I want to pick up a milling machine for minor home gunsmithing, car and bike projects.  I would love to have a Bridgeport size machine, but not enough space.  I have looked at the baby bridgeport sized machines from Jet and Grizzly.  I am thinking of the Grizzly 6760 and the Jet 8x36" table model.  Has anyone used these?  How is the quality?  Is the Jet worth the price difference?

This would be for home use and not production use.  I would prefer to avoid buying used and having to rebuild a used mill.  

I've used Jet copies of a bridgeport at a few shops. There have been problems with them (motor overheating, the ways and gibs are a little soft etc. They have a 'wonky' feel to them if you are used to American tooling and machines. Grizzly's are more for the home machinist, I've never used one outside of making a few passes on a lathe in a tradeshow.

I think you are going to find that an 8" wide table is going to be really limiting. You are not taking into account how much space you lose with a vise or setup parts. Your 8" can quickly turn into 5-1/2.

What are you planning on making? If it's just small parts, i.e. gun parts, home shop repair etc. there's not much a Sherline won't do with riser blocks and a little patience. They do have small tables though, but not a lot smaller than what you are looking at. GREAT machines, with standard American accessories, good repeatabilty and they can be retrofitted for DRO's and CNC up to 5 axis. I'd have one right now if I wasn't living in an apartment.

Dave

For the gun stuff, I am looking at machining an AR carrier, 1911 slide work, whatever small widgets come to mind, etc.   Any other misc ideas that come to mind.  

On the car stuff, I borrowed the neighbor's 9X42 Bridgeport to mill an intake and plenum down for clearance purposes.  Wouldn't be able to do that on the Sherline.  

Have used the drill press in the garage with a milling vise to make a thermostat housing.  Final product turned out nice, but would have been a lot easier on a real mill.  Have made some clearance cuts on a throttle body.  

I was wanting to get rid of the drill press and put a mill in its place.  I am limited to a 50" max depth for floor space.  I know a bigger table would be great, and I would spring for a bigger mill if I could find a way to shoehorn it into the garage.  Not going to happen though.  Seems like the Asian mills are the only options in this size range.

I have one of the mini mills.  It works for what I got it for.  The key with the smaller (non-knee) mills is to take your time.  It may take 8 passes to do the same as one with a bridgeport.  As long as the table will accomodate your needs, it should work fine with patience.

SRM

I have an Enco 16 3/8" mill/drill, it works good for what I need (0% AR forgings, etc), especially since I installed home-made DROs.

Kharn

For some of the work I have, I think the mill/drills and the mini mills are too small.  I would like something a little more subtantial.  Smallest I am considering would be the Grizzly 3616.