Rifling Cutter History

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The evolution of cutting a rifle bore has not changed very much the names have though from rifling cutter box, rifling cutter head, rifling head, rifling box, rifling bar, and cutter box. In this lesson it will be called the rifling cutter. from the past rifling cutter were made of hardwood or brass. They were hand fitted to the bore size of the gun barrels to be rifled and were tapered on each end. A small slot was cut into barrel and a hand-made cutter was inserted into the slot. The cutters were made of hardened iron and usually had multiple cutting edges, somewhat like a saw blade. Position on the early rifling benches, the entire tooling assembly had to be capable of being positioned in discreet radial increments in order to cut multiple grooves into the barrel.The entire duration of the rifling operation was measured in days, not hours. The most basic design of rifling cutter box to employ an adjustable ramp to raise the cutter does not use any type of screw to precisely control the amount of cutter rise for successive passes through the bore. This type of cutter box uses a section of ordinary drill rod with the ramp milled onto one end. When it comes to screw method style. There are two different types of cutter boxes one uses a screw to control the depth of ramp penetration under the cutter. The first type employs a ramp with an …show more content…

These machines are of no use whatsoever for any task other than cutting grooves into rifle barrels. Also with older style of rifling bench, modern rifling machines move the rifling cutter box back and forth on the longitudinal axis of the machine to accomplish the cut. One major difference between the old rifling benches and modern rifling machines is the use of pillow-block bearings to mount a rotating spindle to the bed of the machine. On many older machines, the spindle is rotated in discreet increments after each groove has been cut at a particular

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