Re: What are the chances?

[DalesCarpentry]

What are the chances 1 out of 10 if I bought a barrel out of the classifides adds here that it would fit my receiver. I am a guy that can build you a house from the ground up just don't ack me to work on you car. I can take things apart just fine but when I put them back together I allways have left over parts that I figure were not needed in the first place. Is it really realistic that someone with my limited metal working abbilites that I could fit it myself. I only have one receiver and it has a prefix of NU which was made in 2004.

[rezz]

With my limited experience I'm not the best to answer your question but I'll throw in 2 cents anyway.

I bought an extra barrel and it fit up fine at the breech but didn't latch securely. All that was required to fix that issue was to take a whet stone and hone the latch shelf a little at a time to get the barrel to lock up tight. I compared my factory barrel's latch lever position with that of the second barrel and kept honing until the lever was about the same height. Fairly simple operation in my case and it would be difficult to hone too much if you check the latch engagement often and compare things to the factory barrel setup.

One thing I forgot to ask when I bought my barrel was if it had been modified by the owner to fit his receiver or if it was a straight factory fit job. In my case this ommision didn't hurt anything but it could have I suppose. Other more knowledgable people might be able to add more to this thought since I don't know if it would really make much difference unless the barrel had be hacked up pretty bad.

For the odds, it looks like I'm 1 for 1. This extra barrel seems to be shooting good and latches well. Except for the puzzling issue I had today with the hammer contact all seems well. You simply never know until you try.

[myarmor]

This is from my experiance and may be different from what other members have noticed.
But it seems to me the most results of buying a used barrel will be one of the following:

- Some will lock up and have side to side play.
These have potential for a lot of fusteration trying to get to shoot accurately. Especially if you are using a synthetic forearm. A shim behind the forearm spacer of a wood forearm can help fix this, but is usually only temporary. And accuracy will diminish over time.

- Some will lock up but will have slop between the hinge pin area and barrel lug.
This pretty much means that either you or the person before has taken off too much metal from the end of the lug were it meets the hinge pin. In this case you will most likely need to make a metal shim. More info on that in the FAQ's.

-Some will fit up, but will not lock up all the way.
These are among the easiest to fix IMO. As they will usually only require you to file off just a tad off the end of the barrel lug area where it meets up to the hinge pin. A round file will be what you need.
When you go to lock it up, hold you rifle side ways and look at were the chamber area of the barrel meets the receiver and hold it up to the light. You will most likely see light at the top half of the barrel, but the bottom will be touching the receiver.  Meaning you need to take off ever so lightly, a bit of metal off the lug.  Be careful as to not taking off too much, an go slow.

- Some will lock right up without a problem.
Enough said

Over all chances I have had are pretty good. And usually will need only slight mods as I mentioned above.
Give it a try. You can always sale or trade off the barrel here to other members.


-Aaron

[stimpylu32]

I have gotten 5 used barrels form diffrent places and all but one locked up just fine on all 3 of my 04 frames , so for me it is 8 on the scale of 10 .

I also have 1 - 01 and 2 - 02 frames that only 1 would work on , these were gotten as complete rifles and i keep them this way because they just shoot to well to mess with .

The one that i got that did not fit the 04 frames only took a little filing at the pivot point and a slight stoning on the latch to work on the 04 frames . this is what i have had to deal with , your millage may very .

stimpy