I don't have access to a ram. I was wondering if anyone uses other methods (besides drilling it out) for removing this pin. Do vises work in some cases?

A big quality vise will sometimes get the romy pins, but you should have a plan B too.

SRM

tomorrow i plan on buying a 100 dollar press and pressing it out \



to me any tools for building these guns is worth it , once you have the tools you can build 2 or 3 diffrent  configerations


why have 1 when you can have 2 or why have 2 when you can have 3 you see where i am going with this

I've removed two with a 6" bench vise. One Romy and one Yugo. The Romy made me nervous, but once it "popped" it came right out. The Yugo slid right out. No pop at all.

I agree with mk1271; a 12 ton press would be a wise investment if you plan on doing more than the one build...believe me, after completing that first build, you'll soon be bitten by the bug and will make plans on doing a second, third and fourth build.  By then, the press will have more than paid for itself in saving time and effort.  I got mine from Harbor Freight for $100, but Cummins has them as well.  If you decide you need a 20 ton press, then you can get one for about $30 more.

As for my method of pushing out the pin, I tried different items to use as a push pin, but settled on a section of a hex wrench.  I cut one piece a quarter inch long, to use as a starter...then another pin about an inch and a half long to push the rest of the barrel pin out.  When I first pushed the barrel pin out, I heard the infamous "POP" and the whole press setup shook.  I thought I had busted something, but I didn't.

Yeah, I guess it is worth the $160 delivered. I don't have a lot of space, but it does have a small footprint.

I've removed 4 Rommy pins with a 6" vise.  Some were definitely easier than others.

Sacrafice a chicken.

Hey, it worked for me....

I have removed and installed, 6 pins, useing the very large hammer and drift punch method. The key to success is working on a solid base so the trunion does not bounce/move at all. It helps to have an assistant hold the trunion in contact with the inmoveable work surface. Wood benches of any description do not qualify. I use a 150 lb anvil on a concrete floor. It's never failed me.

I finally got my 3 Romys and a Tantal done last week.  One Romy was easy - used a hand sledge and 1/4 in pin punch.  One horrible, one slightly less horrible, and the Tantal an absolute @#$%!

I bought a standard 6 inch industrial duty vise from Harbor Freight ($44 after discount coupon).  Made a series of drive pins from old 1/4 inch drills, starting at about 1/3 inch.  Ground a cheap 3/8 inch socket to fit the left side of the trunnion to leave space to drive the barrel pin into.

Then I stuck the socket and shortest drive pin on with contact cement (not having 4 arms to hold it all together) put it in the vise, drive pin on the right side (looking from the breech) and used a piece of pipe on the vise handle to crank it down until the drive pin almost began to buckle.  then I whacked the handle jaw of the vise with the hand sledge.  

It moved the pin a bit, did it again until the vise was up against the trunion, opened it and put in the next longer pin, repeated until the barrel pin was out.

One popped, and driving the pin out got easier.  The other one didn't, just  fought me most of the way, and the Tantal was worst of all.

If your drive pins buckle or barrel out too much so they dont drive out the barrel pin, just cut shorter and more pieces to prevent it.  I had to use 5 pieces on the Tantal as the vise just squashed the longer ones I used before.  As it got to near the end and I had to take my slightly too short socket off the trunnion the pins were finally loose enough to drive out with punch and hand sledge.

As there have been reports of pin driving jigs coming apart in the presses without moving Romy pins and old drill bits are free, I feel that this is the most effective and cheapest way to remove those stubborn barrel pins.

Quoted: I have removed and installed, 6 pins, useing the very large hammer and drift punch method. The key to success is working on a solid base so the trunion does not bounce/move at all. It helps to have an assistant hold the trunion in contact with the inmoveable work surface. Wood benches of any description do not qualify. I use a 150 lb anvil on a concrete floor. It's never failed me.

Me too.  I've done 6 pins, but I use a large vise as a base, a good quality 3/8" punch to start with, and a 22 oz Eastwing hammer.  I hold the punch with a pair of channel locks, trunion solidly on the flat part of the vise, and.......whack!!!  The pin moves every time.    Once the pin is flush, I move to a slightly smaller punch, one that fits in the hole.  

This method has always been so easy, I've wondered why everyone has so much trouble getting the pins out

J

Depends on the luck of the draw...  I have popped many pins with no effort but on my last Rommy G build I bent several Grade 8 bolts and I was REAL NERVOUS with the kind of force I was putting on those 1/2-inch bolts with the 12-ton press....

When you get a stuck pin... I am pretty sure you will break any vise...  a vise just can't generate the kind of force we get with a 12 or 20-ton press...  

