Basic Gunsmithing Tools

welcome back everybody there's this Eric and Ray here most pawn and gun and we're getting back to some of our how-to videos I know with shot show we had a whole lot going on and and we were just gone for a while there was a lot going on there's no doubt yeah so we're up to put up with exactly we're finally starting to get back in the shop and doing a little bit more of the gunsmithing and how-to stuff so what we thought would be a great first video to kind of introduce things again we're going to let Ray go over all of the basic gunsmithing tools that the hobbyist and professional gunsmith alike would do well to have in their shop and I'm going to let ray take over and he's just going to show you some excellent ideas for your home shop the problem this isn't necessarily going to be a comprehensive assortment of tooling but it will be something that the average home hobbyist and even the professional gunsmith should have on their bench there are a number of tools that you can procure from just about any hardware store some tools you can make yourself others you might want to purchase directly from a gunsmithing type supply house such as Brownells or Midway something of that nature alright well let's get started I'll get out of your way and race on takeover sounds good all right guys you can see my bench here this is where we work every day this is my main job and the tools that are necessary to do what I do every day are very basic in many cases some of the things we'll start with I think everyone should have would be number one as a good vise something like this that you can use to actually clamp your work so that you've got both hands available to do what needs to be done you can step away from it without it tipping over if you need to answer the telephone but this is a great vise that allows you to clamp your work you will also need to have a couple of different types of jaws these are soft jaws so I can clamp down on barrels and actions without damaging them yet still hold it firmly enough to do the work that needs to be done a set of hard jaws are also handy I've got these made out of a real heavy-duty phenolic these you can clamp down on things extremely hard yet it won't Mar the finish of the gun as long as you keep them clean the vise also has the feature of being able to rotate on a swivel base and you can also rotate the head left and right like so that gives you a lot of options as to how to hold the workpiece the other thing that is essential is going to be a good toolset good screwdriver set something that has hollow ground screwdriver bits they should be parallel towards the tip if they are tapered like the average dime-store screwdriver all you're going to do is damage the screws that you're trying to get out so make sure you buy some good hollow ground bits and get good quality bits they won't snap off or Bend brownells sells a variety of different ones you can also get them from I think wheeler has them I think that's through the ATK group that's a great tool set for a very reasonable price the other thing that you're going to need is a good assortment of punches of all types you're going to need starter punches you're going to need drift punches tapered pin punches and roll pin punches at the very least and you're probably going to want the sizes from about 1/16 on up to probably at least 5/16 possibly 3/8 of an inch and you'll just have to determine that as to how much work you're going to be doing in the types of work you're going to be doing the the punches are definitely a must-have item and by the by a decent quality tool a lot of the cheaper stuff from the dime store markets are going to bend and break real easy and end up more in your workpiece so buy some quality punches stair it makes good ones craftsman makes it very good when you pick up high quality tools from the Matt dealer from the snap-on dealer and such the other thing you'll need to make those punches work will be quality hammers and you can use a variety of different styles ball-peen hammers come in handy for a wide variety of different stuff you just want to make sure that the surface of the hammers always kept pretty clean same thing on your punches as you use them the heads will tend to mushroom slightly always grind that away so that you don't have any parts of your tools that want to get away when you're trying to impact and they'll shatter the speaking of that anytime you're working with any of your guns any gun parts Springs hammers and punches safety glasses are an absolute must if you guys wear prescription glasses to do your work you might consider getting a larger set with bigger coverage on your eyes and a lot of guys will wear just a small set of bifocals for clothes work but there's just not enough coverage on those to keep you from getting hurt get yourself a large pair of glasses just for close range work like this sometimes if you're depending on what your shop is like you might need some extra lighting something like one of these headlamps that you can get from any variety of vendors I use the surefire rechargeable which is great it gives you up to 500 lumens and Annis adjustable rheostat so you can actually put the light exactly where you need it with your hands totally free and you never happen to work in shadows the another assortment of tools that are probably going to be handy to have or an assortment of pliers and side cutters locking pliers like vise grips you can use to hold small parts while you're working on them with safe files or MOTO tools and that type of thing the the quality of those are not necessarily as important as they are for your screwdriver bits but it's good to have decent quality tools so it's better to spend a few more dollars on one or two pair of pliers that are really good than it is to spend you know one or two dollars on six pair that are nothing but junk end up marring your workpiece something that comes in really handy for doing a wide variety of small chores