Reducing barrel to minimum NFA length

Here's my patented non-gunsmith home barrel cut down instructions:

Measure the barrel to locate the cut off line.
Measure the barrel again.
Have a friend measure the barrel.
Measure it yourself one more time.
(Mistakes are not correctable, or forgiven by the BATF).

Wrap a piece of tape around the barrel at the cut line to use as a cutting guide.
Use a high-tension hacksaw frame with a new fine toothed blade.
Make a shallow two or three stroke cut in the barrel. (Make SURE you're cutting on the right side of the tape. See above about BATF).

After making a shallow cut, rotate the barrel and make another shallow cut, continuing to make shallow cuts and rotating the barrel until there's a shallow line all the way around the barrel.

Then just continue the process of making a couple of strokes and rotating the barrel until the barrel is cut through.

Lightly file the muzzle to remove cutting marks, then wrap some fine metal-type sand cloth over your thumb and use that to break the sharp inner muzzle edges.
Use a fine-cut file to remove the sharp outer edges of the muzzle, and touch up with cold blue.

The tape and shallow cut method prevents the saw cut from "drifting" and leaving an angled cut. This prevents having to try to square up the muzzle with files, since if you're careful, this will produce an almost perfectly square cut.

If you'd like a front bead, Brownell's sell a Remington-type bead on a small base that can be attached with soft solder. This too can be don at home.

MAKE SURE that the shottie stays over 26" OAL, too. An 18.5" barrel won't matter if it's under legal limit for length, now will it?




I can hear the BATF coming!

Cabelas has this for $15 :


you may need some type of adhesive to keep it in place without a bead. The notch shown on the front uses the bead to keep the sight from turning or sliding forward with recoil.

Alright, I just don't want to see good folks go to Club Fed.

Another good way to make your initial mark for the barrel is to use a tubing cutter to score the barrel lightly.

Click to expand...

that sounds even better than the tape method.

Do be careful with a tubing cutter--they can drift if there's any taper to the barrel.

Personally, I just hack at 19", file smooth, spin against a 400 grit belt on my Wilton, buff on a buffing wheel and black teflon paint.

I like that extra inch for legal safety, and it isn't much of a hindrance.

Got a Stevens 94 with 12, 16, 20, .410 barrels in various lengths. It's somewhere in this picture.

i chuck it up in the lathe between centers, dial it in and part it off.