Looking for some input on a easy to use cnc mill to make ar type lowers. I would like to run pallet or tombstone and run a few off at once. What does the hive got for me?

Your request is mutually exclusive.  Pallets/tombstones and easy to use do not generally go together.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say if you have to ask the question, you probably dont know enough to be able to use a surface plate and measuring instruments to QA what the machine is putting out and adjust to get everything dialed in.

Nor the room, budget or power to support it.

I'd go Makino a51nx...just because I've always wanted a Makino.

In a home shop a manual machine can make a lower.

I suppose a Tormach would be about the minimum fir cnc. I think you can get a bare bones basic starter machine for under 10 grand, then you need a few grand for minimum tooling. Nice little hobby machines.

https://tormach.com/machines/mills.html

Cnc works better at scale, high HP machines with modern cutting tool that have insane material removal rates. You don't make a few lowers with one of those, you make a thousand.

I've posted this before but-

I bought my VMC4020 for $7500.  After rigging/transport, holders/studs/collets, vises (2), coolant, air/electrical hookup, CAD/CAM (F360), all the other shit...I was about 20k in before I made a part.  I already had cutters and measurement gear and about a decade of machining experience.  4 years later, I still break shit, usually in $40 or $50 increments because a 1/2" 4fl is my absolute go to tool and Haimer probes are fragile.

Thank god I haven't crashed the Mazak, but I do think it needs a turret alignment soon.

Machining isn't cheap.  Thinking that it can be is like thinking that your ex is somehow less annoying this time.  Neh, she ain't.  One thing CNC is REALLY good at doing is perfect repetitive action, including are your messed up dimensions.  Scrap parts always end up with the best finishes though, like some sadistic smite from the Gcode overloards.

But there's at least one guy on PM with a brand new Speedio x700 in his garage as a toy.  Ballers dollars.

Ghost Gunner 3 80% CNC finishing machine.

$2500, fits on a desktop, and doesn’t require anything goofy or a lot of know how.

As a cheaper option, if you wanna learn how to wire stuff up the Precision Mathew mills are pretty popular cnc conversions. Centroid Acorn control is a pretty low learning curve to hook up and use too.

I have a bridgeport with a dro on xyz and i have a Acer 1740G. I also have a granite plate and gauges that all came out of a shop that did all aerospace work. The owner retired and sold off everything. Right now I own a 5,000 sq/ft building that is 1,000sq office and 4,000 sq warehouse. The warehouse is my playground. I build my own engines and trans for whatever project tickles my fancy. I am going to be putting my house and building in NY on the market shortly and will be in Florida full time. Plan on getting FFL and SOT to manufacture, I have a few ideas I would like to turn into working models. To insinuate That I may or may not be able to do or know anything is very narrow minded. I my business now I sub contract the engineering out and focus on what I can control, labor, contracts and applying my knowledge to value engineer projects at time of bid. The need for a FFL has always held me back but since covid has crushed my main business I started to think more and more about this and will now put it on the top of my to do list.

   I was thinking tormach and seen YouTube NYC CNC has a nice setup and gives classes so that is in my mind but the plan would be to hire a competent programmer/machinist.

This machine looks huge to me. Would something that big be needed?

That machine has a what I think is a huge table. I was thinking to fit 4 to 9 lowers at time . I also looking to make pistol frames too. There are plenty of places that will private lable or provide magwell broached forgings to start with.

You should have led with all of this if you wanted better answers. The answers you got were a direct result of your simple question. If you've looked at machining at all, you'd know this questions gets asked once a month and the poster walks away with their tail tucked because they had no idea what they were asking.

Answer this: what exactly do you want to do that your bridgport can't?

Got it. Answer is push a button and go do something else.

Do you have a budget?

You still don't really sound like you know what you are doing or know how cnc works. You are giving garbage input, so you are getting garbage answers.

I am thinking around 30k. I plan on using the bridgeport to make the proof of concept. I have time and would like to know what to keep an eye out for.  If you had questions about getting into my field I would give you a list of things to stay away from and what you need to get to get going and what to equipment look at when you start making money. I really don't think I am giving garbage answers or maybe this is just like GD

Double tap

What kind of quantities are you talking about here? Couple thousand? Assuming you're going to sell them?

If you're talking about running a tombstone on a horizontal I hope you are really, really good at 3D CAD, fixture designing and programming. You are probably better off hiring a competent machinist to do the work for you and have him teach you along the way. Not saying you can't learn this stuff on your own but believe me when I say the amount of knowledge you need to be successful at machining is just insane. Sure you can teach yourself - but it's going to cost you thousands of dollars in scrapped parts and broken tools alone.

That is the plan I really like the not working life... Since covid hit I really have not done much work. The plan is to buy/build a multi unity building that the rent makes enough to cover all costs and then some and my hobby will be free of overhead. Never planned it to be a one man show any how I have two appointments with equipment suppliers today and stopping by a shop that does aerospace work and see what he thinks.

Update on this?

