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Making rifle barrels - how to book
This little booklet shows you how rifle barrels were made almost a century ago using relatively simply machines. Included in this booklet are selected articles from early issues of Machinery Magazine revealing early manufacturing methods.
More than 90 different operations went into manufacturing barrels for the British Lee-Enfield rifle during WW1. The first third of this booklet show how the Brits did it: the machines, techniques, and tricks necessary to drill a long, deep, perfectly straight hole into very hard steel. It is heavily illustrated with photos and drawings revealing the drills, reamers, laps, relieving cutters, thread millers, and a multitude of other tools used.
Then it is "Drilling, Reaming and Straightening Rifle Barrels" as it was done in another factory. Again, it is wall-to-wall illustrations of barrel drilling machines, jigs, reamers, and so on, all the way to polishing the barrel.
Finally, you get two short illustrated articles "Machining Rifling Bars on the Bench Lathe" and "Drilling a Long Blind Hole".
