Possible new manufacturer of rifled barrels!!!

SpudGunGuy · Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:37 am

In my opinion, the all time great Spud Gun site has to be The Spudgun technology center. Unfortunately though, the owner has decided to close up shop due to some problems with local zoning (if I understand it correctly). Anyway, one of his biggest selling points (besides his vast SpudGun expertise and information) is his ability to rifle PVC barrels. Which brings me to this page.

A few years ago (OK, several years ago) I designed and built my own PVC rifling machine as a senior college project. Yep, you read that right, I got to build a SpudGun PVC rifling machine with college money (thanks Dad), test fire thousands of spuds, and got college credit for it!

Anyway, I have noticed that as I cruise the net, anyone who builds SpudGuns and is serious about the technology, always buys a rifled barrel. Over the years I have sold my own barrels to college students (I live next to Michigan State University) and backyard artillery buffs at the rate of about 10 per month.

As I am ready to go into "semi-retirement" (don't ask) I would really like to make money doing something I truly enjoy and this just might be the ticket. So, I set up a simple web page so that people interested in buying rifled PVC barrels (and possibly more accessories) can email me and let me know. If I get enough hits on this site by June of this year (2008), I will go full-fledged into this business.

My prices would be about the same as Spudtech's.

The website is spudgunguy.com and my email is spudgunguy@spudgunguy.com.

One note: I believe that Joel's rifled barrels (Spudtech) were all 6 lands and 5 grooves with about a 1 in 5 ft twist. The grooves were sawtooth in shape and about 1/32 inch deep. With my machine, I can put as many grooves in as a customer requests and in any shape (standard rectangle, sawtooth like Joel's, concave, etc.). If the job is completely custom, I would charge a bit extra to pressure test the barrel to 500 PSI so that I knew it was safe.

I have all the right tools to make some really cool SpudGun parts and accessories... If there is enough interest.

So, let me know what you think and email your comments, suggestions, and questions to me at spudgunguy@spudgunguy.com

jackssmirkingrevenge · Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:52 am

Note that this site is already associated with a particular store so take note of the advertising rules, but as far as I can tell rifled barrels are not on offer so you'd be ok.

Personally I think that it's not worth rifling a potato, but I'm sure you'll find plenty of potential customers here.

bigbob12345 · Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:54 am

Great, I have a way to get rifled barrels but how much would a 4ft long 1.5in rifled barrel cost

jimmy101 · Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:33 am

Spudgunguy:

Welcome to the forums. It is always nice to add an experienced spudder.
(Especially one that can lucidly write in their native language.)

Can you rifle smaller ID PVC? Rifling a 2" barrel for spuds has always seemed a bit overkill to me but I can certainly see a need for rifling smaller ID barrels for advanced guns.

paaiyan · Thu Jan 10, 2008 12:04 pm

jimmy101 wrote:Spudgunguy:

Welcome to the forums. It is always nice to add an experienced spudder.
(Especially one that can lucidly write in their native language.)

Can you rifle smaller ID PVC? Rifling a 2" barrel for spuds has always seemed a bit overkill to me but I can certainly see a need for rifling smaller ID barrels for advanced guns.

I also welcome you to the forum. I agree with jimmy here, smaller barrels would be good to have rifled. Jimmy, I also am apalled at some members' inability to put together a coherent sentence.

MaxuS · Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:21 pm

Only shipping inside the states I presume?

SpudUke5 · Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:26 pm

Well some people werent born in America and cant learn as well or its harder for them.

For me, (ill give u a little bit of info on me) I am fully Ukrainian, born here, learned Ukrainian first, then English, forgot some Ukrainian (i know english better) and go to Saturday Ukrainian school. But i am lucky to have been born here and learn the English language.

Well back to the topic on hand, i agree with you both and say that rifling smaller ID pipe is better and will definately show good results. I dont think cannons were ever rifled because it didnt really significantly improve results. So i am interested in 1/2 inch or 3/4 inch pipe rifling for i have a project that could possibly use this.
And also, off topic, but how well does 1/2 inch pvc fit in 3/4 inch, if it does at all?

jimmy101 · Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:55 pm

LikimysCrotchus5 wrote:Well some people werent born in America and cant learn as well or its harder for them.

