How i cut my 18" handle version down to 16" (pictures)

[BowerR64]

First you need to check whats legal i think 16" is the minimum on rifles or "carbines" i have another tactical .22 and its 16" i wanted my 715T to fit into the same case. Once i added the flash hider the 18" barrel made it a little to longe to fit.

This is not an easy job if your not good with working on things and dont have the tools i wouldnt recomend it. I used a large vise mounted to a bench, hacksaw, dremel and a drill.

I used my cleaning rods and i inserted them into the muzzle with the slide closed. The rod stops at the breech face of the slide. Measures 18" so i measured down 2" and strted cutting. The cool thing about the handle version is it has a front strap mount that mounts around the barrel inside the front sight mount. I used a strip of tape and then slid the strap mount down over the tape and used it as a guide for my hacksaw. The saw chewed the strap mount up a little but nothing major the front sight hides the end anyway.

Took me a good 1/2 hour of constant cutting to get all the way threw, i kept turning it and cut about 1/16th" at a time till i got threw it. I then cleaned it up with a larger cutting disk in my dremel. All that i did on my lap with just hand tools. I then took the barrel down to the garage and mounted it in a vice between to blocks of wood. Chucked up these 1" ball grinding bits i got off e-bay in my drill and started to reshape the muzzle.

Once i got the end all the way down to the shape of the ball grider i cleaned it up with emery cloth i believe they are like 800 and 1000 then i worked down with wet dry sand paper to 2500. I got tired of hand sanding so i just put a crown on the inside with a brass tool and lappying compund i also got off e-bay. I may clean it up some more but i think this is good enough it should shoot fine like this and the flash hider covers the end so it doesnt need to be a mirror finish.

Cost me $13. for 5 1" ball grinders off ebay (pink ones)
The crown tool came with lapping compound it was also $13.
I had all the other tools, hacksaw, dremel, drill and emery cloth.

Stock muzzle shape and crown

This is the new muzzle shape and crown. Ill find out how it shoots soon.

You can kinda see the difference 2" made? *shrugs*

 

[leadgunner]

Nice! Good job on the mod BowerR64

 

[BowerR64]

Thanks took me about a days worth of work. Weird part was after i cut it i did minimal crown work to the end of the muzzle just used the ball grinder a little bit then use the crown lapping tool and went and shot it on the 3-31 and it shot as good as it did stock.

The last image of the muzzle in the second group is how i shot it on 3-31 and i was suprised how good it shot.

I have not shot it yet since i complete the end and put the flash hider back on then i also reblued it.

This is how it looked after 100 rounds on 3-31 the muzzle was just about half finished.

 

[BowerR64]

It shot great, i ran some CCI standard velocity threw it i got at the local gun shop it didnt skip a beat with it. ILl have to take the muzzle brake off now and take pictures of the blast pattern and post pictures of it.

As far as i can tell though it shoots the same as it did.