they even have tooling now to cut square the front receiver ring on an action before rebarreling...  The tools they sell use pilots to align the cutter and I believe that's the best way to cut a square crown..  Done properly a hand cut crown is just fine.  A machine cut crown may be better but not enough to make a difference except perhaps on a very accurate bench gun and maybe not even then..  Good luck!

[KN]

Judson, One thing you didn't mention was that you need to indicate the bore for concentricity. I believe just chucking it up and recutting, and relying on the bore being concentric with the OD gets a lot of home gunsmiths in trouble. Accuracy speaking. I've seen plenty of barrels that don't run true with the bore.   KN

[Shorty]

You real smiths are going to dob your britches at how I do it at home!  
After squaring the muzzle with files and a combination square, I chuck a mounted cherry stone in my hand drill and, turning it slowly, hold it to the bore.  As the stone breaks down, I "walk" it around a little until I have a nice chamfer.  Reversing the drill takes off burrs. Then I add a piece of Emery to the face of the stone and repeat.  The outside radius is done with a file, by eye-ball, then finished with Emery on the pad of my thumb!  

[KN]

That was like fingernails down the chalk board! All kidding aside, It really doesn't matter how you do it as long as every thing comes out square to the bore. I never could understand where any one came up with the 11 degree crown. Like there is some thing magical about 11 degrees. Most of my crowns are square cut to the bore and I've never had one that wouldn't shoot because of the crown.  KN

[gunnut69]

KN is mostly right.  As long as the rifling terminus is square to the bore the rifle will shoot fine..  A crown is put on the barrel to protect that rifling terminus!!  The mornal radius crown simply recesses the terminus and protects it fron the bumps and dings of the world..  The 11 degree crown was supposedly developed to give the rebated boattails of Lapua 30 caliber target bullets a quicker recovery time after exiting the muzzle..  I believe it became a hit for several reasons.  It works, protects the rifling terminus just fine and it's easier to cut with a lathe than the double radius which requires a specially ground cutter...and it just plain looks cool!!  Just as an aside I've seen more than a few rifles whose accuracy had 'gone sour' that were turned around by a simple recrown..  Many target shooters recrown as the first response to a loss in accuracy of a barrel.  Crowns are needed but are not voodoo, just common sense..