The Hurt Locker

dudes, I’m getting old. Could have sworn I had a brand new barrel blank or two still in the wrapper (in .25) and couldn’t remember where the hell I put them. Had to work backwards and try to figure out where a stupid forgetful old geezer would keep such a thing and guessed it was probably in an old box. Opened the first box big enough for a barrel and found this, which I promptly named The Hurt Locker:

Ahhhh, there you are. And yes, there was a brand new .25 LW barrel blank which I had contoured but not yet cut a breech in, still wrapped in the plastic. I kept that one because it was a superb example. Most barrels come from the factory with the bore slightly off center here or there, some a little off and some way off. This one was unusual in that it was REALLY straight, I only run into these every now and then so I put it aside for that special project. The rest of the barrels pretty much drew a blank. I had to measure them to confirm what they were. Too many damn barrels. So, out came the stamp set: stamped them on the bushings so I won’t have to do this again:

There was even a .308 barrel and breech in there from a project long ago.

I had a little extra time so I decided to do a little more work on the huge .258″ lilja, then looked at the valves sitting on the bench and decided to finish a few more. I have finished only 2 of them up to now, they are both in bottles and in the testing phase. So I just did a bit more work on a few more:

It’s hard to see in the pic above, but the valve on the lower right is not done, it’s just a hunk of steel. the valve on the lower left is ripped apart, it was ripped into shreds when it tore out of the collet holding it at high speed.

And it’s time for bed already. crap. fun never ends.

aloha,
walt