I have no problem when a non-english speaker has trouble writing a post. Most people on the forum figure out pretty quickly when a poster is not a native speaker. It is, like I said, when a native speaker can't seem to write a lucid post.

SpudUke5 · Thu Jan 10, 2008 4:03 pm

I must have misread what you have said, and i wasnt attacking you, i forgot to mention that

jimmy101 wrote:Especially one that can lucidly write in their native language

I see what i misunderstood now. The part with the native language through me off because i know that we have many different people here from different countries that have different native languages. But i realized this is a forum thats all in english so then i understoond.

Must have had a brain fart or somethin

rna_duelers · Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:50 pm

Rifled barrel are still available for sale on the web,they are made with the same machine joel uses/used supposedly.But there is nothing wrong with good competition!So what style does your rifling machine use?A cutting Die?Single Cut?Or are you going to be secretive aswell?

http://www.spudgun.com/RIFLEDBARREL.htm

benstern · Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:02 pm

rna_duelers wrote:Rifled barrel are still available for sale on the web,they are made with the same machine joel uses/used supposedly.But there is nothing wrong with good competition!So what style does your rifling machine use?A cutting Die?Single Cut?Or are you going to be secretive aswell?

http://www.spudgun.com/RIFLEDBARREL.htm

Actually joel made those barrels for him at discounted price.

"You must also agree to supply Larry at Spudgun.com with rifled barrels, in bulk, at reduced prices. (this is not negotiable)"
http://www.spudtech.com/content.asp?id=31

Ragnarok · Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:35 pm

Sounds impressive, but until someone successfully rifles copper pipe, I'm going to have to wait. I'm not too fussed about accuracy, if I can hit it reliably from a safe firing distance, that's more than good enough for me, but I wouldn't mind trying a rifled barrel some time and seeing how it improves things.

What I have to ask is... how do you think that Joel might have got 5 lands and 6 grooves in his rifling? Unless I'm greatly mistaken, that's completely impossible - the numbers have to be the same.

I also compliment you on your writing ability, I'm sure one day I'll be wandering around here and find the corpse of the murdered english language hidden behind one of the threads in the combustion showcase.

SpudMonster · Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:22 pm

omg wtf guys? its not liek were in englsh classs so shut the he11 up! y do u have to be so bithcy and shyt?/ your so stupid lol sorry if i dont spend 10 extra minutes checking spelling and grammar, i just type it and enter it, if it bothers u so much u shouldnt even be on this site. im annoyed bcuz instead of ppl answering my ?s they just go on about my spelling when i only mispelled 2 words
Damn. After typing that I feel like I need to scrub my brain with turpentine and a wire brush.

How do you make the rifling lands different profiles? Do you have to make a different cutting head for each profile? I regret not purchasing a rifled barrel from Joel way back when, so I might wind up purchasing one now.

SpudGunGuy · Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:37 am

MaxuS wrote:Only shipping inside the states I presume?

As long as you pay actual Shipping, I will send them anywhere you want.

SpudGunGuy · Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:48 am

rna_duelers wrote:Rifled barrel are still available for sale on the web,they are made with the same machine joel uses/used supposedly.But there is nothing wrong with good competition!So what style does your rifling machine use?A cutting Die?Single Cut?Or are you going to be secretive aswell?

http://www.spudgun.com/RIFLEDBARREL.htm

Not so secretive I suppose. I made a 12 foot linear table that is controlled by a stepper motor. This table has roller bearing clamps that hold the pipe in place while another stepper motor rotates the "barrel".

To get the grooves, I have a stationary pneumatic pencil grinder (90 degrees with 1/8" collet) that uses miniature router bits (that's why I can change the profile so easily).

The entire process is controlled by an old PC running Linux and custom software I wrote myself.

Each cut is done individually but the entire process only takes about 3 minutes or so. I just load the "barrel", index the stepper motors, and hit the start button.

The accuracy is not down to the .00001 inches you might see on a high end milling machine but it is good to about .01 inches and that is plenty good enough for spudguns. When I index two barrels (so they can be connected to make a longer barrel), there is no perceptible error... YaHoo!!!

How's that for an answer?

Possible new manufacturer of rifled barrels!!!

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