Feat of the Week: Custom Machining
Welcome to our weekly blog post! Each “Feat of the Week” features firearm(s) we have worked on recently. These are showcases of our repair work, custom machining, Cerakote, or a combination of services. We are excited to share our gunsmithing feats with you!
This week’s feat focuses on three recent custom machining jobs: a TikTok famous barrel, raptor cuts on a pistol slide, and a custom made aluminum thread protector. Machining is one of my favorite parts of gunsmithing, and I can’t wait to share the stories about my South Bend Lathe and Bridgeport Mill. So let’s get started!
The TikTok Famous Barrel
Make/Model: Remington 700
Caliber: 300 Remington Ultra Mag
Finish: Polished Stainless by The McCluskey Arms Company
Custom Features:
Barrel Threading by McCluskey Arms
Muzzle Brake from Vais Arms
ThE story
This barrel became TikTok famous overnight with almost 5 million views now. It's a Remington 700 chambered in 300 Remington Ultra Mag with a muzzle brake from Vais Arms. Our customer bought the muzzle brake for his wife because she wanted a gun that recoiled less when they hunt big game. This muzzle brake Vais was the perfect solution as it reduces recoil by 50-60%.
Vais Arms muzzle breaks are some of my favorite to install because their products perform well, look sleek, and are reasonably priced. Not to mention the owner of Vais attended the same gunsmithing school as me in Trinidad, Colorado!
Using my South Bend Lathe, I threaded the barrel and tuned the muzzle brake to fit perfectly. It’s an awesome machine that I bought off Craigslist—driving to Seattle and back in one day. This lathe is close to my heart for two reasons. First, because it’s the exact same lathe we used in gunsmithing school at Trinidad State. I was super excited to purchase a lathe that I was familiar with. I love working on this machine and know it like the back of my hand. And the second reason this South Bend lathe is close to my heart is because it was our first big purchase at McCluskey Arms. Our ability to purchase this was a sign of our exponential growth and our first step in expansion. Buying this lathe allowed us to expand our services offered—now I can provide lathing services like barrel threading to my customers.
After threading the customer’s barrel on the South Bend and matching it to the muzzle brake, I made a video to post on Instagram. If you follow me on social media or read our blogs regularly, you know I record video and take photos of a lot of my work.
My friend Justin—the owner splinter cam Glock we featured in our first post—asked if he could post it to his TikTok account. Quickly it became a hit. People were memorized by the line that disappeared and impressed by the perfect fit. I doubt most people on TikTok knew what exactly they were looking at, but it seemed to give them satisfaction. Many claimed the video was suggestive in nature, but I’ll leave that up to you to decide.
Raptor Cuts
Make/Model: CZ P-09
Caliber: 9mm
Custom Features:
Raptor cut by McCluskey arms
Optic Cut by McCLuskey ARms
The Story
A lot of my custom machining jobs come from customers who see something they like on a friends gun or on the internet. They show me a picture and ask, “Can you do this?” This customer brought his CZ slide in and showed us a picture of custom cuts he had seen on the internet. Tweaking the design a little bit, we machined these “Raptor Cuts” onto his slide. They’re kind of a mix between window cuts and lightening cuts. I love this design on the CZ slide because they match the geometry of the slide really well.
Before machining on the slide, I designed the cuts in CAD. I made sure the dimensions on each cut were correct. Then, I programmed the pattern into the CNC box attached to my mill. Before pressing Go, I did a test run to make sure everything is correct. You can see the CNC hard at work in this video.
As I’ve said in previous blog posts, machining is one of my favorite parts of gunsmithing. I love the design process, the programming process, and ultimately the removal of material. Isn’t it satisfying to see the metal chips fly off the machine?
This mill is my baby. Before I got this CNC Bridgeport, I had been doing all of my machining on a mini-mill I had purchased for only $900. While it got the job done, it was extremely inefficient and not ideal. But getting this Bridgeport and the CNC attachment up and running was quite the saga—an adventure full of searching the internet for deals and crossing my fingers.
