...and while we're at; just what is the origin of the term "water table" with respect to double guns?

There was a long thread with several opinions April 2011; here was mine

We colonials had a bit of a spat with one of the four King Georges, but were and remain enamored of Georgian Architecture.



The watertable is a stringcourse designed to deflect rain from the foundation

http://books.google.com/books?id=J98FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA137&lpg



Several examples here.
http://books.google.com/books?id=8roaAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PT49&lpg

http://www.classicarchitecturalconceptstone.com/images/profiles/watertables.htm

The Round-Over Chamfer and Ogee are most similar to a receiver held butt down



I think Chuck H. had a bit more logical engineering explaination

Either one....I know exactly what you're talking about.

You call it what you like. I and all the British will continue to use the correct treminology and refer to both the barrel and action flats . As far as I am concerned the "water table" is the depth that ground water rises to.

While we're on terminology I & the British will continue to refer to cuttin off a set of bbls, boring out the chambers & inserting new tubes as "Sleeving", not Monoblocking.

Seems to me that depends on whether you're building a gun from scratch or restoring one with trashed barrels. Best to use "monoblocking" for the former and "sleeving" for the latter, to make the distinction clear.

The Brits have lots of weird names for things. "Whilst" we call it a screwdriver they call it a "turnscrew". They call chips "crisps" and french fries "chips". Can you believe it? Worst of all they call cockney stinking eel pie "food". I could go on and on but what good would it do? They won't change, totally ass backward.
nial

Piper we actualy agre on something!! nialmac ,please dont critisise "cockney cuisene". They dont know any better so we let them think they have a culture. As to food you Americans are not innocent .
But back to the track ,jargon is a verbal short hand used bypeople in a trade to speed communication . It can and is used to exclude outsiders. As in America you never had a center of gunmaking as Birmingham or Liege and it would appear that your gunmaking tradions are morer Eurpoean derived than British.As a concequence your terminologey will differ from that we in the UK use. Added to this writers have frequently used incorrect terms that have passed into accepted usage. I will never call flats a water table , but as long as we both understand what the other is saying ,we must agree to differ.
Whilst on the subject ,when did cartridge cases become "hulls" ?

Almost all modern shotgun shells are made from some type of plastic material, something introduced to the world by Remington in about 1958..(USA).....Most plastic shotgun shells have metal heads, of either brass or brass plated steel, although a few have marketed all plastic shells without this feature......... Plastic shotshells are made by either injection molding or compression molding or some variation thereof.........The compression process was developed by Winchester-Western (USA) and produces the toughest and most durable one PIECE HULLS, something of great value to handloaders.......

Paper empty cases were called tubes once upon a time....with the advent of plastic ONE PIECE in the 1950's, they have been called hulls........

According to **Cartridges for Collectors, July 1958, Borden Publishing by Fred A. Datig...All American, British and Germans refer to brass center, pin or rim fire AMMUNITION for rifle and pistol as cartridges....shot shell empty cases are referred to as hulls..........

Most likely the nomenclature of "cartridge" for shot shells died sometime in the 1800's when all brass shot shells died out as factory loaded ammunition with black powder.......the less accurate caliber designation died as well about the same time, replaced by gauge which is a more accurate description for shotguns.

You may also use **Cartridges of the World as a reference for more detailed information on this subject......1965 1st Edition by Frank C. Barnes.....USA Library of Congress card 65-16729

*-In guns, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel in relation to the extension of the projectile used in it.....
Shotguns are classed according to gauge, a related expression. The gauge of a shotgun refers to 'how many' lead spheres the diameter of the bore would equal a pound. In the case of a 12 gauge shotgun, it would take 12 spheres the diameter of the shotgun's bore to equal a pound. A numerically larger gauge indicates a smaller barrel. This metric is used in Russia as the 'caliber number': e.g., "shotgun of the twelve caliber". The "sixteenth" caliber is known as "lordly" (Russia). While shotgun bores can be expressed in calibers, the nature of 'shotshells' is such that the barrel diameter often varies significantly down to the length of the shotgun barrel, with various levels of choke and backboring.......



16 Grand Prix.....

12 Alpha Max Eley's.....


Cheers,

from Merriam-Webster,

Related to HULL

Synonyms: armor, capsule, casing, cocoon, cover, covering, encasement, housing, 1case, husk, jacket, pod, sheath, shell

In the US, hulls are paper/plastic empty cases, cartridges are loaded brass or steel rifle ammunition.

Brits, call screws pins, they call the tool to remove pins a turn screw, why isn't it a turn pin?

After checking the oil on my car I closed the "bonnet". Seriously I have no problem reading British English. The only time I get frustrated is on some of the Brit comedies I watch on Public TV (Teli). They talk waaaay too fast and I miss some good jokes.

Actually the reason we call it a screw driver and they call it a turn screw makes a fair comment on the national character of both peoples. When the Brits drive in a screw they are already thinking about taking it back out. In and out, in and out, always screwing around. By God, when we drive a screw it stays screwed. Even if we have to use lock tite and an impact driver. See, different strokes.
nial

Larry, Just to make it Absolutely Clear, Name me "One"; Just One; instance where any gunmaker has ever built a monoblock set of bbls in which they first ""CUT OFF" a set of bbls. If you had read & absorbed what I posted it would have been very obvious I was speaking of the "LATER" as any fool could plainly see, YOU SEE. That last is a phrase my departed Dad was fond of, but it did sorta fit here.

"Mono" = 1

This does not seem difficult.

Language is continuously in fluctuation. Dictionaries don't define our languages, they simply reflect what has become common usage. Webster's adds and changes new words and their definitions every year. The word "tweet" got a new definition added, not changed, a few yrs back. That was based on what the people were using in their vocabulary. Browsing Webster's will reveal many words with more than one definition.

