Anyone Replaced a Barrel Yourself?

[Turkey Huntsman]

It's a story that pains me to repeat again, but basically - the extremely poor assembly quality at Rossi led to a some local machining operations to my barrel notches to allow the cross screw to line up. In order to get the screw to pass and line up, the notches had to be cut so deep as to render the barrel unsafe for shooting! I've got a barrel that is now scrap metal and a new one is on it's way from Rossi - at my cost of course, even though my rifle never should have NEVER left their factory. $$$$$$$ Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Have you ever replaced an entire barrel on a 92? Might you have any tips/techniques/advice for how to do it? Looking for fixture designs to hold the receiver, and one to grab the barrel to unscrew it. What about setting headspace properly - what was your experience? Did your barrel need to be shimmed out, or turned off on a lathe to get the sights indexed at 12:00 and headspace properly set at same time? I'm working with an excellent local machinist who has proper equipment to do whatever needs to be done.

Thanks,
TH
San Diego, CA

[Ranch Dog]

I got your message but thought I would answer your post here. I think I would have a gunsmith install the barrel. With the issues of indexing and headspace plus recutting the slots for the screws, I would want someone with the know how to figure it out. Think about this, has the problem with the barrel needing to be deeply notched at the forearm gone away with a new barrel? I doubt it as you are going to be using the same forearm parts and barrel bands. The troubling issues you experienced probably are still there are they not?

[Turkey Huntsman]

I hear you loud and clear, Michael.

The large barrel band is a completely new one from Rossi, and it appears to be manufactured correctly this time - the screw on this one is properly angled perpendicular to the barrel/mag tube. I now believe that a lion's share of my previous issues were related to the barrel band being grossly mis-manufactured. To meet the threaded hole at the opposite end, the screw ended up at a >5% vertical tilt angle! Another issue was the fat part of the forearm being "too long" - preventing the barrel band from sitting far enough back so that the screw would be aligned with the barrel notches.

It was this combination of problems, rather well understood now - that created the original nightmare assembly. No wonder the factory assembler HAMMERED the barrel band screw into place...it was virtually impossible for it to align properly due to the barrel band and forearm-induced misalignments acting on both axis!

We will be extremely careful this time to make sure notches are not cut any deeper than the factory provided. As many guys here have had to do, we might need to widen or change the angle a bit, but NO DEEPER!!! Will use head-space go/no-go gauges per SAAMI.

If it doesn't look like things are going to line up properly, I'll ship the whole thing back to Rossi.

[Ranch Dog]

Very good!

Here are Brownell's Tips for headspacing a leveraction rifle: https://www.brownells.com/userdocs/learn/bt002024.pdf

[Turkey Huntsman]

Thank you!!!

[dalek]

A bit off-topic: how much was the barrel?

[Turkey Huntsman]

A 16" goes for $165, the 20" is $210 I believe.