yes. you can use the stock bushings, though they have some disadvantages compared to those produced by Johnnycnc. First, they are not turned to as tight a tolerance for the i.d. of the tubes, so there is still some of the same level of "slop" with the bushings fitting slightly loosely in the tubes. I have found that one of the side benefits of using Johnny's bushings is that my tube has to be clean and the edges crisp from the pen mill or his bushings won't go in smoothly, if at all. With stock bushings and the extra "wiggle" room they give you, it's easy to miss a
slight glue buildup or have a little deformation in the edges of the brass from the pen mill, and still be able to load up on the stock bushings. The downside to this is it will contribute to a slight out of round condition, and may also contribute to cracking your finished barrels when you try to press in the hardware fittings. Johnny's fit so snuggly that I now automatically hit the ends of my tubes after using the pen mill with a small manual reamer (purchased from A.S., though I believe Johnny and several others offer similar tools). If Johnny's bushings fit, I don't have to worry about anything in the tubes that could cause the hardware to deform or crack the barrels when pressed in. In addition, the stock bushings don't come with a 60 degree taper for mating up with the dead and live centers. That is not a requirement, but the down side is that you will have less surface contact between the centers and the bushings, resulting in less "grip" or "friction". as a result, you may find (especially in harder materials) that you have some slippage while roughing, and end up needing to tighten, and possibly overtighten, your tailstock and live center. On the low grade steel used for stock bushings, this can mar. Additionally, the part of the bushing that slides into the tubes is shorter on the stock bushings than it is on Johnny's aftermarket bushings. This becomes more important the more the bushing does not have a snug fit. This also contributes to out of round, in that the shorter length can act as a magnifier. Picture a piece of 1" pvc and a 1/2" dowel. The 1" PVC obviously has a larger inside diameter than the 1/2 dowel. Slip the dowel inside the PVC about 1" and slant it to the side until it is snug, and you can get a pretty steep angle. Slide it in 3" and snug it side to side and you get much less of an angle. Slide it in 6" and it is very close to parrallel with the PVC. This is where a lot of the out of round problem can come from- the combination of the loose fit and the short length inserted (all right, some of you need to quit snickering at this point and get your minds out of the gutter!!:wink
. There are a variety of techniques that can be used to compensate for this- it is possible to add a 60 degree taper to stock bushings, and stopping to rotate the blanks position on the bushings themselves can help even out the OOR condition.