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March 3rd, 2014

Krieger Barrels — Like Father, Like Sons

Krieger Barrels John KriegerKrieger Barrels Inc. is a family-run business. Founder John Krieger now works with two of his sons in the business, Andrew (“Andy”) and Mark. At SHOT Show 2014 we had a chance to chat with John and Andy. John told us that he is very proud to work with his two sons. He said that Andy, who has a degree in engineering, brings an important skill set and a new level of scientific expertise to the business. On his part, Andy says that his father is a “great boss… and the best teacher you could have”. Meet this father and son barrel-making team in this short video.

John Krieger and Andrew Krieger

How does Krieger Barrels produce such a great product year in and year out? It takes a lot of highly-skilled labor and some serious machinery to produce outstanding cut-rifled barrels. To illustrate the barrel-making process, Krieger has produced a fascinating video, filmed at Krieger’s production facility in Richfield, Wisconsin. This video shows the process of single-point, cut-rifled barrel-making start to finish. If you love big, powerful machines, you’ll enjoy this video. Its really quite amazing to see all that’s involved in the production of cut-rifled barrels.

How Krieger Barrels Are Made (MUST-WATCH video — one of the best we’ve ever featured).

For anyone interested in accurate rifles, this is absolutely a “must-watch” video. Watch blanks being cryogenically treated, then drilled and lathe-turned. Next comes the big stuff — the massive rifling machines that single-point-cut the rifling in a precise, time-consuming process. Following that you can see barrels being contoured, polished, and inspected (with air gauge and bore-scope). There is even a sequence showing chambers being cut.

Here is a time-line of the important barrel-making processes shown in the video. You may want to use the “Pause” button, or repeat some segments to get a better look at particular operations. The numbers on the left represent playback minutes and seconds.

Krieger Barrel-Making Processes Shown in Video
00:24 – Cryogenic treatment of steel blanks
00:38 – Pre-contour Barrels on CNC lathe
01:14 – Drilling Barrels
01:28 – Finish Turning on CNC lathe
01:40 – Reaming
01:50 – Cut Rifling
02:12 – Hand Lapping
02:25 – Cut Rifling
02:40 – Finish Lapping
02:55 – Outside Contour Inspection
03:10 – Engraving
03:22 – Polish
03:50 – Fluting
03:56 – Chambering
04:16 – Final Inspection

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June 2nd, 2011

Lothar Walther’s Woodall Explains Barrel-Making Methods

Lothar Walther barrelsAt the IWA Trade Show in Germany earlier this year, a correspondent for The Firearm Blog interviewed Woody Woodall, who runs Lothar Walther’s USA operation. While many shooters assume that Walther hammer-forges most of its barrels like some other European barrel-makers, in fact Lothar Walther USA uses the button rifling technique for most of its US-made barrels.

In the video below, created for The Firearm Blog, Woodall explains that button rifling involves some extra steps to ensure a good result: “The extra work that goes into it is that you’ve got to make rifling, stress relieve it, and have it come out the right size. And it takes a lot of skill to do that. Lothar Walther invented button rifling in 1925, if a better way of making rifling came out, we’d be glad to go to it.”

Woodall explains that hammer forging is a good method for mass production, but it is costly to set up: “Hammer forging is relatively new, it came out in 1934, but did not come into prominence until the 1950s…. But the cost of [hammer forging] in the world today is getting above what the market will bear for barrels. [Hammer forging] is more complicated. As the hammers hit the barrel the barrel gets longer, but the hammers have to hit uniformly so the barrel [stays] straight. There’s a higher failure rate in that. There’s also some surface delamination that can occur, and some other issues. So if you’re hammer forging, you really have to pay attention to the details. So, it’s like button rifling, only ten times more complicated. It’s for super-high-volume production… The large companies tend to use the hammer forging, intermediate size companies tend to use the buttoning, and craft companies tend to use the cut rifling. All three [methods] can make an equally accurate barrel.”

Credit The Firearm Blog for this informative interview.
Permalink - Videos, Gunsmithing, Tech Tip 4 Comments »