For you gunsmiths out there that have experience using barrel vise/action wrench, I have some questions about mounting the vise. These have sat on my bench unmounted for about two years, but I think I'm ready to start actually using it. See the attached pics to set the stage for the questions.

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z210/shwncrea/100_0128.jpg

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z210/shwncrea/100_0129.jpg

In the first pic, I have mounted a Mauser VZ-24 in the vise just to show that if I were to mount the vise in the position of the 2x6 below, I'd have approx. 28" of free space to the front of the action to the wall, which should be plenty for any barrel lengths I'd likely work on.

However, note that I did also mount a face plate on my gun bench, 3/4" thick, and the second pic shows the action wrench (Action Wrench 1 for Mauser actions, from Brownells) with a machined recess that I believe is supposed to seat the recoil lug.

So, I THINK that the barrel vise has to be mounted such that it's edge is very near, or at the face of the bench face plate so it can be turned freely as the action is unscrewed from the barrel. Since the torque that's going to be applied in this work, mounting partially through the 2x6 bench frame and 3/4" face plate isn't going to work. My preferred "work-around" to this is to mount a stout hardwood "extension plate" to the top face of the work bench - something like 1 1/2" or 2" oak or maple - to get the vise mounting out past the face plate of the bench, plus give me more room for barrel length.

I think this will work fine, but I want to hear from you that are using barrel vise's if I'm missing anything, and if you have any other suggestions.

Shawn,
you will need to mount it as close to the edge as possible to get your blocks as close to the ft. ring as possible so that you can get on the largest diamenter of the barrel as possible to get the best grip on the barrel and be able to get you wrench on the action and clear the edge of your bench. Also you bench must be very heavy and very tuff because you will have to knock the crapp out of the wrench most likely to get the barrel loose from the action. I suggest that you put it at the other end of your bench so that you can get on the right side of the vise to unscrew the barrel right to left, which you will have to attack that wrench from the right side. A 3ft 1 1/2" steel pipe filled with lead will work good for hitting the wrench with enough force to break the barrel free. Im not Kidding. Bobby

Hey thanks Bobby. I was a bit afraid of that...I've heard that some considerable "persuasion" is needed on breaking barrels free, but I didn't envision a 3 ft lead-filled pipe though! Not sure my bench structure is up to that stuff, and may have to take some steel structure to the concrete floor with expansion anchors. Appreciate the advice.

If you have some sort of metal structure that you can mount it on is best but a very solid heavy wood structure will do as I don't think that you will be using it every day? I have had some barrels that I have had to put in the lathe and relive the metal in front of the barrel thread to get off, that is the extreme though, that ruins the barrel though. The heavy pipe will make it very easy to knock the action loose from the barrel. I suggest heating up the action slightly with a propane torch and then applying Kroil and let it work in. a couple of times will make it much easier to get that barrel off of there that has been on there for almost 60 years? Bobby:)

Have to disagree just a little. I do not beat on an action wrench...ever!
I slip a cheater pipe over the handle of the action wrench, I don't care how tight they are, a 6ft pipe spins em all out easy and there is no danger of marring the receiver if the action wrench does not fit exactly. That kind of impact load is bad juju.

Biggest problem is barrel slip and wooden slugs are hard to get tight enough not to slip. I use machined aluminum and they have to be as tight as you can get them and then another half turn.

My vise is mounted on a wooden bench, 2x4 framing and 3/4 plywood sutface. The bench is firmly mounted to the wall, and holds considerable weight. I've never had an issue with the bench moving or flexing to any extent. Give yiourself room for a cheater, and watch your fingers between the wrench and benchfront.

lumberjak, that is a good way too, I have tried both but for the one that won't break easly, the the way I was taught by an old gunsmith of 35 years was his way of easy removel. I should have said that you need to protect the action by using masking tape around the area where the wrench fits and make sure that the wrench is tight. The sudden impact is what breaks the barrel lose. Bobby:)

You guys are giving me some good ideas. My bench is 2x6 construction, with 3/8" concrete expansion anchors at the walls. Some weak points at 2x6 connections, that I probably should shore up with some glued corner blocks. I may still take a steel connection to the floor on the uplift side of the vise on the torque rotation. The downward compression side of the torque should already be braced adequately to the floor. I think I do need to put a stout hardwood extension mounter plate on top of the bench to get the wrench rotation far free from the bench face plate. Keep the ideas coming.

I thought about mounting the vise to the kitchen island that has a nice hard rock maple and babinga top that's 1 1/2" thick, trying to pass it off as a lemon squeezer, but I think she'd see through that.:rolleyes:

Looking at your bench setup in the photo, you are going to need to remove or cutaway part of the facing, it seems. I did have to remove part of the 2x4 framing, to give room for the mounting bolts, but added a 3/4 ply doubler to the underside of the bench, glued and screwed into place. More than enough to stand the load.

