Psl barrel

[valley82]

00medic - this is my problem LOL! If all else fails, and my patience runs out, I'll end up buying a myosin barrel and have it machined down. I Attended the AK BP in LA yesterday, one of the guys had a PSL kit with an intact barrel, that did not help my willingness to wait.

[Richard Erichsen]

Turning down Mosin Nagant barrels to PSL configuration is relatively straight forward and doesn't require re-chambering. "Bullet" on weaponsguild has a thread going on his barrel now. An "excelent condition barrel is $59 and there is plenty of meat on it if you are just wanting a barrel.

Would that meet your needs though? The 91/30 barrels are .600" in diameter at the muzzle. That barrel diameter is the same as the PSL barrels. While I'm sure the shank end has plenty of meat to be turned down to fit the .908" or so of the trunnion, it might be strike one against these barrels if you wanted to go with a heavier profile.

I suggested the used barrels may need to be rechambered because a fair number of these old rifles have seen use and may have throat erosion to worry about. If you buy them sight unseen online, then it's a gamble if what you get is worth working with.

http://62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinM.htm

Above is a list of donor rifles in the caliber that could be had cheaply, barreled actions and sometimes just barrels (most applicable to the situation).

About the heaviest of them will be .630" of an inch at the muzzle with most of the barrel just a hair bigger around than typical. If that is sufficient, maybe it will do.

R

[Richard Erichsen]

First response from a match-grade barrel producer

Kyle from Brux Barrels responded as follows:

"Yes we can do that. Cost is going to be $325 shipped with a 20 week lead time." The question was in relation to a custom barrel blank with a 1:12.5" twist.

Note this is only for the barrel blank, they did not respond to the second question about fabricating a complete barrel to a diagram. Their "light" and "medium" blank have a 1.25" shank and will require a lot of lathe time to take down to the proper journal dimensions, whatever those happen to be - stock light profile "whip barrel" or upgraded "medium" barrel as you may prefer.

Obermeyer and Douglas don't do email and will need to be called. I'll try to find some time this week.

R

[ott1]

Richard, have you tried Bartlein Barrels?

[Richard Erichsen]

Yes, I contacted Bartlein. They are a single-point cut barrel producer and generally these sorts of producers are the best candidates for custom twists. No response yet. I usually give them a week to mill it over.

R

[Richard Erichsen]

Response from Pac-Nor

Like most of the barrel producers that use a broaching (button) tool, costs are a lot higher to fabricate and basically a one-off custom twist barrel just isn't practical. Here is their response:

"Dear Mr Erichsen,
Yes, you are right: we only offer a 10 twist. But a 12.5T button can be
made for $250.00 and a Twist bar for 12.5 would also be needed ($650.00). A
contoured 10T blank, with muzzle threaded, in SS would be $340.00 PLUS
SHIPPING ($30.00 less for Chrome Moly) and a current 15 week lead time. We
appreciate your interest. Regards, Penny"

So, plus side is this: Pac-Nor will profile and thread a barrel for you with their 1:10" twist in fancy stainless steel for $340, or $30 less for chrome-moly if you can stand to wait 15 weeks. That could include bog stock, upsized or truly massive bull barrels if you felt so inclined (more work for whoever populates the barrel though if you go heavy profile). For most folks, $310-$340 will probably produce an unusually accurate barrel without further fuss.

On the other hand, if you had your heart set on a 12.5" twist, it's going to take quite a few barrel orders in the committed column before it would make sense to fabricate a new button and twist bar in that twist. A group buy would be needed and I for one do not volunteer for that one. I think the better choice in this case, as mentioned, may be one of the single-point cut producers who are often able to just re-program their CNC controlled cutters to produce the desired twist. Long waits and $300+ costs notwithstanding.

R

[Richard Erichsen]

Lilja Response

Today must be email response day for the emails I sent last week. See below from Dan Lilja himself:

"Hi,
You're right, in the .311 caliber we just make a 10" twist. That has been
standard for this caliber. There is little interest in this caliber and it
would be prohibitively expensive to add new tooling for this in a different
twist.

We do not offer other gunsmithing services such as muzzle threading.
Thanks for the inquiry and sorry we can't help.
Best regards,
Dan"

They make great barrels, it's just not the right fit for his operation. I can respect that. Moving on...

R

[nick]

Hmm, I should stop coming to the gunsmithing section here. I already have a PSL kit with the original barrel, but now I want to get one without the barrel, and outfit it with a better barrel

[Richard Erichsen]

Hmm, I should stop coming to the gunsmithing section here. I already have a PSL kit with the original barrel, but now I want to get one without the barrel, and outfit it with a better barrel

Which one was going to be based on the Cold Steel blank I saw at Roccobros place? Were you going to just shoot light ball milsurp, or were you planning to get adventurous?

R

[Holescreek]

Would that meet your needs though?

No, a Mosin barrel wouldn't meet MY needs because I want to build a non-standard heavy barreled rifle with an adjustable gas system. But for anyone just wanting a shooter, the MN barrel works fine.

