Cutting a crown?

My 7 year old son has a Handi Rifle in .357 magnum and I want to cut the barrel down to 16-1/2” to make it easier for him to handle. My smith wants around $100 to cut and crown it so I decided to hold off. If I knew what to order I would do it myself, any experts on cutting one by hand?

J.B.

Who is the GS?
Mr Billy usually charges $60 to thread a barrel, ill find out how much it cost to cut down my 308 barrel and thread it.

It's Mr. Billy, I thought he wanted around $100, I might could handle $60 without feeling too sick.

J.B.

Mr billy cut down mine and recrowned it for 60

You dont want to cut one by hand. The bedding chambering and crown are very important. 100 may be alittle high but not too bad.

I talked my self out of taking it to the Doc and did it redneck style! LOL Looks good and shoots just as good as it did before I cut it and I can put that money toward something else like a trigger job on a 1911.

J.B.

How did you cut the barrel, with a hacksaw, sawzall or pipe cutter? What did you use to finish the job, a dremel, what kind of attachments? How'd you blue the exposed steel and what kind of blueing. I cut down a 12 but of course that was 10 times easier.

Hacksawed it off then took a file to it then some fine sandpaper, I used Casey's (I think it is) blueing. Not too bad for a redneck job! LOL

J.B.

There is alot of info on the net about how to crown them. I redone a Negant for my sister and found some info on using a brass screw head and it worked fine looked good and shot great. If it were a high dollar rifle I would have took it to a pro.

I saw Larry Potterfield use a round screw head and a portable drill. I tried it on an older 22 rifle and it worked pretty good for making or touching up a crown.

Can you describe the screw head trick?

I assume that you chuck it in a drill.

What do you use fine sandpaper? Steel wool?

I used fine sandpaper to polish up the cut and some type of reamer/angle cut bit that fits into a drill that my buddy had. After coldbluing it I ended up Duracoating it.

J.B.

valve grinding compound is what Larry used.

On the screwhead trick, you chuck the threaded part of the screw into the drill. With the gun in a cleaning cradle, you apply pressure with the head of the screw centered at a straight line to the muzzle end of the barrell. It is easy to do on a old 22 rifle. I use a file to do most of my metal shaping on my guns. Ocassionally I will use a dremell tool on some things. A fine file followed by 400 sandpaper or 3/0 steel wool should smooth it up. Then I would take a Q-tip dipped in Brownells Oxpho Blue, followed by a thin coat of oil. Most people can,t tell that you did it if you don,t tell them.

Neat. Thanks for the explanation.

I have a Ruger MK II with a strange scratch on the end of the muzzle. Not sure how it happened, but I have toyed with he idea of buffing it out.

I did one like this until I bought a crowning tool.

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