You might be surprised at how little force it takes to break some barrels free. Small rings are easy, 98s depend. Toughest I've run into was a Yugo24/47. Even with a relief cut to the barrel, I ended up slipping a pipe wrench onto the barrel, along with the barrel vise. The pipe wrench was bearing on the benchtop, and with the aid of a 4 foot blackiron pipe as a cheater I finally broke the barrel loose. Reckon that one was installed by a big, dumb Yugoslavian farmboy.

Just wanted to throw out one last thing, Brownells sells a block that you can mold to your barrel for a prefict fit. I use Acura glass gel and mix in some aluma-seal stopleak makes for good bite. Also tape up the barrel and then use some Rosin sold by Brownells to bid every thing up. If you have done every thing that I have suggested that had stuck barrel will come off with out to much trouble. Every thing must be tight especially the barrel vise, that is where it will give. if it spins remove every thing and do it over.once it spins you can't get it tight enough. Thats how I do it because you can't play with that thing all day time is money. Bobby ;)

Thx everyone, I think I have a good direction to go now. I'll post some pics when I get farther along. I appreciate all of the good advice.

With all due respect and not meaning to make anyone angry... I use a barrel vise/wrench combo that I bought from Brownells in the 60s. I do not use a hammer on the wrench and do not know any gunmaker who does. We use cheater bars and maybe a little heat but we don't want to torque or warp any action. I don't know... maybe the new actions don't have the range of heat treat & draws the way the old ones used to have... like before pyrometers even.

I sure wouldn't mount that vise on a bench with the wall so close behind it. I use a bench that is 90 degrees to the wall with about 10 feet behind it. The bench is my casting bench that also has my supply of bullets and cases. King Kong couldn't lift the bench even if Faye Wray was 40 foot tall and was caught under it.

I use inserts and rosin which have never let an action slip that I recall. The wrench itself has an extension on the top jaw which, when flipped upside down, works for Remington round type actions.

The bottom jaw is flat and the top jaw is made to fit over standard Mauser type receiver rings. Flip it upside down, put in the brass plates and it is used for removing octagon barrels or breech plugs out of muzzle loaders.

The only marks on the handle of my wrench are from the cheater or just 40+ years of use.

I much appreciate all of the feedback, and Voyageur, yours raises more questions. See the attached pic.

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z210/shwncrea/100_0130.jpg

I have just shy of 2" from 10 ft between concrete walls that the bench spans - 9'-10". Is it your recommendation to mount the barrel vise mid-span so that I have just short of 5' each side for cheater bar length? Now, I have busted knuckles on breaking free tough bolts before (not barrels), but once it breaks, the turning is easy. And that break can't be more than 5-10 degrees, and once it breaks, the std wrench without cheater bar would seem sufficient. But I've never broken a barrel loose before, so I don't know if the following rotation is all that easy - is it?

So, depending upon where I clamp the barrel in the vise and where that position puts the wrench position for best application of force (my weight, or weight plus getting leverage from one of the walls, and cheater), does it really matter if I mount the vise near the left wall, or the right wall, or in the center of the bench (where I won't get any leverage from a wall), as long as the bench construction can take it?

Just FYI, I do have plans to reinforce the 2x6 connections at the walls at the front face of the bench, and I have located a maple butcher block top that will serve as an extension plate mounted to the top of the bench with heavy bolts and wood reinforcement to the bench, to mount the barrel vise on. Just the mounting position on the bench is in question.

Again, much appreciation for the advice.

Let's see now... the force to seat or unseat the barrel should be down. Mounting the vise on a bench really requires a plate on the bottom to spread the force.

Ok... that said... we have to deal with the fact that my shop is quite a bit larger than yours and laid out differently. I am able to mount the vise on a bench because the bench does not interfere with the traffic pattern when I move around. There is a clear aisle from the front door to the back door.

So is it feasible to construct a vise stand? By this I mean a stand made out of angle iron and attached to a wheel rim. The wheel rim is weighted with a couple sacks of sand or, perhaps, your collection of lead. My old floor stand drill press has a sack of cement on the base to cut down vibration for cleaner drilling ops. The lathe and the mill are attached to plates using bolts. The plates are mounted in cement with anchors... again to minimize vibration for machine ops that require .0001" incremental tolerances.

The weight on the vise stand is so the vise won't move while simply setting up. As I said the force should be down for seating and unseating the barrel. Due to factory tolerances, the threads on the barrel are usually not a machinist fit. I have always provided a machinist fit on barrel thread as a matter of course. This way I only require .001" to .002" movement to seat the barrel. It also minimizes the possibility of cracks in the threads whether microscopic or larger.

