Commenter billo asks how we can rifle our own, homemade barrels. Ok:
Categories: Arts and Crafts
Arts and Crafts
Ghost Guns
The left has its panties in a wad because they have just realized that people can make full-auto firearms in their own home for a comparatively small amount of money. That’s always been the case. Read more…
7 Comments
Slow Joe Crow · November 8, 2025 at 5:39 pm
I’ve also seen a tutorial on DIY button rifling and you can electrochemically machine rifling. Hobbyists have done this with 3D printed mandrel and S&W has used electrochemical rifling for revolvers since the 90s.
Joe Blow · November 10, 2025 at 3:18 pm
Ditto. Stock steel tubing, one OD slightly smaller than the other’s ID. Measure, wrap, twist copper wire of the correct twist-rate, drip water, apply battery.
billo · November 8, 2025 at 6:42 pm
Thanks! That’s at a level I can handle.
Craig · November 9, 2025 at 7:22 am
Reminds me of an old movie from junior high metal shop(78 or 79): The Gunsmith of Old Williamsburg.
TRX · November 8, 2025 at 10:28 pm
A smoothbore barrel has acceptable-for-combat accuracy out to 50 yards or so, but your chances of hitting something deer-sized at 100 yards aren’t good.
A few Yankee states have separate smoothbore hunting seasons, with regulations obviously written for shotguns and muskets, but there are smiths who have a profitable sideline reaming the rifling out of modern rifle barrels so you can hunt with your .308 or 7mm Remington. If you have a Savage, you can just use the barrel wrench to swap between your rifled and smoothbore barrels; it’s fairly common for benchrest shooters in some countries to swap barrels between sessions when shooting the same rifle in multiple classes.
The hunter magazines have a heavy bias to long range shooting, which is fine if you’re sniping mountain goats in Colorado, but in wooded areas most shots are at less than 50 yards.
The US developed the “Liberator” .45, which was a single shot smoothbore pistol. They intended to drop pallets of them in France, where (hopefully) the French Resistance would use them to acquire better firearms from the Germans.
Elrod · November 9, 2025 at 11:50 am
Thanks. That’s pretty clever. I wonder what calibers he’s done and how they shoot.
Along similar lines, it might be worthwhile to buy a few barrels to grease up and keep on hand (assuming that, for some reason, you can’t lay in a supply of used rifles in whatever your favorite caliber is). If things go All Sporty, the odds on finding someone with the skill and tools to replace a barrel is quite a bit higher than finding someone – like this guy – who can make a barrel from scratch.
Rooks · November 10, 2025 at 1:16 am
As a machinist, this is pretty clever but if things get truly bad I will point out that getting a straight and consistent sized hole in a bar of metal over 24″ long can be a process all its own.
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