To my knowledge there is three general ways to remove these breaks. There is the
drill and unscrew method (which I might had done if I had seen that thread before I started tonight), the lathe method (I have the lathe but no live center yet), and the split and pry method. I had seen the split and pry method done on the forums back in the 90's (1997-1998?) and I decided to do that method as I knew I could control the dremel tool pretty well....
Following are the steps:
1. Verify your barrel is a pin and welded break... like above.
2. Remove the gas tube
3. Gas tube gone.
4. Mount the barrel in a set of barrel blocks and crank her down with the welded pin up.
5. Ready to start cutting
6. Lengthwise cut right through the weld.
7. Grind down until you start seeing signs of the threads... go SLOW when you get close!
8. This was close... I went until I could see a regular pattern in the break indicating the threads were close.
9. Rotate the barrel 180-deg and do the top of the barrel next.
10. After I got down to the threads again I used a chisel and tried to split the break... didn't work real well
11. More spreading...
12. Used the anvil portion of the vise and split that bitch off there!
13. Once the break was split, she twisted right off the barrel by hand.
14. No damage to the threads except for where the pin was located.
15. The crown had no damage!
16. Gem-Tech TPR-S Bi-Lock mount
17. Threading the Bi-Lock onto the barrel
18. My AR-10 is ready for a Gem-Tech TPR-S... too bad I am flat broke and baddly in debt!
Tools Required:
1. Vise
2. Barrel Blocks
3. Dremmel tool with Fiberglas cutting wheels
4. Good Sized hammer
5. A couple chisels
This took about an hour to do.... Hope this helps.... I hope to use the lathe with the removal of my next break!
Threaded Mode