1903 springfield barrel remove

[daveshoe]

A freind asked me if I had a way of keeping his gun barrel from twisting so he could remove the receiver. The gun barrel is corroded and will not be saved. I think he has a receiver wrench. I have heard about brittle actions on M1903 Springfields and cautioned him to make sure he had proper instructions for removal. I found the Brownells website and saw that their Rifle Action Wrench System is made to support the action and has different ''inserts'' to properly fit each action. The handle is rated to receive a three foot cheater bar for really stubborn threads.

My idea is to use my 20 ton bearing press to restrain the barrel. Should I grind flats on the barrel to clamp it, use oak blocks around it or what? How much rotating force is safe to the receiver without hurting something? I will let my friend do the wrenching as it is his gun , but if one of you has any experience, it could reduce the Pucker Factor

Thanks!

 

[KBennett]

When you figure it out let me know. I just picked a new barrel up for mine at the gun show.

 

[daveshoe]

Update

The receiver wrench he had was a very serious affair and really supported the receiver well. He had used a barrel vice that caused slipping and marred the barrel. What we finally did was capture the barrel in my bearing press,and found the best way to do this was to insert pads of flattened copper pipe between the steel jaw face and the barrel== wood crushed around the barrel and it still would not come loose. BTW, make sure you remove the bolt from the action first!

We then placed the new barrel into the action,and it is important to note that there is an alignment markon the left side of the receiver that lets you precisely ''time '' the barrel to the action. When we were all done, the headspace was too tight to allow the bolt to close. these threads are very coarse, so we knew it was not an assembly problem of ''one thread off''.

Maybe these replacement barrels are meant to be short chambered to allow truing up, but in any case, it's gunsmith time unless someone out there knows something . KBennet , my buddy got his wrench at Midway and it was much less than Brownell's