In 2017, I was demonstrating a Rider Ericsson hot air pumping engine at the Coolspring Power Museum in Pennsylvania. There, I met Tom Stockton, a volunteer who was driving a forklift and helping folks unload their engines for the various displays.
It turned out that we were both engineers, so I mentioned that I was a gun designer (currently working for Knight’s Armament) and he told me that he had an “1880s Stevens barrel rifling machine” for sale. I was extremely interested, so when he named his price, I bought it sight unseen, with the stipulation that I get it running and bring it back to the Coolspring Power Museum for display.
I immediately started planning how to make the machine both portable and displayable. Since the machine had spent its productive life inside of the Stevens Arms
