"A Wooden Iowa Rifling Bench "
Steve
Bookout and I wrote
a 2nd edition to the
book on
how to build A Wooden Iowa Rifler
similar to those built over a hundred years ago for the purpose of rifling gun barrels.
The 2nd Edition now has more advance techniques added to speed up the rifling
process. Steve
had already built a couple riflers, but this one is a design
Steve had been pondering over for a long time. Last Fall we decided to
build it from scrap, and in the process we took photos and wrote down all the
necessary steps, including a lot of helpful hints and about 150 photos and
illustrations.
(Click on photos for larger image)
The result was a manual comprised of three books. The first book shows how to build the special lathe. The second book has patterning, cutting and constructing the rifler. The third book shows how to actually use the rifler and in the process, we did in fact, rifle a four foot barrel. The book is concise and to the point, without a lot of flowering expertise flowing to fill the pages. The book is 58 pages, in black & white printing, but full of detailed information.
The NEW 2nd Edition that has been Revised & Expanded and is the method used in American Pioneer's new DVD!
The interesting thing about the rifler is it
can be set up to rifle any barrel regardless whether it is blackpowder or a
modern rifle. You, the builder, can modify the rifler to meet your
needs. Plus it has been expanded to include more aggressive
rifling techniques. Thus reducing time spent.
"Bookie" rifled a barrel for a half-stock in less than an hour!
This rifler can be built with common shop tools for less than 50-60 bucks. If you only want to rifle short barrels, you don't even have to build a long lathe! You can customize it to fit your own particular needs by changing the dimensions, grooves, or rate of twist to suit. This pattern is highly adaptable. "Bookie" an' I will autograph your copy if you want.
{Sample Contents Page - click on images}
What's not covered is other methods of rifling, other styles of benches, or gain twist. What you do get is knowledge of how we rifle barrels here in Iowa. If we can do it, you can, too. The end result is a rifled barrel, but the question is: Is the barrel gonna shoot ACCURATE? All things being equal, when you can cover 3 shots, off hand at 50 yards, with a quarter dollar, I'd say: CASE CLOSED!
What we've been told by other gun masters who've purchased the book, is that this is the best rifling book ever written on the subject. They went on to say it would have saved them years of trial and error, if only we had written it many years earlier. We've sold books to people worldwide.
Received a great review in the July/August 2006 issue of Muzzleloader magazine from Mike Nesbitt in "Prime Possibles" on our 1st Edition. Jim Wright of Pioneer Video plans to sell this book with the new upcoming rifling video featuring Steve Bookout, my co-author, very soon.
Here is the article (click on it to enlarge) -->
[Used with permission from MUZZLELOADER magazine]
Books are no longer available. (Sorry)
On December 30th, 2004 we rifled a barrel at Toad Hall Rifleshop. Here is a link to a dedicated page with some photos from that day using the wooden rifler to rifle a .44 caliber rifle. Link--> Rifling Day
------------------------------------ ATTENTION Book Owners!!! --------------------------------------------------
1st Edition Rifling Book Error Discovered
NOTICE!!
Please print this sheet for your own use.
23 Jan 2006
Regardless, no matter how hard you try, some things still manage to fall through the cracks. It was thought that Al and I had all the bugs out of our book, "A Wooden Iowa Rifling Bench", as it must have been proof-read a jillion times, but Mike Ebner out to the Pine Ridge 7 Ranch still discovered a couple of those pesky critters! A tip of the hat to him for helping us out. If these errors have caused you any grief, I sincerely apologize.
In short, the stringer mounting holes in the handle are mis-spaced and do not line up correctly with the stringer holes at the opposite end.
1. Page 24 under TAIL STOCK GUIDE, Para. 1: "Cut a piece of 2X6 board" should read: "Cut a piece of 2X8 board...". Also, please change the final dimension of 5-//16" listed in this paragraph to 6". Para. 3: Hole dimension is listed as 1-15/16" and should read 1-5/8".
2. Page 26, Para.. 3 & Figure 57: Please change the 3-5/8" dimension to: 4-3/4".
Please note that all books purchased after the 23 Jan 06 date will have these amendments included and any other updates that were required .
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(c) Copyright 2005. All Rights Reserved.