I bought an "excellent condition" MN barrel from buymilsurp.com with the intent of turning it into a PSL barrel just in case my search for a blank fell through. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective) the barrel came with about half a receiver attached. I'm too much of a scrounge to trash the receiver section getting it off (since I might be able to use it later) so now have to rig up some tooling to remove it without damaging either part. That puts the project even further down the list.

You can see from the pictures of a turned MN barrel what had to be done. It looks like the hardest part is cutting the extractor groove which requires some somewhat expensive tooling to do it like the factory (a dividing head on a mill), but in reality could be done with a dremel tool and some patience.

http://www.weaponsguild.com/forum/index.php?topic=31620.0

I may just have to "settle" for a 1:10 twist blank to get what I want.

[Richard Erichsen]

eBay listing for 91/30 Barrel in G to VG condition

For those not interested in a heavy barrel or a modern production match grade barrel, here is an option (.600" ordinary light profile):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mosin-Nagant-Russian-M91-30-Surplus-Barrel-Nice-Rifling-1939-Tula-W-Rear-Sight-/261032322445?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cc6bd258d

$54+$16 shipping. (Whimpy whimpy whimpy...)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Finnish-M39-Mosin-Nagant-1944-VKT-Valmet-Heavy-Barrel-New-Mirror-Sharp-Bore-/260992290570?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cc45a4f0a

The M39 Valmet manufactured heavy barrel (.630")

$269+$16 shipping (Hefty hefty hefty!)

For that much though, you'd probably be better off going the distance since you still need to take the shank down to size and populate it.

R

[nick]

Which one was going to be based on the Cold Steel blank I saw at Roccobros place? Were you going to just shoot light ball milsurp, or were you planning to get adventurous?

R

Both - I got two blanks.

Aside from a can of Bulgarian heavy ball, all the milsurp I have is light ball. Some of the new commercial ammo is heavy ball and SPs though, so it would be nice to have that option. For one, I'll be modifying the gas block, as the PSL is overgassed.

[Richard Erichsen]

Both - I got two blanks.

Aside from a can of Bulgarian heavy ball, all the milsurp I have is light ball. Some of the new commercial ammo is heavy ball and SPs though, so it would be nice to have that option. For one, I'll be modifying the gas block, as the PSL is overgassed.

You will probably want to keep the gas port on the larger side and use an adjustable gas block to adjust the gas cycling the bolt down for heavy ball. A higher spring rate recoil spring (custom made spring from a spring shop, increased wire diameter, look up "compression springs" and take a micrometer to a PSL spring and go up a small increment, say .008"-.010" at a time) and perhaps even receiver reinforcement around front and rear trunnions might also be prudent. It's been done, but details on how long the rifles last firing only heavy ball is for want.

PSL Recoil Spring Specs (taken from two sources on AK Files):

* PSL recoil spring is 20" free length
* Approximate spring rate of 12.5-13.1 lbs.
* Outer diameter 7/16"
* Inner diameter 3/8"
* # of coils 112 over the 20" length
* Wire size measures approximately .050"

If you wanted to beef up the spring, a .060" spring with the same coil count and coil diameter should do the trick.

R

[Richard Erichsen]

Shilen Response

Response from Shilen:

"Sorry, we do not offer a 7.62 x 54 chamber. We could do a turned or
unturned blank.

Unturned Blank:
Chrome-moly $165.00 3-5 weeks
Stainless $248.00 3-5 weeks
Stainless Select/Match $323.00 6-8 weeks
Lead time is for most calibers plus shipping. The barrel still requires contouring, threading, chambering and fitting to your receiver by
a gunsmith.

Turned Blank:
Chrome-moly $200 3-5 weeks
Stainless $283 3-5 weeks
Stainless Select/Match $358 6-8 weeks
Lead time is for most calibers plus shipping. The barrel still requires threading, chambering and fitting to your receiver by a gunsmith."

In case you missed it, they aren't going to be able to do a custom twist and the two options above are as close to a finished barrel as they will go. I think I can safely mark Shilen off the list.

R

[Richard Erichsen]

Krieger response

Krieger response below:

"We can make a custom barrel for you and 1-10 is our standard twist rate. We can make a 1:12.5" twist, but this would be "non-standard". We can certainly contour the blank at no charge (as long as it has a neck diameter not smaller than .830" and a muzzle diameter not smaller than .630". If this is the case there would be an additional $20.00 contouring fee.) You would be looking at about 6 months for barrel production. We will not thread or chamber a barrel in this cartridge. Prices are below:

$340.00 .300/.311 barrel, standard contour and twist
$ 35.00 Non standard twist rate for a 1-12.5 twist
$ 20.00 If contour is smaller than our #3
$ 20.00 S&H within the 48 States.

Thank You,

Krieger Barrels, Inc."

I figured Krieger could do it, but am unsurprised at the lead time. Price and cost is about average for these sorts of custom jobs.

R