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That old chestnut.

I have been contemplating having my S&W 15-22 barrel shortened to around 12 1/2 inches. I have spoken to some so called gunsmiths in the Birmingham area and they seem to enjoy quoting a low price of around £60-70 then when you actually get down to business it leaps to double the price. I know that the proof house charges £35 + vat.
Anyway, what I'm wondering is does the work have to be done by a gunsmith?
There are proof marks on the barrel at approx 13 inches. Does it still need reproofing if those marks are undisturbed?

Nelly2014 wrote:That old chestnut.

I have been contemplating having my S&W 15-22 barrel shortened to around 12 1/2 inches. I have spoken to some so called gunsmiths in the Birmingham area and they seem to enjoy quoting a low price of around £60-70 then when you actually get down to business it leaps to double the price. I know that the proof house charges £35 + vat.
Anyway, what I'm wondering is does the work have to be done by a gunsmith?
There are proof marks on the barrel at approx 13 inches. Does it still need reproofing if those marks are undisturbed?

Can of worms time

No it does not need to be done by a gun smith. But it does need to be done properly. Im not sure about the proofing thing but I think you if you are not intending to sell it you dont need to get it re proofed.
You could chop it off with a hack saw if you wanted but you need to be able to sort the muzzle out to an acceptible standard.
Depending on the type of rifle the gun smith may have to remove the barrel he needs to set it up and dial it in on the lathe. He would then use a parting tool to cut the bareel to lentgh. He then needs to re crown the barrel and lap it in. £60 or £70 sounds cheap to me.

Why do you need to shorten it any way whats the advantage of a 12"and a 1/2" barrel.

It won't need proofing unless you are removing metal from thickness of the barrel, for example if you screw cut the end. If you remove the barrel yourself any machine shop could do the work BUT you would have stay with it while it was done.

As a side note London Proof house now marks barrel at muzzle end to stop people avoiding reproof after screw cutting for a moderator

Andy Haines of Master Class Custom Guns did mine for about £100 IIRC including re-threading, re-crowning and re-proofing

I found a bulge inside the barrel on my ar15 22lr , I had difficutly getting good accuracy and decided finally to strip it and give it a thorough clean . Horror , I found a bulge approx 3.5" inches from the muzzle , as I bought the gun s/h at a realistic price I wondered if the previous owner knew . Anyway I set up the bbl in the lathe and parted it off at 13" , re-threaded it 1/2" x 28 , recrowned it , spot of instant blue and reassembled it . It shoots perfectly now and groups well with anything I put through it . Proof -- hahaha - no thanks, not necessary , I haven't disturbed any proof marks and haven't reduced the barrels strength in any way , a shorted ,therefore stiffer barrel is desirable and I don't doubt the quality of my work . A quick way of recrowning is use a crowning cutter which are cheap and available from "that auction site" complete with adaptors for different calibres so the hacksaw route is quite possible.

Well, it's done now. Went to see Richard Pope (Swift) and he did the job on the spot for the lower amount I mentioned before. I also bought one of his stumpy mods while I was there. I'm pleased with the look and shot it this morning. It feels more point-able somehow and accuracy is just the same. That Swift mod is great, better than the Saks I have.
If any one wants this done I would recommend Richard, contact me for details.
One thing; the barrel end looked strangely naked but after a dab of 'blue' it looked 'factory'

Did you have it shortened to 12 1/2,ide be intrested to hear ive gone to 14" only becouse theres some factory 14" but to be fair its short enough but i like short stuff and ime intrested to know if you did a before and after groups with same ammo etc .

smoothly wrote:Did you have it shortened to 12 1/2,ide be intrested to hear ive gone to 14" only becouse theres some factory 14" but to be fair its short enough but i like short stuff and ime intrested to know if you did a before and after groups with same ammo etc .

It's 13" now and I had the thread changed to the non-american one (whichever that is) to use standard mods. The proof marks are still there. Tbh I haven't noticed any difference in accuracy but I didn't do any tests. It's not bench rest so I'm not too bothered as long as it can hit a 2" target at 25m.