ye olde iron and resources

[44-henry]

I've seen hot rolled steel listed as 1018 and 1020, the slight difference in carbon probably wouldn't amount to a whole lot of difference in either case. Most of the stuff I work with is hot rolled.

You sound like you have a lot of enthusiasm and there is nothing wrong with that. I would suggest that you proceed more slowly however as you might be getting yourself into a situation where you either go so fast it proves dangerous, or possibly you make things so complicated that you will lose interest. I would hate to see either happen to you. It's not really the things you produce that are important, just that you enjoy the journey along the way.

 

[44-henry]

I was looking for a general purpose steel that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg to buy. Learnin' more every day.

In that case 4140 really isn't what you should be looking at. Stick to the other alloys that were mentioned earlier. In most machine shops $20.00 will buy you a good assortment of hot rolled mild steel as long as you avoid cut off charges. Ask them what they have in their scrap pile and odds are you can get some good deals. Being polite and not pushy will also go a long way towards helping you out, which they are since they likely aren't going to make much money from your business.

 

[mattybock]

little danger of getting in over my head for now. I have yet to get my mits on the tooling, lathe accessories and other such goodies that one needs to build a rifle.

For now I'm learning all I possibly can about machining steel, barrel making etc.

I'm going to call around for quotes on some hot rolled 1.25 inch bar stock.

 

[Mike Brooks]

I'd suggest you try building a couple guns to see if you even have the skills to do it before you go off buying and making all kinds of machinery.

 

[LRB]

A very super good suggestion Mike. Mattybock, you really, really should take heed of that advice.

 

Agreed, and just so you understand, you don't really need a lot of tools to make a good rifle from a good kit. You don't need much more than a small assortment of wood carving chisels, a few files, sandpaper, a good stone to sharpen the chisels, a decent drill(drill press would be nice, but not needed), a couple taps and drill bits. What finally gave me a kick in the butt to try a flint lock by hand was a seeming never end of folder orders and I wanted to switch gears and get away from the surface grinder and mill for a while and do something by hand.