OK, finaly have an update ready. I buy mt barrels as blanks at the moment, so I have to machien them down to profile or have a local machine shop do it for me. I machined these on my 4 axis mill. It's a pain in the rear, but it works pretty good. I am talking with Shilen about getting them turned close to my finished contour, then I will take them from there.

Once I have the barrels turned down, I fit the shoe lump. I am able to machine it to almost fit off the mill, but it always takes a little work with a file. The shoe lump is then heat treated and tempered. While the shoe is in the oven, I machine the rib. I use a solid rib that I machine a trough on each side that the barrels mate to. It helps with alighnment and with a proper fit, it makes the barrel unit feel really solid even before soldering.

Here is a picture of the barrels, show lump and rib soldered together and partially cleaned

I assemble to parts with the barrels mounted on the spacer blocks at each end. I have the muzzels closer by a few thousandths each to provide an expected place to start for regulating. I set them on my mill table since it is as flat a surface as I have in the shop currently.

A picture of the breech end with recesses for the ejectors

A picture of the action, forend iron, and barrels

Finaly, a shot of the forend iron and action as they fit together. This is the fit directly off the wire EDM.

Next step is to begin machining the action to mate the major components. This is where it gets exciting!!

Bailey Bradshaw