is going to be some form of mototool I've got the four table here that has an adjustable Chuck very similar it's a Jacob style chuck to what you'd see on a drill press or a hand drill and it allows you to put a variety of different sized tools in that you can change these out for an engraving tool and a couple of other interesting parts that you can get for these as well for helping you do other jobs the for tom is not necessarily an inexpensive tool you can get something like the Dremel maybe the multi Pro here this one I use as well it's got variable speed motor and it allows you to run three thirty second or one eighth inch diameter cutters and grinding tools it's not as powerful as the four Dom it doesn't give you the torque but in a pinch it'll do as long as you're aware of the limitations of the tool now when it comes to cleaning up around the workspace and making sure that you can see what you're doing a little bit of air is always a good thing to have whether you have a dedicated compressor or even a few cans of compressed air that you can use they can come in really handy just be aware that anytime you're blowing particles that you have your safety goggles on the other thing is you can also use it for spraying finishes like dirt coats error code and any number of other things you know media blasting and such if you've got a large enough compressor I'm not going to get too much into that today because that's all out in the other shop and those are equipment for the more advanced gunsmithing but even a small you know cabinet that you have at home on the bench top you can use for sandblasting and beat lasting and even doing home park rising which is fairly simple and I believe we've covered in other videos but we'll probably do it again sometime soon just to give everybody a overview and a little bit of an update on that other tools that come in really handy are bench blocks this allows you to drive pins on firearms without having to make up a particular block for each one these come with a variety of holes and notches in there to make it easier to support the workpiece when you're driving pins or pushing pins depending on how you do it speaking of pushing pins if you have an arbor press or a hydraulic press you can use that for pushing pins you just need to be careful because you don't always get the actual feel for what's going on with the press as much as you do when you're using a hand punch but either way works and that's a another tool that's probably a little bit more for the advanced user but they are very handy if you might already have one laying around your shop if you do a lot of automotive work and such some of the specialty tools that are real handy in my shop I'm always doing a at least two or three sets of sights every day for people this one is a Glock specific cool and this was made by mgw but you can get them from a variety of companies including Glock and it just allows you to have a linear push bar to remove and install sights and most of them work for the rear side and some also work for the front side depending on the Glock or the model of gun not necessarily the Glock but with the Glock you're going to have a tool like a little tool of this nature to remove and install front sights something else that every gunsmith or even hobbyist is going to need at some point in time is going to be cleaning materials high-quality rods patches and brushes I don't necessarily have to show each of those but everybody should have an assortment for the calibers that they're going to be using lubrication and cleaning supplies or another item will use a lot of the LPS products here they are excellent they've been around for many many years but they're just now getting into the firearms marketplace and you'll be seeing a lot more of them because they are hell of a good product we'll be carrying them you can also get them through places like Grainger and some of the other industrial supply type stores if you guys have any mechanic friends aircraft mechanics they can pretty much match for you that the quality of those materials are quite good and they have an excellent assortment of lubricants greases and even even these hand wipes that are great just to wipe off real quick with if you've got to answer the phone or something that way you don't have to run to the washroom every time you need to clean up measuring devices handy got to have them for measuring barrel lengths link the pool variety of different other measuring needs in the shop basic measuring tape is handy adjustable square a good quality square because you're going to use this a lot of times when you're squaring up stocks and when you're doing other layout work these can also be used in a number of other situations especially when you're centering up screw holes on a buttstock pad installation you're going to use two of the 90 degree heads and put them together on here in stick them stick the stock between and you've got a nice straight line it's real easy to lay it out that way other things that I found indispensable in the shop are going to be hemostats of all types a variety of size is good for holding small parts and Springs things of that nature maybe you need to temper a spring or a small part you can clamp it in that and then hold it while you torch it up and get it nice and hot a small torch is great for a variety of reasons number one is excellent for helping you loosen up and the breasted or stuck screws and pins a little bit of penetrating lubricant such as KB 88 or Croyle or something of that nature and a little bit of applied heat will go a long way as to getting any of those stuck items loose this is a nice little handy sized torch but you can use pretty much anything including oxy-acetylene just beware that that gets really hot and you can do some quick damage to something with that the variety of impact tools some that are not going to Marv like this hard plastic you can lock a lot of things around with this without leaving any marks