doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com One for the Damas Doctor

http://www.joesalter.com/detail.php?f_qryitem=12565

Neat, would have liked to see whole gun! Did not know they did doubles.

Read EDM's latest book. He has done exhaustive research on this topic. In short:

1864 Ethan Allen produces twist barrels.

1868 John Blaze, an English blacksmith who was brought here for the task, made for Wesson 400 sets of damascus barrels. Only 219 are accounted for. The remainder were most likely sold to Parker.

Those barrels are in remarkably good shape. One of the few sets of damascus breech loading barrels that can be documented as having been made in America.

Hopefully some others who own a Wesson gun or two will jump in.

Pete

Great info Pete, thank you!

Any pics of the guns out there?

Thank you. Haven't searched Salter in a while. Dropped him an email about something that interests me.

Pete

WOW MARK!! THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING and to my knowledge is the first (likely-more later) American produced CROLLE pattern barrel! (And was well worth getting back from Guatemala ) Sure glad that book hasn't been written yet.

As PeteM said, courtesy of EDM

Letters in The American Field in 1878 state that a barrel forger named John Blaze of Birmingham, England had immigrated to America to make Wesson's barrels. He was listed in the 1865 Worchester, Mass. City Directory as a 'Gunsmith', and 1878-1881 as a 'Blacksmith.' Whether he left Wesson for Parker's employ after Dan Wesson shut down his shotgun production in December 1870 is uncertain. Other Wesson gunmakers did take jobs with Parker, including Charles A. King. Daniel Wesson is reported to have ordered 400 sets of barrels from a Belgian source, some of which had "Wesson" spelled out in the damascus pattern. Only 229 guns were made according to existing factory records; the fate of the remaining barrels is unknown.

c. 1870 Wesson with Laminated Steel



This also from EDMs research:
c. 1870, Parker offered ‘Plain Finish-Iron’ Barrel for $50, ‘Superior Finish-Iron’ Barrel for $75, and ‘Laminated Steel’ barrel for $100. The Parker-made 'Laminated' barrels carried a special 'PB' mark. Some 1870s Parker Hammer Lifter guns are marked "Twist" on the rib, but are clearly laminated steel.

T1 Lifter with 'PB' in a shield, 'T' for Twist, and an unknown mark covered by the bottom rib.



Parker Brothers' advertisments in late 1870s pulp weeklies claimed "This company has succeeded in making their own steel barrels..."
Letters in the Nov. 1878 The Chicago Field from Parker Brothers included statments that "We import largely both Laminated and Damascus, and also manufacture a very fine Laminated--as fine, we think, as any we have ever seen imported. We have made them about eighteen months."

The Chicago Field on March 8, 1879 reported "The Parker Bros., of Meriden, Conn., commenced making twisted barrels in the Spring of 1877."

Those barrels are a poor aesthetic effort at 3 Iron "Turkish", and by 1870 both the English and Belgians were making very nice barrels SO my opinion (which is worth nothing definitively) is that those were made in the US.

More later when my brain starts working again

Could someone please confirm these marks?

AND a Wesson with what appears to be "Laminated Damascus" !!
(individual strips of steel and iron i.e. not 'puddled'; with a higher ratio of steel, and twisted less than crolle damascus)

Here's the original thread
http://doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=62993&page=2#Post62993

Report on Duties on Metals and Manufactures of Metals
By United States Congress. Senate. Committee on Finance, 1912
Testimony regarding the Payne-Aldrich and Dingley Tariff Bills
http://books.google.com/books?id=QDkvAAAAMAAJ

http://books.google.com/books?id=QDkvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA900&dq=damascus+barrels&lr=#PPA879,M1

STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS HUNTER, OF FULTON, N. Y., REPRESENTING THE HUNTER ARMS CO. AND OTHERS

The Chairman. Will you state the companies you represent, Mr. Hunter.?

Mr. Hunter. The Hunter Arms Co., the Baker Gun & Forging Co., Parker Bros. Gun Co., Hopkins & Allen Arms Co., A. H. Fox Gun Co., Lefever Arms Co., H. & D. Folsom Arms Co., Ithaca Gun Co., N. R. Davis & Sons, and Harrington & Richardson Arms Co.

Senator McCumber. Does the American manufacturer use the unfinished importation?

Mr. Hunter. He uses what are designated in the present bill as "gun barrels rough-bored." That is what we import.

Senator McCumber. To what extent do you use those?

Mr. Hunter. Entirely.

Senator McCumber. You do not manufacture any of them?

Mr. Hunter. No, sir. We have no facilities for making shotgun barrels.

Senator McCumber. Does any other company make them?

Mr. Hunter. There are a few that make them for themselves only. None are made to be sold. We never have been able to buy any in this country.

Senator McCumber. Why is that—because they can manufacture them so much cheaper abroad that it does not pay ?

Mr. Hunter. Yes, sir; it would not pay.

Senator McCumber. Then why not put such a tariff on them that they can be made here ?

Mr. Hunter. I will vote to put 50 per cent duty on them if anybody will come here and say that he will go into manufacturing them on that basis.

Senator McCumber. Is there any reason why we can not manufacture them here if we have a sufficient duty?

Mr. Hunter. They never have been able to make a figured barrel in this country. Years ago they tried to make what they call a figured barrel, Damascus and twist; but the effort was never successful, and it has been discontinued.

Senator McCumber. Why ?

Mr. Hunter. It is one or those things that have been passed down in Belgium from generation to generation, and from the father to the son, and they seem to know how. We never have been able to do it here successfully. You could not get one of those barrels made here if you put 300 per cent duty on it.

Senator McCumber. Could you not make them here if you had the workmen here to make them ?

Mr. Hunter. Years ago they imported workmen, but for some reason or other they were not successful. It was before I was in the gun business.

Senator Simmons. You American producers practically have the market to yourselves, do you not ?

Mr. Hunter. We would like to. There were 44,000 foreign-made guns shipped into this country in 1907. We have not the statistics later than that.

Senator Simmons. Were any shipped out from this country ?

Mr. Hunter. I presume so. We are working hard to work up a South American trade. We are getting quite a nice trade in South America.

Senator Simmons. Anywhere else?

Mr. Hunter. No, sir. We never have been able to ship them to England or Scotland or Belgium.



The testimony of W.A. King representing the Parker Gun Co.http://books.google.com/books?id=QDkvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA900&dq=damascus+barrels&lr=#PPA893,M1

Mr. King. I can speak only for our own company in so far as wages go. For instance, on the question of barrels, Mr. Hunter informed your committee that some years ago some of the manufacturers of this country attempted to make barrels. We made some barrels: we built an addition to the factory, put in some up-to-date machinery, and brought some men from Belgium to show our blacksmiths how to do it. Wo had to pay our blacksmiths not less than 32 cents an hour, up to 40 cents, and we gave it up, because the highest wages paid the Belgian blacksmiths for exactly the same grade of barrel are 11 cents per hour. That is what is paid to the highest-priced man employed.

Senator Smoot. In Belgium ?

Mr. King, In Belgium: yes, sir. That is where all of our barrels are imported from, with the exception of our very high-grade Whipple steel barrels.

Senator Lodge. Those are rough-bored barrels.

Mr. King. Rough-bored only.

The Chairman. Do you make any barrels at all?

Mr. King. We make no barrels whatever.