Flat Bending

[Wrangler]

You can buy a 12 ton press from Homier for about $50.00, I did a few months ago.

[my-rifle]

In that case I'm going to have to get a press. Does the vice damage the die? Remember I'm trying to get information here not suggesting a way to do this. I'm going to look into renting one from a nearby equipment rental place. I found a press on eBay for $50 too, but it costs $80 to ship to me. That puts us back to $130. To get that back out of the deal I have to make five receivers. That's why I was asking about the alternative to the shop press.

[Quarterbore]

You don't need a huge press for bending the flats... 3-ton or larger will do it. The advantage with the 12-ton to 20-ton press is that you can also press your barrels, headspace, do rivets, etc... The small presses will not do that.

Look at your local hardwares or farm supply places, or similar shops and you will find them. Harbor freight often puts their 12-ton press on sale for $99 and shipping on that is only $10 as I recall...

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=33497

HF also sends out 20% off coupons via e-mail every month or so and if you get one of those the price is down around $90 shipped for a new 12-ton H-press.

As for a vise, the jig is pretty darned large so unless you have a huge vise I doubt it will work well for you and frankly here again I request that the tools be used the way they were supposed to be used or I am really not willing to rent them. It isn't fair to the next person in line and it sure isn't fair to me when the tools get damaged.

[ShuckersFan]

I bought a 12 ton press from Homier at one of their travelling sales for $49. You can go to their website, homier.com and see the locations for the sales. They will also email you when a sale is in your area. There just happened to be one about 40 miles from me at about the same time I needed the press. Otherwise Harbor Freight is the way to go. You can get 20% off coupons for them off eBay for $3-$5 for use at retail locations. They come in those coupon books they sell for fund raising.

[Wrangler]

I got mine when they came to town too. Or with HF you can get a 20% coupon emailed to you for free from HF if you are on their email list.