Wheeler Engineering Barrel Vise with 3 Wood Bushings

The vise is extremely stong. In my experience, removing just one barrel will tear up a pair of the wooden bushing blocks. To reduce barrel slippage, I apply a coat of rubber cement to the bushing hole and allow it to dry before clamping it on the barrel. This works a lot better for me than the lead shims.

Vise worked very well. I was even able to remove a barrel that I had gotten frozen on a receiver due to junk in the threads. Vise must be torqued down well and use the lead shims.

Best barrel vice out there. Super solid and grips unbelievably strong. Wood bushings are solid but NEED to be paired with a gripping agent. Use some rosin powder and you will be able to take any barrel off with ease. Be sure to have a large wrench on hand for the large nuts, they measure 1.46" across...Great product!

This unit is great. I bolted it down to my bench and use a very large crescent wrench to tighten the nuts. Have removed probably 15 or so barrels ranging from Remingtons to Mausers and had 0 problems. No slipping after I got a bigger wrench, and have yet to crush a set of blocks. I ALWAYS soak threads with Kroil a day or 2 in advance and warm the shank with a small butane torch. Works every time.

I recently purchased The Wheeler Barrel Vise. I have used it to rebarrel several Remington 700 rifles. After the second barrel job I had to add double sided carpet tape to the bushings to assist in gripping the barrel. The tape worked well and the vise itself is very heavy and in my opinion adequate for most factory civilian and police rifles. It is a well made tool and very affordable. The springs aid in keeping the top of the vise from pinching your fingers during bushing and barrel set up. If you are in the gunsmithing business this vise will pay for itself after the first use.

This vice is a great deal. It's well constructed and with a little talkum powder the wood blocks hold the barrel very well. I have changed 4 barrels with the same block.

The vise is well-made, heavy duty, and works very well - the vise is much larger than the picture would lead you to believe. I did have to fabricate my own metal bushing to prevent the barrel from turning. But that was easily accomplished by use of a short section of 3/4" copper tubing (approx width of the wood block), a hacksaw and motto tool. After cutting the tubing into two roughly equal halves, and smoothing the burrs, it worked like a champ, first time I put it to the test.

This vise is a wonderful addition to my small collection of gunsmith tools. It is built like a tank. It works perfect for what I use it for, however I noticed that smaller smoother barrels do need a lot of clamping torque/friction to remove even a muzzle device. A little bit of rosin powder seemed to do the trick, I would recommend it.

I found the vise well built and it worked great! Yeah the wood blocks aren't the best material, they do work well for me. The vise is sturdy! I didn't need to use carpet tape or fabricate a bushing out of other material with the wood blocks. I unscrewed a barrel off a Turkish M38 with no problems.

Gentlemen, This is the same type of vise and wood shim professional gunsmiths use in their shops to remove barrels. Powdered rosin is normally used to prevent slippage and most of the time it works. I cringe when I see comments about long cheater bars. I can't imagine what the actions go through during that process. Gunsmiths have tricks for removing stubborn barrels. That's why a professional gets the big bucks - to do a professional job. This is a well made product, designed as it should be for its intended job. Used correctly, with the wood blocks, it works well. Metal shims WILL damage a barrel. Slug a barrel crushed with metal shims and you will see what I mean. Wood is used for a reason. Thousands of gunsmiths can't be wrong.

This vise works perfectly every time ... IF... you use the rosin like the instructions say. Using NO rosin will probably result in marring the finish of the barrel, no matter how tight you screw down the bolts, or how much silly tape you use. It's so easy if you do it right the first time. Good shooting, my friends!

Just used this today and have to agree with the comments about the wood blocks. My brother and I removed the barrels from 2 Mausers today and after crushing the wooden blocks, had to fabricate blocks from aluminum in order to break them loose. The metal portion is great and we will be using this tool frequently.

The vise worked well for the 3 times I have used it so far. It even beat a regular vise with teeth for holding pipe on one of the barrels that was too shot out to save. Some resin would help to help keep the barrel from turning.

Great heavy vise, but wood lets tight barrels slip, until I tried double sided carpet tape (from hardware stores) even tight mauser mil surplus barrels come right off.

Outstanding holding power using resin on blocks. If the barrel slips, you can easily make (or have made) a block from aluminum or steel and use it in this vise. Make sure you use a dial caliper or machinist's rule to clamp the top bar even - if it's too crooked, you'll split the block.

The vise will clamp down tight, but the wood blocks definitely need to be replaced with aluminum or steel with shims. I completely crushed those blocks trying to remove one very tight Mauser barrel. I was unable to get a purchase even using double-sided tape or rosin. The clamp works fine, but be prepared to fabricate custom shims of some sort.

The vise is solid, works relatively well and is affordable. The wood blocks are the only design flaw. I crushed two sets before removing the barrel of a Spanish Mauser. I took some other reviewers suggestions and added copper shims and rubber cement to the bushing hole. After that, no problems.

A great tool for the money. Sure, there are better designs out there but for occasional use it works just fine. The key to using this vise with the wooden blocks is to have it mounted to a very sturdy bench and tighten the heck out of it. When you think it's tight, tighten it some more. I don't stop tightening it until I hear the wood blocks cracking. Super tight and a little rosin and I've never had a barrel not come off if I've done the proper prep work. I've used it to remove the barrels on everything from brand new 700s to 130 year old rolling blocks.