or denting any even soft materials like aluminum it generally won't damage them the next few things that we're going to talk about or maybe how to hold the weapon easily we've got a Tipton gun vise down here that we put on on the bench every so often to hold weapons when we're doing bedding and when we're doing scope mounting and such and it just gives you an extra free hand and a solidly you know solid ability to hold it while you're getting that work done even if you have to walk away from it for a few minutes you can even leave it hooked up into that and move it somewhere else without actually disturbing it you just pick up the whole vise and set it aside somewhere else the few things here that may be a little bit advanced for some but are available if you need them are going to be crowning tools that you can use by hand you don't necessarily have to have a lathe to do this with you can use these on a lathe if you have one but the the tools themselves are meant to be there turned by hand with a little t-handle or with an attachment that allows you to run it in a drill motor at very low rpm and you can buy these as a complete kit with all the different pilots and sizes that you need for doing everything from crowning barrels to cutting forcing cones and a variety of other chamfering and turning operations that you might do with firearms each of these can be bought individually as replacement items or as smaller sets and it's just a great tool to have not the cheapest thing to have but very handy if you're going to get into hobby gunsmithing or full-time gunsmith a trigger pull gauges a must one of the things that most people are going to ask about our reduced weights of trigger pull on sale your revolvers hunting rifles match type rifles and long-range accuracy guns so you need to know where you're starting at and where you're going to because if not it's just an arbitrary decision that you make versus something you know that you can repeat and show the customer that you've done measuring instruments we talked about tapes and rulers earlier now we need to have something a little bit more precise set of dial or vernier calipers are very handy to have they will give you a lot of information and they're relatively precise they're not the end-all be-all for precision but they're great for about 99 percent of the work that you're going to do just always keep them clean keep them in their original box and put them away when you're not using them so they don't get damaged or miss calibrated if you need ultimate precision and we need to get the actual set of digital micrometer or standard micrometer that's that's the gold standard there when it comes to cleaning up work that you may have say replaced aside or needing to replace lights on a gun oftentimes they come in a little bit oversized for the size of the dovetail that you need to work on and you can get these individually manufactured dovetail files they only cut on one side and they're sharp to the corners and they come in a variety of different degrees you can get this one is like 65 degrees you get them in 60s and a few other sizes if need be but they are very handy and they allow you to fit the dovetails very precisely without unsightly cuts and over cuts checkering files or another item that are very handy and not terribly expensive and can make you some real good money because if you've got the patience for it you can do an awesome checkering job on a handgun say the front strap or back strap trigger guard whatever with the file just like this all it takes is a bit of patience and you know the understanding of how to fixture it up and and take this tool and make some money with it but they can work very good you can also use these for sir a ting replacement front sights or rear sights if you want to cut down on the layer another set of files that are real handy for getting into small areas are called Riefler files these are used by dye sinkers and die makers and they're very small have a ton of different shapes and sizes you can get down into some very small nooks and crannies to you know remove burrs or to baby polish out some machining marks if necessary one other type of file that's not is often seen but can be very handy it's called a thread file this unit has teeth on it that are manufactured to the specific pitch of the screws or the shaft that might be already threaded so you can pick out what size thread pattern that this using and you can use this as a standard file to remove any flattened or damaged spaces on your on your threads very handy very very handy get you out of a ton of trouble and a lot of auto mechanics or familiar with this than gunsmiths are but they are handy they work very very well and if you don't know what pitch the threads are that you're working with you'll need to set up pitch gauges these coming both SAE and metric and you can get them an AK man a few other thread pitch types as well for the most part you can look them up and figure out what the thread pitches are without having gauges just by searching the internet if you know what you're looking for if you're not sure what you're looking for then having a set of gauges will remove any guesswork as to what this threads are when it comes to doing scope pounce almost every gun smith is going to have to have some form of drill and tap kit gun screws are gun screws there's very few other things in industry that use the types of sizes and the thread pitches the gun screws used so you're going to have to buy very specific drilling taps for those the drills themselves are standard as far as the wire gauge sizes but the pitches on the threads are very unusual oftentimes extremely fine you'll see that like six before t eight is probably the most common thread you're going to run into and in gunsmithing it's used for all types of mounting of scope basis and as well other types of sites and small accessories but the tool like this is invaluable yes you do end up breaking taps and wearing