I know more that a few of you have experience with them. My father and I would like to get a smaller inexpensive one that is good enough to do gun parts on. I figured I would throw the question out to you guys.

What's your price range?

this is the one our gunsmith has been using for around 20 yrs.....as you can tell he's not one to maintain/clean up


he uses it to make firing pins, screws all sorts of weird gun part

Yep. Just decide on how big of a swing you want and lenght of the bed.
Make sure it's set up with good lead screw for threading and I think a rheostat speed control is handy. The accuracy of your parts will be decided in the quality of the ways, threads on the controls(backlash is a b^%#$) and the tool and work holding methods used. Carbide tooling has very little maintance but is very costly.
It makes working with tough steels much easier.
Like I just made a set of S7 punches and I used carbide and another guy used HSS. He constantly was sharpening his HSS tool vs I just used lots of cutting oil and went at it.
I like a tool post instead of the old rocker tool holder.
I would recommend having and a quick change chuck, the three I recommend are 5C collet, universal three jaw and a four jaw chuck.
And then you get all the fun instruments to measure and turn

Thanks for the info so far guys.

We would like to keep it under 2k closer to 1K would leave more for guns. As for size barrel boring would be the biggest job we would do so i think 24 inches of clearance would be the most we would need.

The swing of the lathe is the largest diameter the lathe can turn the bed is the length of the machine. Also remember when you are at the outside of the lathes working area you lose accuracy if the part you manufacture.

so a 24 inch bed and a 6 to 8 inch swing? That should cover almost anything I would think.

Yeah it would be close. Remember that your stock for your barrel will be longer than the actual barrel. Plus you need to accommodate your tail stock.
Also do you want to turn your own truck rotors? JK lol.

True so maybe a 26 inch bed then, bah I will get a rotor lathe for them.

What ever fits the bill