[atrus9999]

Currently we farm out our gun drilling to another company, but we are wanting now to do it in house. We are kind of new to gun drilling and was wondering what was the best Off Center Gun Drilling Machine? We have done a little gun drilling in our vertical cnc mills but that has been limited. Please, I would appreciate any input.

Thank you

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

What are the size of the workpieces, holes to be gundrillid etc.

Dick Z

[atrus9999]

We are a job shop and we primarally will use the gundrill to drill off center holes from .0625 dia to 1" dia 10x to 60x deep in material from 4140 to 718 inconel that is from 3" to 20" dia.

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

Are you familiar with the process of gun drilling yourself? Feeds, speeds, chip load, accurately controlled feed rate, tool sharpening etc. are very critical.

There are machines that do not have good feed control. This is required to produce "ice cream cone" chips. These chips are readily evacuated from the deep holes. If the chips get stringy, they will wrap around the drill and break the drill almost instantly.

I suggest you stay with well known manufacturers like Eldorado, Taurus etc.

I've seen a few "cobbled together" wannabe gun drills in my time. In fact, that's why I know some of the problems. I operated one of those "cobbled" machines. It had an air-over-oil feed control that didn't precisely feed the drill. Bad news; broken drills, PO'd boss etc.

I only had to drill mild steel, iron and aluminum, your materials will require more thought.

Dick Z

[atrus9999]

I am somewhat familiar with the process. Like i said earlier, we have successfully used gun drills in our vertical cnc mills but we are looking for a standalone machine to be able to do longer holes.

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

I don't know what volume of work you have to justify the purchase. A rather $$$$ machine that would be good for your specs = Unisig USC25 (I think)

Dick Z

add: I see quite a few used gun drilling machines @ Surplus Record.