Who Makes McGill Bearings?

McGill is the bearing brand behind the CAMROL cam follower, the stud and yoke type track roller used in cams, linear guides and mechanical automation, and behind the CAGEROL and GUIDEROL needle bearings and SPHERE-ROL spherical roller bearings that share its catalog. This guide states who makes McGill bearings, what a CAMROL cam follower is, what else the line covers and how a McGill cam follower number is read.

Who makes McGill bearings?

McGill bearings are made by Regal Rexnord, where McGill is one of the four bearing brands of its Industrial Powertrain Solutions business, alongside Browning, Rollway and Sealmaster. The brand was founded in 1905 and patented the CAMROL cam follower bearing, which is offered today in more than 1,400 combinations and configurations. McGill products also include needle bearings, spherical roller bearings and aerospace bearings.

Before Regal, the same McGill cam followers, needle and spherical roller bearings were sold by Emerson Power Transmission, in a line that also carried Sealmaster and Browning mounted bearings, Rollway bearings and the Kop-Flex and Morse couplings; every one of those brands is a Regal Rexnord brand today. The current bearing catalog is shared across the four bearing brands, and we stock the McGill part of it: the full range is on the McGill brand page.

What is a McGill CAMROL cam follower?

A cam follower is an unmounted bearing with hardened, precision ground inner and outer raceways and either full complement or caged needle, ball, tapered or cylindrical rolling elements, built with an integral stud or a precision ground bore. It provides an antifriction way of translating rotation into linear motion, or of supporting a pure radial or a combination radial and thrust load, depending on the rolling element. CAMROL cam followers are full complement needle bearings made from bearing quality steel with a black oxide finish, and come factory filled with grease.

Two basic mounting styles are made. The CF stud type carries an integral stud for cantilever mounting; the CYR yoke type has a ground bore for straddle mounting on a shaft the customer supplies. The outer race is cylindrical, crowned, V-groove or flanged, the stud is concentric or eccentric, and outer roller diameters run from 1/2 to 10 inches and from 13 to 90 mm. The LUBRI-DISC seal option helps prevent metal to metal contact within the bearing, provides a barrier against contaminants and vents old grease during relubrication. CRES CAMROL bearings are made with 400 series stainless steel components for corrosion resistance, carry a CR designation and are dimensionally interchangeable with the standard bearings. A CF 1 is the 1 inch roller stud type, a CYR 1 the 1 inch yoke type and an MCF 16 the 16 mm metric stud type with a crowned roller. The series and the size range of each are in the table, in inches on the inch series and in millimeters on the metric ones; what that size measures is in the nomenclature below. The full range is under cam followers.

Which McGill cam follower sizes do we stock?

The sizes below are the ones we list: 1111 cam followers in 34 series, each size linked to the part it names. A size is the second half of the number, so the 16 listed under MCF is an MCF 16 and the 16 S beside it an MCF 16 S. The rows are the series in the table above together with the prefixed and suffixed forms of them — a C for a crowned outer diameter, a B for a bushing, an E for an eccentric stud — each of which is a separate part number; the numbering section below reads them out in full. The list is read from the cam followers section as the page loads, so a part the manufacturer withdraws drops out of it, a series we hold nothing in is not listed, and a part numbered outside these series stays in that section rather than here.

What a size measures depends on the mounting, as it does in the table above: an inch series and a metric stud series state the outer roller diameter, a metric yoke series states the bore. A letter after the figure is an option — the seal, the hex hole in the stud, the narrow roller width — and each combination is its own part. Where a size is followed by a second figure, both figures belong to the number.

What other bearings does McGill make?

McGill makes machined race needle bearings and SPHERE-ROL spherical roller bearings. The needle bearings have through hardened, precision machined inner and outer raceways with either full complement or caged needle rollers, support rotating shafts under radial load, and cover shaft diameters from 1/2 to 9 1/4 inches; they are manufactured to inch dimensions, with the metric figures for reference only. SPHERE-ROL bearings carry combination radial and thrust loads and cover bores from 20 to 150 mm.

Three needle bearing lines are made. CAGEROL MR bearings use a caged needle roller complement and cover 5/8 to 9 1/4 inch shafts; GUIDEROL GR bearings use a full complement of center guided needle rollers and cover 1/2 to 9 1/4 inch shafts; both are also made sealed and in narrow widths. MULTI-ROL RS and RD bearings are full complement needle bearings for 3/4 to 3 inch and 1 1/4 to 4 inch shafts. An MR or GR number is the outer race only, paired with an MI inner ring: an MR 10 and a GR 10 are both 5/8 inch bore, 1 1/8 inch outside diameter races that pair with an MI 6 inner ring, one caged and one full complement. They are listed under needle roller bearings. SPHERE-ROL bearings are made in the 22200 series, 20 to 150 mm bore, and the 22300 series, 40 to 100 mm bore, sealed or unsealed with a straight or tapered bore, and carry the SB prefix: an SB 22204 C3 W33 is the 20 mm bore 22204 with C3 clearance and the W33 lubrication groove, listed under spherical roller bearings. What the C3 and W33 codes mean is in the bearing clearance codes guide.

How is a McGill cam follower number read?

An inch CAMROL number is the basic type followed by the outer diameter in inches: CF is a stud type cam follower, CYR a cam yoke roller and CFH a heavy stud cam follower, so CF 1 is a stud type with a 1 inch roller and CYR 1 1/2 a yoke type with a 1 1/2 inch roller. A prefix C marks a crowned outer diameter and a prefix B a bushing with no rolling elements; an E after the type marks an eccentric bushing, on standard stud bearings only.

The suffixes name the options: S is the LUBRI-DISC seal, B a hex hole in the stud, N a narrow roller width on the 1/2 and 5/8 inch sizes, and CR the corrosion resistant 400 series stainless version. Read together, a CCFE 1 1/2 SB is a crowned, eccentric stud cam follower with a 1 1/2 inch roller, sealed, with a hex hole. The metric CAMROL series state their size in millimeters, and which dimension that is depends on the mounting: a metric stud type states the outer diameter, so an MCF 16 has a 16 mm roller, while a metric yoke type states the bore, so an MCYR 50is a 50 mm bore on a 90 mm roller. When a worn bearing's marking cannot be read, send the roller diameter, stud or bore size and mounting through the support form and we will confirm the McGill part before you order.