Barrel fitting??

[huntnut]

You guys that have fitted your own barrels do you think its better/easyer to use the jb weld way or the shim way? I just got in my 270win barrel and started fitting it and it looks like the lug is a little out of round so the top of the lug needs shimed and the bottom needs ground out a little. So I was thinking about grinding the bottom and putting jb weld in because the top needs to be thicker thin the botom, that might be hard to do with shims. And yes I have looked in the faq page for fitting but it dosnt say any thing about the way mine is.

[quickdtoo]

I've only use the shim method using JB to keep the shim in place, just using JB stik alone might be ok, at least for a while. Fred's method only uses epoxy, although it's Devcon, not JB.

Tim

[McLernon]

I don't know how epoxy+aluminum powder would hold up for your problem but I suspect that if you increased the proportion beyond what I used to bed the barrel/lug to the frame(30%) it might hold-up. It is easy to work with too.

McLernon

[huntnut]

I ended up grinding more off the bottom of the lug so I could put the same thickness shim in from top to bottom. It was .008 thick of aluminum can, need to get a set of feeler gauges tommorow. I have just a little gap at the top of the barrel and frame, I can only she it if I hold it up to the light and she it, I cant pull a peice of .0015 paper out when I close the action so it must be ok.

[Fred M]

Tim
What I use is Devcon Steel Putty a very stiff matrix. The mix is 2.5 Steel and 1.0 hardner by volume. It has a 8500 psi compressive strength. The way to do it is on my web page. The trouble is the metal of the underlug under the putty that is given away after about 200-300 rounds

Aluminium is a poor metal for a shim, it will flatten out in no time. A stiff mix of tungsten powder and epoxy would be good material. I have a tube of J-B Stick Weld which supposed to have a 10000 psi compresive strength. I have not used it yet. Also the pot life is only 3 minutes, that is pretty short and every move has to be right on the dot.

I also do some fitting on the chamber end of the barrel to get a zero gap fit to start with. With the J-B stick weld that seams to be even more important.

My next fix will be a thin weld build up with the center groove welded shut and solid. I think the underlug front part can be heated cherry red and quenched in oil to harden the forward part of the underlug after all the fitting is done.