You need to address the fact that the possibility of removing barrels up to about 32" will arise. Some of the single shots have this length and some of the older military rifles have barrels that are quite long. Since I have had to deal with barrels up to 48" in length, I am pleased that it is no issue.

Rotating the vise 90 degrees and moving it to the center of your bench is not going to solve the problem unless you fully understand that you will have to keep moving the barrel from side to side to compensate for this problem.

My vise now (on the bench I mentioned in a previous post) simply has the vise mounted over the 2"x4" dead center. The top of the bench is plywood that is 1-1/2" thick (two pieces of 3/4" ply). With the 3/8" metal plate on the bottom and the force always being downward, the vise has not loosened up in 15 years.

So now I need you to tell me what your intentions are given all the advice you've had from the fellas on the forum. If the installation has real roadblocks... now is the time to iron them out.

Voyageur, and all,
Thx for the advice, and I was somewhat fixated on unseating a barrel, without consideration for then seating a barrel, and wanting downward movement on the wrench to do both. So, with that, and all of the appreciated advice, my intentions are:

1. I have gotten a scrap piece of 1 1/2" thick oak butcher block approx 20"x16" that I will use as an extension plate to bolt to the top of the bench to get the vise away from the face of the bench, and, to get more barrel length capability. The dimensions of this extension plate may be modified to "as-needed" of course.

2. I will reinforce the underside of the bench where I mount this oak extension plate, as well as reinforce the 2x6 connections at the walls.

3. I will mount this extension plate approximately on the center of the bench, allowing me a wrench/cheater bar length of almost 5 ft either side, for lefty-loosy, righty-tighty unseating and seating in the downward direction.

4. Since I'm not going to be seating and unseating barrels every day, I will likely remove the extension plate - with the vise mounted on it - for storage under the bench, and the bench is none the worse for wear other than 4 bolt holes in it, and I can then have full use of the bench for every day activities.

Please, shoot holes in my plan, if there are any.

Not really enough room for a separate floor-mounted bench in my little man-space. I didn't ever intend to rotate the vise 90 degrees from what's shown in the first pic, since that would result in unbolting and bolting the wrench for every turn, and me eternally cursing myself for such an abomination!

I guess my "bench" is overkill compared to what you guys are using. Mine is a 3 foot X 4 foot table that is made out of a solid sheet of 3/8" plate steel. The four legs at each corner is 2" diameter drill stem that are also bolted to as well as concreted into the floor...

I have my barrel vise mounted onto one end and it is bolted to the table with two heat treated bolts that are 3/4" in diameter. The two vise halves have four bolts that are heat treated and 5/8" in diameter and really allow the barrel to be clamped down T-I-G-H-T...

I make all my own bushings for each new barrel size that I encounter. The bushings are made from 1 1/2" diameter aluminum bar stock and are 3" in length. I always coat the barrel and bushing with rosin to make sure that the barrel will not turn in the vise. I also use a 6 foot black iron cheater pipe when necessary...

Like I said, this may be overkill but at least it allows to be able to remove any barrel that I may come across, no matter how tight it may be....

A

Doesn't sound like overkill Assassin, sound like it's just right!

Here's how my setup ended up:
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z210/shwncrea/100_0135.jpg
Scrap oak butcher block 1 3/4" thick as an extension plate, with (4) 7/16" bolts securing it to the reinforced (underneath) bench top. The extension gets me 5 1/5" off of the bench face so I don't crush my knuckles breaking free, and, gives me just under 33" of free space for barrel length. I oriented the block so the oak grain is parallel to the rotational plane....I just hope the block glue holds. If not, I guess I'll have a metal frame welded up to mount in the same place. I'll be able to get just under 5 ft cheater bar on the wrench.

Thanks everyone for your advice, and I'll let you know how it goes when I turn the first action off.

And Mods, I apologize.....I accidently got some advertising in the photo on the back wall!!:D

If I'm not too late, I'd use a 3/8" steel or 1/2" aluminum plate for the extension, rather than the butcher block.

Shawn,if you could sandwich that butcher block between two plywood sheets, you would probably never have to worry about any breakage of the block. I make one like that years ago and a sheet of 1 inch plywood made it nearly indestructable....A

That's not a bad idea Assassin, just getting some longer bolts for the additional ply thicknesses. I also thought about taking metal braces from the vise mount bolt off the bottom at 45 degrees down to the bench face plate for additional reinforcement. I might still do this. Thx.

You could always get an all-thread rod and then cut your own "bolts" to the exact length you need them....

A

I like to have my barrel vise mounted in such a way that I have easy access to the front sight. That way, when I install a barrel with sights, I can easily level the front sight and index the barrel and receiver accurately.