case and we were left with an ultimatum to remove 135 tons of wired-in and embedded plant from the old Parker-Hale works to somewhere else within 48 hours, or have it ‘locked in’!
That, coupled with having to find room also for the further 30 tons of equipment from Royal Ordnance Nottingham, was the start of a nightmare decade of trying to secure a suitable new home for the plant in a civilised and accessible region of the country and also to arrange the necessary financial arrangements to re-commission the plant. That story would require many chapters of a book to relate, however, eventually I managed to find our current ex MoD (RAF Bampton Castle) secure site and nuclear blast- proof property at Bampton, in Oxfordshire, where we spent three years rebuilding and re-commissioning the equipment and learning quirks of the art of precision barrel manufacture before we were able to commence full barrel production last year!
Our equipment includes two hammer forging machines plus a broaching machine, together with four gun drill spindles and four reaming spindles, CNC special purpose lathes, bespoke carousel type plus precision finish chambering machinery, barrel viewers and straightening machinery, bore-scopes, plus automatic cut-off saws, vapour blasting equipment, linishers and polishing lathe, hydraulic barrel vice and a host of other conventional manual and CNC production plus inspection equipment.
We are equipped with scores of barrel forging mandrels plus broaching tooling to produce a very wide range of rifling bores, forms and twist rates, from .22 to .577 and encompassing most popular sporting, target and military calibres both classic and modern. We have programs on our CNC lathes to cater for most profiles and thread forms and simply write additional programmes for others as required.
The majority of our standard production has been up to 28 inch length finished barrels but we are able to lift the honing heads and change the tooling to produce even longer barrels when required. Currently, with two gun-drill spindles in operation,
99
MINI PROJECT RIFLE: THE REMINGTON 700 SPS TACTICAL
our single shift capacity is approximately 1000 barrels per month. Once we bring the other two gun-drilling spindles back on line, our capacity will effectively double.
We aim to manufacture top quality new and replacement barrels for OEMs, Police, Military and other volume end users, as well as for individual dealers and shooters. We use
traditional best quality barrel
Armalon added muzzle threading and a neat protective cap.
materials such as AISI 4140/708M40/
EN19, or AISI 416R stainless steel, as well as 4340/817M40/EN24 type for GPMG, 50BMG and similar barrels and we can also supply in 6150 or other chrome vanadium type alloys where required.
For most target shooting disciplines we supply chrome-moly barrels such as the most popular .224 with 1 in 200mm twist, 30/308 calibre 1 in 10 twist or 1 in 12 or even slower twists.
For 260/6.5 calibres, 1 in 200mm twist, 303 1 in 10 twist etc. For special rifling patterns, sizes and twist rates we can produce almost anything but, the forging mandrels cost around £3000 each and thus there would need to be significant quantities ordered to make it financially viable. Button broaching mandrels are far cheaper to produce, though that process is different at almost every stage to the hammer forging procedure.
We try to hold stocks of blanks in most of the popular bore sizes and twist rates so that we can more readily complete small orders with a minimum delay.
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