As shooters, we all have problems we encounter that have different levels of difficulty to solve. Here are a few tricks that will make some of your most-common chores just a bit easier.
A Better File Cleaner
Cleaning files with a file card or wire brush is ineffective in many cases and can accelerate the dulling of your best files. Here’s a trick to make that go faster. Flatten the neck of a large-caliber cartridge case and push it against the file’s teeth parallel to their cut. Several passes will shape it to that particular file, and you will find that it will remove even the most tenacious particles. It will clean down to the bottom of the cuts, and will find its way into your favorite range bag.
Vise Pads
Many vise pads from commercial sources don’t last long or they aren’t suited for the task at hand. The least hardy are the thin sheets of lead because they are cut in two by clamping anything with a line contact, such as a gun barrel.
Lead ingots, which you might have around for bullet casting, work well instead, although they aren’t as easy to handle as sheets of lead. Pro tip: Machine reliefs in them to fit the occasion. If you mess one up, melt it into ingot form again. Keep one around to fit oddly-shaped barrels like on the Smith & Wesson Model 19 with its ejection rod shroud and Colt Pythons.
These special blocks are sacred, so don’t use them for any other purpose. Some Brownells Powdered Rosin makes the ingots grip blued barrels without any damage to the finish. Occasionally, some of the lettering on the barrel gets filled with lead. It is easily removed with a sharp pin or the point of an X-Acto knife blade.
Powdered Rosin
Powdered rosin is handy around any gun workplace for a variety of uses, but mainly to prevent barrels and other round pieces from slipping when clamped in a vise and subjected to torque. The rosin will provide the friction needed when taking rifle or pistol barrels from their receivers or in screwing them back in.
Making a Drill Chuck Hand Vise
The hand vise that may prove to be your most useful is one made from an extra drill chuck. Improvised hand vises made from drill chucks hold small jobs better than the big vises. They’re easy to make as well.
Hand-held drill chucks get used quite often, so think about making three sizes to cover everything from pins up to 1/4-inch-diameter rod stock.
It is usually unnecessary to use the key to a keyed chuck since the jobs you’ll use this tool for usually don’t require such a tight hold. The little chucks sold for use with Dremel tools are just about the right size for your smallest hand chuck, and the ones made for quarter-inch drills are the right size for the medium-size vise.
These little devices and shortcuts can make your gun-shop work a little faster and easier and help you keep your firearms in tip-top shape.
Great article. Tipping my hat in gratitude. Keep up the good work.