With over 30 years of gunsmithing between them, along with 20 years’ international shooting experience, good friends and business acquaintances Stuart Anselm (Osprey Rifles), Pete Walker (Walker Custom Rifles) and Gary Costello (March Scopes) decided to pool their resources to capitalise on the niche market of bespoke gunsmithing by creating PGS Precision Engineering.

Much of the work that the three partners are involved with is one-off commissions, which would not justify investment in CNC machining capability. However, a recent contract for higher volume work made the possibility of upgrading from manual machining a feasible proposition.
“This was our first contract for large 50-calibre military rifles and, in addition to the chamber, we had to carry out turning and threading to fit the rifle action, as well as the suppressor [silencer],” says Anselm. “These increased volumes led us to look into CNC.”
PGS Precision Engineering opted to purchase an SLX 355 ProTurn lathe from XYZ Machine Tools, which scored highly due to its easy-to-use ProtoTrak control system; in particular the ‘TRAKing’ facility that allows the operator to manually run through the program using the hand-wheels before pressing cycle start.
“We are machining barrels much faster than we ever could using our manual lathes and with the reassurance of consistent accuracy and quality,” says Anselm. “Adding the automatic toolpost was a great decision as we can now complete the turning and threading cycles in under three minutes.
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com