I got this mill from a friend of Josh, our customer who had the orange and black CZ feat of the week. We drove up to his house outside of Portland to see this Bridgeport he had for sale. He had several machines—multiple CNC mills, a large CNC lathe, and many other fun toys. He had been an owner of a machine shop for a while and clearly had a lot of success. He also collected tractors—he had two huge sheds full of old and refurbished tractors. A collector of heavy machinery, this man could talk for hours about each piece of equipment. He knew the in’s and out’s of every machine.
After touring his collections, he demonstrated that the mill worked and showed us that it was in great condition. This was a great find, and I was super excited to have the opportunity to purchase it. The mill had been converted into a CNC, but recently, the computer attachment had broken. He wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong with it but was hoping for our sake it was just the screen. Knowing the computer was broken, we purchased the mill anyway. Even if the CNC didn’t work, a full-size manual mill was way better than the mini-mill I had been working on.
The CNC computer box is ancient. At least ancient for technology—the thing still uses floppy disks. Buying an updated CNC computer would cost thousands of dollars so I set out to fix the one that came with the Bridgeport. I called the manufacturer of the box, and they quoted an insanely high price to fix it or buy a new one. So, instead, I called around and scoured the internet for a used one. I found someone who had one in his attic somewhere. He wasn’t sure if it worked, but I bought it anyway. I’d rather risk buying a broken computer for a few hundred bucks than drop thousands of dollars on a new piece of out-dated hardware.
Low and behold, I got the box to work. But during my first few practice cuts, smoke started to come out and there was a burning smell. The motor had burned out. So once again, I scoured the internet and called around. Luckily, there was someone just outside of Portland who had several of the motors I needed. We drove up to his shop to take a look. He had piles of things—thousands of things, everywhere. It was a huge shed full of anything and everything you could think of, and somehow he knew exactly where everything was.
I bought a few motors and a few other machining accessories, and within a few days, the mill was up and running again. I couldn’t have asked for a better machine. And while the CNC conversion is ancient, it allows me to be much more productive. I’ve nailed down all my processes and certain jobs like optic cuts are incredibly efficient now.
Custom Thread Protector
The Story
A customer brought in his ultra-light hunting rifle and asked us to match the Cerakote color. He had found us through a basic Google search. Whoever had previously tried to color match had done a terrible job. It wasn’t even close!
The customer had mentioned in passing that the person who had custom built his ultra-light rifle made the thread protector out of steel. He thought that it was ridiculous that he had paid a ton of money for an ultra-light rifle and didn’t get a thread protector made of aluminum. So after we matched the Cerakote perfectly, I decided to make him a more fitting thread protector out of some left-over aluminum I had from another job. The only thing I love more than machining is machining aluminum. I enjoyed making this part and it machined beautifully on my lathe. Plus, I figured his ultra-light rifle needed an ultra-light thread protector.
Learning how to use the lathe was one of my favorite parts of gunsmithing school. Machine Shop was my favorite because I enjoyed learning how the lathe works and learning all the math behind it. It’s an incredible tool that has changed and developed over a long period of time.
In fact, some historians say that the first lathes date back to Ancient Egypt over 3,000 years ago. Archeologists have found artifacts similar to lathes dating back to 600 BC in both Italy and China. But the lathe’s most important role occurred during the Industrial Revolution—some even call it the mother of all machine tools. This is because it allowed people to invent and manufacture other various machine tools using power from horses and later from steam.
Now, with new technology, machines are powered by motors and run by computers. Hopefully, whenever we get the capital, we can purchase a CNC lathe. That would allow me to create parts and accessories en masse while I can turn barrels on my South Bend. But that’s probably a little bit farther in the future.
NEXT UP
We hope you enjoyed this week’s gunsmithing feat. Thank you for following along! Our next feature will be posted Monday, September 14th at 9am. Comment for any content you want to see.
If you loved the services you saw today, check out our online store! You can start shopping by clicking here. Or drop us a message here. If you’re interested in seeing more machining videos, check out our video gallery or YouTube Channel! And don’t forget to follow us on social media! We look forward to meeting you and gunsmithing for you.