I refuse to buy a press. I used to own an auto service center and had a hard time selling my 60 ton press, i ended up selling it for 75 bucks. I just cant see buying a 12 or a 20 so i do it the harder way, I've completed two builds so far but have ten in the works, all the barrel pins have been pulled with the air hammer technique except two rommy's that i had to drill out, i have another rommy and a tantal comming in the next week or so. I have all the barrels prepped for building (trunnions pulled), I use a pulley puller to pull the barrel and a hammer to put it in, works great. Unless you bend your own flats i dont see the need to have a press, everything can be done with hand tools, I use a set of modified bolt cutters to squeeze rivets, it takes me about 3 minutes to squeeze all the trunnion rivets. I can only imagine how long it would take with a press, setting up jigs, aligning, pumping and so on. As long as the rivet is set properly and has crushed and formed to hold trunnion and receivers together i dont see the need for a jig and press. The barrel pin would be the only thing i can think of that a press would come in handy but it is not necessary.  McM

Motorcityman..."air hammer technique".....could you elaborate or point me in the right direction...I have read just about everything I can find here and elsewhere, but the air hammer has escaped me, and I have air hammers already.....
any help would be appreciated....you just use an air hammer with a pointed tip???

Quoted: Motorcityman..."air hammer technique".....could you elaborate or point me in the right direction...I have read just about everything I can find here and elsewhere, but the air hammer has escaped me, and I have air hammers already..... any help would be appreciated....you just use an air hammer with a pointed tip???

You can use the pointed tip, but i use a blunt tip to get it moving, then i use a bit that i modified, I dont have a lathe so i used a bench grinder to modify it. Its only a stub but it moves the pin about half way. I then use a rod punch to drive it out the rest of the way with a hammer. heres a pic of the bit that i modified. McM

Motorcityman.....now that works for me.....I have a sack full of the chisels and bits for my air hammer...not a problem to mill it like that with my bench grinder.....
Thanks for the help....thanks a lot

Bulgy pins will come out if you sneeze on them directly.  The hardest I've seen is the Romy.  

This required putting the trunion on the stove burner until it was hot as a bastard, then using a vise to get it started.  I had to beat on the front jaw of the vise while torquing the handle with a cheater bar.

A 12 ton press could not budge it.  It would reach maximum force, and would break in retreat, sending all the parts flyin'.

--Fargo007

man...I've done all of one barrel pin removal so far, on a romy, with a arbor press.  Needed a bit of grunt, but once it popped, it came out easy.
I bought a 12 ton for use at home, and will assemble it this weekend. I'll see how it goes with the 2nd romy.

John

Got the pin out of my AMD-65 with a big hammer; BFH Method.  After a couple of heavy hits, it started to move.

contact cabhammer for barrel pin and barrel removal.he did 2 for me and did a great job.he only charges $15 plus shipping.he has xbeck pressing jig and press.if you are only doing 1 or 2 builds why spend the money for a press.here is his [email protected]

I'm starting with my 6 inch vise and drill rod drive pins setup first in all future builds.  Trying to whack them with a BFH and punch, or using #8 bolts to drive them just results in too much damage and frustration in most cases, while the vise plus sledge will push them out regardless.  I may try hardening the drill rod some more as the pins are all pretty well squashed after 3 rifles.

And the Autozone Power Steering pulley puller worked great pushing barrels out - very smooth and very strong even in one Romy barrel that was just about welded to the trunnion.

The vise, which i needed anyway, was about $45, and the puller was about $20.

I just did my first one, on a Romy kit.  I layed a towel over two pieces of steel and used a big punch and a BFH to slowly smack it out.  (Layed the steel on my kitchen linolium (sp?) because it's concrete underneath.  I had a neighbor knocking on my apt door wondering what the racket was, but I got it done.

PS - I douched it with penetrating oil and let it sit overnight before I hammered it.

At a recent build party we used the assembly line technique.  We had two Polish, 9 Romy's, 2 AMD-65's, one SEG-85 (also Hungarian) and an AMD-63.  

I bought a pin pushing jig from Tailgunner on the gunco site.  The URL follows.

http://www.gunco.net/forums/showthread.php?t=17170

Since I bought the jig, I got to use it.

He sells a cap to fit on the ram of a 12 or 20 ton HF press.  He made some specially to fit other manufacturers' presses.  

I bought the cap plus several each of his long and short pins.  

The results were outstanding.  I lined up all of the kits, and used the short pin on each one.  I got the pop and the pin moved about 1/4-3/8".  My toughest one was an old I/O Romy that seemed like it was welded in.  I had to press from the right side instead of the left but it too moved.  

I switched to the long pin and was amazed how easy it was to push the rest out.  The whole process took less than a half hour.