Gun Drilling on a CNC Lathe: What You Need
When a CNC Lathe Makes Sense for Gun Drilling A dedicated gun drilling machine is the right tool for production deep hole work. But I have run plenty of successful gun drilling jobs on standard CNC lathes when the volume did not justify a dedicated machine. The key is knowing the limits. In my experience, a lathe with live tooling and through-coolant capability can handle L/D ratios up to about 10:1 reliably. Beyond that ratio, the alignment challenges and coolant pressure limitations make a dedicated machine necessary. ...