I'm adding a scope to my mosin 91/30 and making a simple custom scope mounting base for it.  I'm drilling and tapping the side of the round receiver and mounting a home made side-mount scope base that's similar to the standard issue mosin sniper scope mount base but much simpler.

 

To make this work, I need to mill a groove in a piece of steel angle.  The groove needs to be 1/2" wide and 1/16" deep and at least 4" long.  This will give me 3 contact points on the 1.220" diameter mosin receiver.  I don't have access to a milling machine. 

 

I made one out of aluminum angle and was hopeful that it would work, you can cut aluminum with a table saw and I was able to mill the groove using the saw. The aluminum was too soft and loosened up after only a few shots from the mosin so now I'm going to try this with steel.

 

So my question is: Does anybody have any suggestions on how to mill a shallow slot in steel without an actual milling machine.  I've toyed with the idea of using a drill press, end mill, and slide vice but I'm sure I can't get the drill press table level enough to maintain a constant depth and my drill press bearings have a little play in them so I'm afraid I'd just chatter and tear up the edges of the slot. I certainly couldn't maintain .500" slot width with any accuracy.

 

Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

 

I dont think you can really do this on a drill press as a mill style cut. The chuck cant take lateral loading. But if you were to get a flat endmill and "peck" a line of shallow holes and then clean up the little peaks it will leave with a file, that could work. However, for the cost of the endmil you could probably just pay a machine shop to do it. Just make sure they use a radius edge on the endmill so you dont create a stress riser as it might crack.

Or you can just buy one.. i love this place i buy from them all the time..

 

http://tickbitesupply.com/mossc.html

Or you can just buy one.. i love this place i buy from them all the time..

 

http://tickbitesupply.com/mossc.html

 

Thanks, I've seen that one.  In fact, my nephew has that exact same base on his M44.  It replaces the rear sight and sits a couple of inches forward of the receiver for a "sport" type long eye relief scope.  I can't find such a scope in the magnification and recticle type I want so I'm trying to make mine take a regular scope.  I've already cut off and welded the bolt to clear the base above and my aluminum version worked well...until I actually tried to shoot it.

http://www.sherline.com/

 

Nice little hobby mill, but you would have to make 1000 of those and sell them to make it worthwhile.

A Dremmel, various cutoff wheels and grinding bits, and LOTS of patience?

Any local machine shop could do it for a few $$. I'm in Bergen county and have a mill. It would probably take 10 minutes start to finish. I'd do it for free.