drill bits out but each of the items within the kit is replaceable individually or you can even buy those taps oftentimes from the bigger supply houses like say Grainger without having to go to too much trouble you might have to order them but places like Brownells amid way they more or less keep those items in stock all the time these punches that I'm going to grab right here are call transfer punches and they're cylindrical in shape and they have a small tit in the front and the center so that if you've got a particular hole that you want to transfer to another item say you're putting a scope mount on a weapon that does not have holes already drilled in it we will need to indicate that scope mount on the center and then you can use this to transfer each of the holes to the top of the receiver then you can easily go to the drill press and drill them nice and straight on the straight same line these are not expensive they don't have to be expensive you can get a basic set from I believe I got these at Northern Tool and it was probably no more than about 30 bucks for three different sizes you got fractional letter and decimal sizes for the whole set with the tools that I've already shown you there definitely a bunch of others I'm going to show you a few more I'm sure this is not going to cover everything and I know that you guys are standing there thinking hey you need to show me this you need to show me that because I've got this on my bench too you probably do and I've probably got it as well but these are some of the things that I just wanted to show you're going to try to keep this from being a terribly long video we do have plans to do an advanced gunsmithing video you know as far as the accessories and tools that you might need for that but these come in very handy for removing stocks and other items on your guns just a standard set of sockets with some extensions if you can't get it off that way we'll take a hacksaw to it that will get it off the adjustable wrench is a really handy item to have these are great for a variety of different things just general work around the tool shop you know you might have to adjust your vise before you can use it on your gun you're going to need this to do that with or socket set the set of feeler gauges I've got here a pretty comprehensive they allow you to measure down to one thousandth of an inch then on up to I believe 20 thousands plus and these are very nice to have so that you can measure a barrel cylinder gap in shape head space on revolvers and such and you've got to have at least one or two sets of basic feeler gauges they're not terribly expensive so go ahead and get some of those the other thing you might want to get depending on what you work on our variety of headspace gauges if you do a lot of barreling or if you do a lot with surplus weapons these come in really handy especially if you're going to gun shows and just want to do a quick check you can drop one of these in the chamber of a gun and know right off the bat whether it's going to be loose or whether it's good to go invaluable tool because these these little tools here not terribly expensive maybe 30 bucks apiece and these can save all types of problems you know you get a gun that's way out of headspace and you fire it it's going to come apart the cases might blow and you get a face full of hot gases at 30 or 40 thousand psi you don't want that these type of tools are used for getting chokes in and out of shotgun barrels especially if they're stuck there few other ways to get them out but these are the most basic ways they just fit down in the barrel you turn the knob they expand and grab the choke internally so there's no way to mark the choke with this so you're going to get it out or it's not if it's not going to get it out that way then you have to resort to other means a little more drastic dummy rounds action proving dummies these are the best way for the gunsmith to check the function of a weapon without actually firing it putting live ammunition on your bench is a no-no keep it away from your bench because you may not be the one that puts it in the gun somebody else may come to your bench and think that it's just a dummy around or whatever make sure that all your dummy rounds are marked as such or like these Pak Myers they don't look anything like around you can actually see the spring in the a zoom they're solid you know they've got a little nylon bumper in the bottom of them now these of course they do look like rounds but if you look closely you can see where they've got the crushed insides to show that your dummies and the primers have already been mashed in the a variety of different calibers of dummies are good to have at least four or five of each and you can also teach people how to use and load their guns if they're having difficulties with that another item is nice to have and is not expensive and it's 100% reusable would be Sarah safe alloy it's just a very low temperature by metal alloy that has a very very low shrinkage rate and the reason that's a good thing is because you can actually pour this into the chamber of a weapon if you're not sure of what the caliber is or if you just need to mentions on that chamber and it doesn't shrink to any large degree enough to where you can get dimensional measurements down to below a thousandth of an inch another good thing is used for is removing stuck cases from chambers and we're going to go through that one day not today but I'll show you how that's done simple and easy to do and you can reuse the removable tool and it's not good for just one caliber is good for all calibers which is very cool about that a bore sighting device is not necessary but it is really handy it'll save your customers a ton of ammunition and trying to get the gun sighted in it'll also give you a really good idea as to how well the scopes have been set up and everything or if you've got a scope that's in question you can put a bore sighting device in the weapon and you can