A great vise. The metal portion is solid and works well both with the screws and in a press. The copper shims and the rubber cement trick both worked well for several barrels, but the really stuck 60+ year old mausers seem to require so much clamping pressure that the wood becomes toast. Still a great inexpensive tool that will pull most barrels without trouble.

The vise is very heavily constructed and is well suited to its intended application. The wood blocks however are worthless. I tried everything, I contoured the hole in the blocks to match the taper of the barrel, I used lead shims, copper shims, doubled sided tape; none of which worked to remove the factory barrel from a Remington Model 700. It is a shame that such a good vise is paired with such an inadequate means of gripping the barrel. I finally broke down and fabricated a set of aluminum V blocks to grip the barrel.

good idea but the wood blocks don't grip very well.. needs to use a better gripping system, like metal blocks used to change barrel on savage. worked by holding action not barrel...

Read the other reviews and had some skepticism. Ordered it anyway and have used it on a couple of barrels - mostly factory. Biggest problem I found is that the wood blocks crush and split. Soaking the threads in Kroil or Marvel Mystery Oil is almost a necessity. Heat doesn't hurt either.

Like all the Wheeler tools that I have used so far, it is very well made and will do a good job if used as instructed. I crushed one set of blocks before I did, my fault, not the tool! Like others have said I will machine a set of aluminum blocks to use. A must have tool if you do much barrel work. A good tool for the money!

The vice is basically good but the wood blocks leave much to be desired. I found some African Iron wood and made several blanks and they lasted much longer than those supplied. I have found that plain news paper b/w work as well as well as anything between the barrel and the blocks. I do a lot of Sako's and have made alum. blocks for them with newspaper again. Also I make sure that the inside diameter (hole) of the blocks closely matches the barrel diameter. So replace the wood with something better and harder and the vice works just fine.

I very much like the vise itself, that is the metal parts. They are massive, well finished, and easy to bolt to any solid workbench. The problem, as many have outlined, is with the wooden blocks that grasp the barrel. I tried to take the barrel off of an old carcano; round and round it went. I took it out and put in lead shims (made them myself). Still not enough traction. I tried double sided tape; no dice. Even putting the barrel in the vise with the sight base (which is welded on this particular barrel) wedged into the wooden blocks only accomplished one thing; chewing up the blocks. I finally did manage to remove the barrel using a wrench on the barrel as well (thankfully the Carcano barrel in question was octagonal and lent itself to this) PLUS the gripping power of the vise. Not to mention, the blocks are basically one use, then they are too compressed and distorted to be of use. Some users have reported success with homemade bushings of copper, steel, or aluminum; this would probably work, but otherwise, if you have a really tight barrel this vise may not suffice.

Like others have said the vise itself is good quality and a sound design but the bushings are junk. Depending on the variety of rifle designs you intend to rebarrel making your own bushings is almost unavoidable and this vise will work with whatever bushing design you can create for that I give it 3 stars.

My experience with this vise pretty much echo's what the others have already said. The vise is very well built and functional but the wood blocks just don't cut it. I bought this to remove the barrel off a 40 year old Remington 700. No matter what I did to get better grip the barrel just kept on spinning. I even used my 4' cheater bar to tighten the vise nuts. None of the tricks (sand paper, glue, carpet tape, even tried copper shims) seemed to grip enough. I finally figured out that I could remove the handle off the action wrench (with action bolted in) and mount it sideways in the vise. Since the barrel was junk anyway I then took a pipe wrench and a 4' cheater bar and was able to get the barrel off. The wood blocks would have never worked for this barrel project. I'm keeping the vise because I can see other uses for it around the shop but the wood blocks are worthless on stuck barrels or even tight barrels. I'm going to look into making some nice aluminum blocks for the future.

Inadequate for surplus military actions that are torqued tight and frozen with dried oil and grease. Great for ar-15's and other light barrel holding/torquing requirements--but that's it. The wood bushings slip and crush too easily, even with rosin. They should just sell some aluminum inserts as an option. Heck, for the time I've wasted with this thing it would be money well spent.

The vise itself is a very heavy duty and well-made. The wood bushings are next to useless. Even with resin applied to the gripping surfaces and the vise clamped into a 5-ton press there is not enough grip to remove barrels from the tighter military surplus mauser actions. This vise works well with custom made steel or aluminum bushings. If you buy this vise be prepared to make your own bushings if you plan to remove barrels from tightly torqued military surplus rifles. The wood bushings just don't deliver.

When you order this product and before it arrives, be making shims because the wooden blocks are not adequate. Otherwise, prepare yourself for disappointment.

I tried using this set up on a military mauser barrel. The bushing kept slipping even after dusting with rosin. It will do for setting the new barrel in, but if you are sporterizing older military actions, this isn't your vise.

Plain and simple this is junk and a waist of money. The vice WILL NOT clamp down on any barrel that I have used with it. the barrel just turns with the wrench. Save your money and buy something else that works!

The vise is very well constructed but looses out due to the wood blocks. I tried everything from shaping my own bushings to carpet tape and the barrel still turned in the vice. Wood blocks would begin to break down before I could get sufficient grip. Got it yesterday sending it back today and have already ordered a different vise from midway that is all metal.

As of now, I have been unable to remove a Remington factory barrel. The wooden blocks are useless. I, like other reviewers, feel like an alternate gripping method should be used. I am going to try to make some bushings because the wooden bushings are junk!!!!!