Winter Therapy Project - Sight base for Browning High Wall

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
I need things in the winter to maintain my sanity. I picked up a Browning 1885 Tradtional Hunter in .38-55 from a friend. We shoot out to 500 yds at one of the clubs I frequent and I was looking for reduced recoil from my .45-70 Shiloh Sharps.
The Browning is a nice rifle. Heavy enough for accurate shooting off a bench or sticks, and yet light enough to be used as an offhand piece. It comes with a Marble's tang sight that is pretty cheesy. I was able to get out to 300 yds with it last week, but ran out of sight after that.
I'm going to mount my Lyman Super Target Spot on the rifle and have been struggling to get Steve Earle to respond so I can order a set of mounting blocks from him. So, I decided to make a base so I can put my Soule long range tang sight on the High Wall.
It was a 3 day projects. Started out with a piece of 1/2 x 3/4 x 3" cold rolled steel. My mill is a tiny little Atlas horizontal mill. This was really a job for a Bridgeport, but alas, no Bridgeport in my shop. Probably spent as much time noodling onhow to set up the piece and the sequence of machining steps as I did actually machining the piece. Hit a few snags along the way, but was expecting that and came up with alternate ways to do what did not work on the first try.
Base came out pretty nice. Fits the rifle and the sight staff like it should. Made the detent spring from a piece of boxspring wire I had in the garage. Forged it to a flat spring with a bulb on the end to ride on the sight and engage the detent slot. My first try at the spring looked great. But my tempering was flawed and it broke after a couple of cycles. Not deterred, today, I forged a new spring from the same spring wire and used a different tempering technique that did the trick. This sight should get me out to 1000 yds if I take the rifle to Dry Lake in the summer.
Here's a few pics.

Here's the finished base before bluing.

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Had a minor set back with the first spring. Poor spring tempering on my part.

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New spring made and the sight mounted on the rifle with the new base.
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Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
Well, they can make cutters that would make the radiused tops on the ears that work on a horizontal mill. But they probably would cost more than I paid for the mill. With CNC machining centers, specialized cutters like that are a thing of the past. A computer can be programmed to cut just about any radius or shape. Fiver is close. I scribed a radius on each ear and then ground to shape using a benchtop belt sander. Same for the radii on the ends of the base. Machine work is nice because it is very uniform and you can remove a lot of material in a short time. But the hand work is where the fun really is. Making hand work look like it was done on a machine is very rewarding.

I appreciate the kind words. Thought this might give the incentive to others who thought about doing something like this.

Here is a pic of the little Atlas mill I used. The vise is a 4 inch vise and there is a 6 inch scale sitting on top to give you a sense of the small size of the machine. The table is so small, there is only room for one T-slot.

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fiver

Well-Known Member
does that rotate so the spindle is up and over the top of the vice?
or is there another piece?

you can tell I got no idea.
 

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
Fiver, the handle on the lower left at an angle is probably the knee lift, crank it and you can raise/lower the table.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I figured the table went up and down and left/right.
I just usually see most mills laid out like a drill press, so you can take fly cuts off a piece of metal with the face/end of the bit.

that's why I'm kind of confused about this lay out.
 

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
It is just like a regular knee (Bridgeport style) mill with the spindle axis oriented horizontally instead of vertically. The two handles in line with the table axes move the table left/right and in/out, the third one raises and lowers the table. Most horizontal mills don't have a quill that moves the spindle in and out like a drill press, you have to move the table into and away from the spindle to drill or plunge in to a cut.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
ahh,, okay,okay.
mental block on the whole direction thing.
now I can see it.
I just needed to rotate my axis not the machines.
you'd have to rotate all your thinking on making certain cuts, but it would make several others a lot easier.

like I said I'm about as green as you could get with machines like this, or any of them really.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
Keith did a great job of explaining it. You can see the spindle sticking out of the headstock. You can insert locking Morse taper end mill holders into the spindle and use it like a vertical mill. The big round bar with the upside down exclamation point shaped piece is the support for the arbor when using as a horizontal mill and cutters mounted on the arbor. It slides out and straddles the table. The slot between the two ears on the sight base was cut with a saw type cutter (often called a shell mill, but when they are very narrow, we always called them saw mill cutters or if really thin, slit saws) mounted on that arbor. The rest was done with end mills.