track the scope with the bore sighting dot this one is a particular model from sight light it's a SL 100 red laser very bright laser and you can see it even in even in some fairly bright daylight they make a green version of this which is even more awesome you can use it you know bright sunlight for a couple hundred yards away they're not the cheapest thing in the world level they are solid they made out of stainless steel on aluminum very heavy duty housing highly recommend that it's a great tool to have there are cheaper bore sighters out there and there are caliber specific units that you can get as well all of them come in pretty handy some are better than others just maybe look at your reviews online before you decide on one of them because it's going to be an autumn you'll probably use a lot once you get it and I know all the AR guys are wondering where we're going to get into the AR tools that's a very popular item I know the number one tool to have is going to be the combination wrench this is just one particular model this is made and sold by Tapco but pretty much any company that sells parts and accessories for ARS are going to have these and you need one or two or three just depending on how much AR work you do the other item that you're going to need if you're going to be doing reburial jobs are the receiver clamp and internal receiver support these items are invaluable if you try to clamp the receiver of an AR with anything besides one of these are probably going to damage it and I've seen a number of them damaged and had to repair them or replace the receivers on them so spend the money on these they're not bad and get a set from somewhere between twenty and fifty dollars depending on the manufacturer of that block set this is not going to be the last tool that we'll cover but it's probably one of the most valuable tools that you're going to have is a portable hand drill you don't necessarily have to have a battery powered unit but it certainly is handy let's go this guy does everything from drilling small holes to cleaning gas ports out to honing shotgun barrels with ball homes and a wide variety of other projects in the shop maybe setting up your shop bench with a new vise you're going to need something like this to drill the holes in your bench it can also be used if you are putting together say a scope mount or hand rail has a bunch of screws in it to turn your torque setting down to the least possible amount you put a bit driver extension in there and then you can just run each of the screws down and they have a pretty repeatable torque setting if you use it in the manner that it's supposed to be used in just just run it against the the tool and just let it just let it run against the torque stop and then come back and hand tighten the rest of it down it'll save you a lot of time when you're putting a lot of screws in an item that pretty much covers most of the tools not all of course but most of them you know you're going to need some writing utensils marking utensils you might want some dike in or spray die for marking parts for layout or just to kind of see where the wear parts are when item I didn't put out on the bench but I know a lot of you think about are probably going to be stones Arkansas hard stones and soft stones for doing action honing and trigger jobs I do have some diamond files and homes that I use for a variety of different things sharpening tools if you do checkering you're going to need some stones for sharpening your checkering tools regularly or else you're not going to be a good checker the other thing is that you can use these for touching up small burrs on Asians were possibly a screw head that may have gotten damaged the other two tools that I use on a regular basis they're getting into not necessarily advanced but again into the shop tools such as the drill press I've got a knee drill press over here that sits on top of my bench and I've got an XY axis Palmer and vise on it which allows me to precisely locate holes in an item and transfer them over or drill them that's a tool that may not necessarily be high on your list of needs but once you use it if you drill a lot of holes setting up scope mounts and things it's a really handy item to have and another item we use a lot is a belt sander disc sander used for fitting parts especially if you're fabricating odds-and-ends like we have to do on the Saiga conversions and on the fugly manufacturing there's not a fugly store out there we have to manufacture most all the parts that we put on these guns and although they may start out as a product for say a shotgun or another rifle they're going to be modifications that need to be made to it so the belt sander the drill press they all come in pretty handy well guys we appreciate you watching the video today I appreciate Ray taking the time to actually you know show us all of this stuff because you know he's been gunsmithing professionally for several years so I figure it's good to have information from the horse's mouth so to speak but we have many more gunsmithing videos on the way many more how-to videos if there's something that you'd like to see you know special just for you leave your comments below and if it's something we can get to we'll be more than happy to do it we have many more how-to videos on the way lots more cool content in the pipeline we appreciate your support and we appreciate your business if you have any questions just give us a call at the shop and we'll do everything we can to help absolutely you guys have a good day thanks you

Channel: Iraqveteran8888

Views: 316,799

Rating: 4.9412255 out of 5

Keywords: reelmen8888, walking dead, iv8888, iraqveteran8888, mall ninja, fps russia, eric and barry, eric and berry, prepper hillbillies, game of thrones, zombies, moss pawn, moss shop, Moss Group Securities, 88 industries, How To, Gunsmithing Tools, Gunsmith, Tools for Gunsmithing

Id: K8ACFELMCms

Length: 30min 37sec (1837 seconds)

Published: Mon May 12 2014