I know there are quite a few people on here that machine gun parts and I was wondering if anyone has ever purchased a form tool to machine parts to mount on a picatinny rail. Where did you purchase your cutter? How much was it? I have access to some HAAS machining centers and was thinking about playing around with making some light mounts etc.

I found this drawing that gives the dimensions and GDT info for the gun half of the rail.

Picatinny rail dimensions (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/M1913A_Rail_CrossSection.svg)

Anyone have any detailed upclose pictures of parts they have made to mate with a PR?

I believe the tool you speak of is called a mill :laughing:

Scott made some: http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=606095&highlight=picatinny

I know there are quite a few people on here that machine gun parts and I was wondering if anyone has ever purchased a form tool to machine parts to mount on a picatinny rail. Where did you purchase your cutter? How much was it? I have access to some HAAS machining centers and was thinking about playing around with making some light mounts etc.

I found this drawing that gives the dimensions and GDT info for the gun half of the rail.

Picatinny rail dimensions (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/M1913A_Rail_CrossSection.svg)

Anyone have any detailed upclose pictures of parts they have made to mate with a PR?

I'm still struggling to find something small enough to cut the part that goes on the rail. Since the rail is all external stuff, I can cut that with a fairly large cutter, but the relatively small internal cutting tool to do the mating piece, is proving to be harder than I thought to source.

I get most of my machining tooling from http://www.travers.com and occasionally from http://www.mscindustrial.com but because I haven't yet figured out how to do it right, I haven't yet made anything (other than a grooved set of vise jaws, and those were just a simple groove) that goes onto rail.

Isn't it a dovetail cutter?
Cut the femail item with a dovetail.

Drill tap, then split in half with a thin blade.

No sooner did I post that, than I found a small-enough-to-do-the-job inside dovetail cutter in the Travers catalog (hey, gimme a break, that catalog is almost three inches thick). :laughing:

I'm not really sure if cutting the whole profile and then splitting it would be ideal; most of the mounts I've seen are more like a 3/4 profile piece with a little clamp bit on one side, not a half-n-half deal. More CAD time for me, must figure it out....

can you post a pic of the cutter?

can you post a pic of the cutter?

Umm... I'm having a sucking-at-the-internet moment, but if you go to http://www.travers.com and browse their master catalog (it's all in PDF), the dovetail cutter I was thinking might work, is at the top of page 290. My sucking-at-the-internet is preventing me from figuring out how to link it directly, sorry. :(

Here

Here

i'm thinking something more like this to cut the full profile of the mount: http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PARTPG=INLMKD&PMPXNO=948042&PMAKA=367-7110 . i use this to make my rails. i am not sure if it is too thick to machine a mount with this particular one.

http://www.use-enco.com/ProductImages/0319920-11.jpg

i'm thinking something more like this to cut the full profile of the mount: http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PARTPG=INLMKD&PMPXNO=948042&PMAKA=367-7110 . i use this to make my rails. i am not sure if it is too thick to machine a mount with this particular one.

http://www.use-enco.com/ProductImages/0319920-11.jpg

That's what I was thinking about using, but I use my 45 degree spline cutting tool to cut rail, and it's 1-1/8" OD (way too big to cut inside-rail). The Travers page I pointed to (since I suck at the linkage) was for a 3/4" OD one like the one 300sniper posted above, that should work good for the inside. Just gotta wait for it to get here now.... :)