Bridgeports often have a quill shaft, similar to a drill press but much more robust, that can go up and down. It makes them more versatile. They also make a machine tool called a mill/drill which is a drill press layout with an indexable table like on a normal vertical mill. The quill is again more robust. But you cannot rely on them to be as accurate as a standard vertical mill. Often the support column is a big round column and even though very large, can flex and detracts from accuracy. But for most of the stuff we would be doing, a mill/drill is the way to go, especially if you have limited shop space.

While on the subject, never use a drill press as a milling machine. First, chucking an end mill in a drill chuck is dangerous as the interrupted cut can loosen the chuck. Also, the bearings in a drill press are not intended for side loads and you can always tell a drill press that has seen duty as a casual milling machine. The quill is loose and the bearings are normally loose or shot.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
The basic problem with this machine is the size. Atlas made most of their own attachments for this machine and sized them accordingly. I bought a small indexing head to use and it is really too big for the machine and it's the smallest I could find. You can still find the Atlas attachments and accessories. But they are prices like solid gold. They made a vertical mill attachment for this machine. I've run across one and it was not for sale. The size of my vise limits the amount of travel I have. Even though I machined the front lip off the vise, the turntable still hits the vertical ways just because it is wider than the table. And with only one slot, I can't mount it further away from the headstock. I suppose I could look into machining different mounting slots on the turntable, but so far I have not needed to consider that.
 

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
I have a small Rockwell horizontal mill, same problem. Most accessories sized for a regular knee mill are just too big. If I could offer a suggestion, I have used one of those two-piece vises that clamp into the slot. Here is a link to a typical example:


This one is too big and requires two table slots but as good a craftsman as you seem to be I bet you could figure out something.

I have a 4" vise (2 actually) that are exactly like yours. Take off the swivel base and you can gain an inch, but you'll have to use some toe clamps on the ends. Make one that looks like a fork for the screw handle end.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
I've seen those. With only one slot in the table, each end is only held by one bolt/clamp, making it easy for the end to pivot. I could see something like a fly cutter (thump, thump thump) making it walk slightly and not noticing it until a the cut started to look wrong. What's been your experience? I can see drilling two holes in the dead end piece and putting two bolts thru T-bolts. But the clamping end would only be able to use 1 and just does not seem robust enough of a mounting to be truly dependable. Of course, the proof is in the pudding, right?

What is stopping me from getting a better mill is we are looking to move out of the Peoples' Republic of New Yawk. Life got in the way of that about a year ago and we've been slow getting back on track. If we move, I want one big shop where all my machine tools, hand tools, bikes, cars, etc., are and plenty of room to work. When that happens, I'll get a Bridgeport and be done with it. If we decide we are not moving, then I'm going to build a bigger shop here and do the same thing.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
One nice thing about our club is we have access to a full machine shop thru one of the members. Guys have built complete rifles in his shop with his tutelage. I'm sure he'd just give me free rein of the place because he knows my background. So, I have that to fall back upon should I need it. But it's just so convenient to have what you need in your basement or shop and when the weather sucks, that is where you instinctively go.

I'm headed down the stairs shortly to make an M die expander plug for my .38-55 RSBS dies. RCBS uses a 9/16-18 thread (the dirty bums) so I can't just get a bolt from the hardware store. So I have to single point the threads on the expander plug.
 

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
I've seen those 2 piece clamps. My concern is with only one bolt/clamp holding each end, they might be subject to moving from an interrupted cut like from a fly cutter. I could see drilled the fixed jaw for 2 bolts and using one long t-nut, but the adjustable jaw does not seem to allow that and the clamp/bolt would be at the far end. Maybe the fixed end would hold everything securely. But I'm not confident. What's been your experience.

If we move south or decide to stay here, I'm going to build a new shop and everything will be in there, including all the toys. When that happens, I'll simply buy a Bridgeport.

Belonging to the one club where we shoot silhouettes comes with access to a members full outfitted machine shop. Guys have built complete rifles in that shop, line barrels, etc.. I have that as a fallback, but it's nice to have it at home so on crummy weather days you just wander into the shop and make a crappy day a good day.
 

Ian

Notorious member
RCBS uses a 9/16-18 thread (the dirty bums) so I can't just get a bolt from the hardware store. So I have to single point the threads on the expander plug.

Been a while since I made any plugs but if it's 9/16x18, that's and SAE national fine thread, not exotic at all. I know I've made lots from 5/8" NF Grade 8 bolts for Lee dies.