@eyeson

Lot of movement right now and I needed to shift focus onto bigger issues. I have received a wealth of knowledge and now have a direct.

I'm curious to see where this lands.  Your original post didn't fully convey the depth you were willing to go on this, or I'd have given a more serious answer.  In your shoes, an older Robodrill would be very tempting.  With good fixturing you could seriously crank out some parts.

A Speedio would be the clear answer on a larger budget.  $120k should get you very nicely setup with the mill, tooling, and some fixturing.  It'd be a monster in this service.

And right here is why you will fail if your product is not perfect every single time your competition will be the poverty pony lowers, and "the not working life" will not deliver a perfect product.

My Bridgeport does that. That's no excuse and mine is from the 1960s.


AFT doesn't look kindly I those that want a FFL and SOT for their hobby and fun.

Never seen a Bridgeport with a tool changer.

Attached File

Lol, that is not from the 60's.

You never said it required an automated tool changer though every Bridgeport has a tool changer. You are the tool changer.

Start thinking 4th axis and a tombstone for being able to do 4 lowers per side of a 3 or 4 sided tombstone for 12-16x lowers.

Still gotta figure out a way to do magwells if doing an entire billet so broach cut is most likely.

But much of the Tormach stuff out there has like a 19-24 inch Z for the purpose of being able to do a 4th axis with workflow centered around a tombstone.

He asked about production, an ATC is implied.

Many of the shops that do production work for me are all manual. The production work I do is all manual.


I don't make tens of thousands but I'm often making more complex parts than an AR lower or entire assembles and machines.

Ok.

Production and manual are never in the same sentence.

Not any more but I've been around the trade long enough to remember how we did things before CNC. I tugged on handles on a Gisholt turret lathe running production jobs for days on end, it took both arms and a leg to operate both the lathe and the bar feeder. We made form tooling to cut several features in one pass, did that for the mill jobs too. We had one job where a punch press, drill press and tapping head were all needed to produce over 1 million parts, it took a little over 2 years. My leg would twitch at night from stomping on the punch press clutch lever all day. I don't miss those days at all.

I mean It can be done, but why? CNC can be very affordable and makes like so much easier.

Old thread...I know, but I have some experience with this on verticals.

If you want to broach in your machine and you can physically lock the spindle in the tool change orientation (locking pin vs using spindle motor to hold it) you can use the Dumont or GWS broaching tooling. You hog out most of the mag well and use this tooling to clean out the corners. I have the Dumont set. I think these are around $4300 for the package.

If your machine can't lock then you can get some Benz LinS holders and mount a stop block onto the spindle to keep the holder from moving. The holders let you run the spindle at a low rpm while broaching so you're not loading up a single spot on the bearings. These run about $2600 each + $500 for the stop block. If you're using the Dumont set it's 3 tools, so you'll need 3 of these holders.

Total is about $13k.

We do op 1 and 2 (left, then right side) on a pallet, FCG pocket and mag well in soft jaws in a vise then it gets mounted on a 4th axis fixture for the trigger slot, grip mounting hole & selector detent, buffer threads/takedown detent, pivot detent. Bolt catch pin hole is another fixture with a drill bushing to guide it down the side of the receiver. We could probably incorporate that into the rotary fixture in the next evolution.

If you are looking for a Milling Machine to specifically make AR-Lowers in this political climate of deleting 80% lowers by the Brandon Biden Adin, I would go with the new Ghost Gunner 3. Introducing the zero percent receiver. You can get the CNC desktop and jigs for a little less than $3,000. The company name is Defense Distributed out of Texas. There is a $500.00 deposit to get in line for a total CNC cost of $2500 for Ghost Gunner 3^TM. You will then spend a few hundred more to get the necessary jigs. Every time the AFT as Biden calls the unconstitutional agency makes a new rule change, DD works around it. Until they ban aluminum or milling machines you should be good as it also does pistol frames, AK's AR-10's, etc...There is already existing code to work several projects of interest to a firearm enthusiast. The new AFT Rule chance on frames and receivers has made it very confusing and difficult on the 80% receiver home building community IMHO.

Link to Ghost Gunner 3^TM: https://ghostgunner.net/product/ghost-gunner-3-deposit/

If you are just looking for one step above a drill press and want to try a milling machine, I bought the smallest Harbor Freight Milling Machine. I got mine on sale plus was able to use a coupon back 3 or 4 years ago and got it for $500.00 delivered to my house. I see it has gone up to $899.00 and is showing unavailable. I am not a programmer, so I never investigated CNC Machines except for Ghost Gunner 3^TM where programs are already written. All you have to do is follow the instructions on your laptop to machine receivers/frames which they already have coded for you.

Harbor Freight Mill Linked: https://www.harborfreight.com/power-tools/drills-drivers/drill-presses/milling-machines/two-speed-variable-bench-mill-drill-machine-44991.html

Good luck in whatever machine you pursue because it is a lot of fun. Be safe because these machines can hurt you bad and deserve the respect of safe operation.