They'll be those that believe that a word has only one meaning, while others will use it to describe something different. It's not law. It's whatever people come to use frequently enough that others understand them. People start using terms and words for other than their original definitions everyday. Some catch on and become common. Common useage defines a word or term.

Frankly, if you'd have asked 100 machinists that didn't know guns and gun terminology what they would call the process of cutting off barrels by the breach and boring the chambers, then soldering in some new barrels, I doubt you'd get many if any that would come up with "sleeving". I think most of that group would call what Teague is doing "sleeving" rather than "lining". But that word was already taken.

And what about those other Brit cousins that eat that haggis stuff? Yuk!

A gun that has the barrels cut off ahead of the chambers is not neccesarily a "mono bloc". The "bloc" could have been made from many pieces at the time of construction. The only gun that should be referred to as a "monobloc" is a gun whose barrel breech section is one piece of steel or aluminum with tubes inserted. A gun whose barrels are cut off ahead of the chambers after initial construction and tubes inserted is considered to have been "sleeved". It may have been made as a monobloc or it may not have been made as a monobloc.

Never used a turn screw ,always used screw drivers .The use of the word pin rather than screw come from the dim distant past .We also use the term nails ,I was told as a young man it went back to the days of muzzleloaders . The barrel and furnitures being held on to the stock by what was in effect a nail or pin.
There was a now almost forgotten expression for a hammer as a"Brummie screw driver" .

Larry was trying to get "sleeved" but instead he got 'piped again

A bit testy today there, Piper? What you left out--and what neither I nor anyone else can "see", since it IS NOT THERE--is just who, in blue blazes, refers to the sleeving process as monoblocking? Far as I know, gunmakers who monoblock, whether British or otherwise, call it just that. And if no one gets the two processes confused . . . WHY WERE YOU EVEN BRINGING IT UP?? See, I can be testy too.

Larry, you have just totally confirmed my suspicions that while you may be a decent writer you can't read at all. Obviously if you believe your last statement you don't read many posts right here on the forum for it is becoming a far more common expression, to speak of "Monoblocking" an old set of bbls.
Also obvious, if one can read & understand what they read, I was not refering to newly made barrels. I am quire familiar with what momoblock construction is. It was first used by Henri Pieper, though he simply called it his "Solid Steel Breech Piece", Note the word Solid, it was made of one piece (Mono = 1). Inso far as I know Berreta possibly coined the term monoblock, but the meaning was still the same. It did not refer to the joint in the bbls, but to the construction of the breech portion itself. Chopping off a set of bbls does not in any way alter their breech construction. If they were not originally built as a monoblock or a chopper lump or whatever they do noy magically transform into some other method of construction, they have simply been re-tubed.
So "YES" Larry, I highly suspect virtually everyone who read my post knew exactly what I was speaking of except you.
Was there anyone else Who didn't???
Seems everyone else who responded did.

I recently "sleeved" a Beretta SO that had had an accident. Beretta's are built on a mono block ,so technicaly the gun was "mono blocked" as I was replacing tubes in the original mono block . I did this along with several other guns that were being "sleeved" ie. cutting off the original barrel from the back ends and lumps. As far as I am concerned I SLEEVED them all.
The only diference in the finished jobs , was that the Beretta was not stamped as sleeved by the proof house as the construction of the barrel was unaltered from original ,the others had been.
I hope this may clarify things.

Larry go back and read the title of this thread and the misspoken terms it refers to....piped again ol'chap.

The Beretta isn't stamped sleeved because it's not sleeved, Gunman.

As you point out, the barrels are soldered into the monoblock in the first place. The action is heated red hot, the barrel stubs are inerted, and when the assembly is cooled there is an interference fit.

To rebarrel, there is no 'cutting off' involved. Heat, pull, replace. No change in weight or dynamics because the thing was made that way to start.

I'd call your sleeve job on the Beretta a 're-tube'.

The term Hulls goes back a lot earlier the the 50's.

The term water table is never heard among British gun makers, it is a term I have only seen used by American writers. Nothing wrong with that, I learned it and now I understand it.

Turscrews are gunmakers screwdrivers, metal screws are pins, wood screws are screws.

Sleeving was the term used by the inventor of the procedure back in the 1950s and it has stuck when being used to refer to barrel repair by means of inserting new tubes into existing breech sections to restore the shootability of a gun with worn out barrels.

Monoblocking is a term used in manufacture of new guns my a number of modern makers.

I have noticed in recent years that some dealers refer to sleeved guns by describing them as having 'new barrels by monoblock'. To me this is just sales speak, akin to 'previously enjoyed' rather than 'used' etc.

The terminology of the gun trade is no different to any other specialist niche - all trades and closed communities have their own jargon and this varies from place to place. Sociolinguistically, it is covered by 'register'. It is in effect a regionless dialect linked to a trade, though the same trade in different geographical locations will vary this dialect. To give a medical example, two doctors may discuss your 'occlusion of the clavicle' but tell you you 'broke you collar bone'.

Human tend to fall into the speech patterns of the group in which they are operating in order not to feel, or appear as outsiders. Using the language of the group is inclusive, choosing to use outsider language is exclusive.

Nothing linguistically is 'right or wrong' when choosing from recognised standard and non-standard forms but each choice will have an effect on the listener and you choose your language according to the effect you desire.

Well spoken Small Bore!

Right, wrong, or indifferent, people are using the terms watertable and monoblock to describe the flats of barrels and action and to describe "sleeving".

A look at the Simmons Gun pricing list will reveal "watertable" in there when referring to engine turning (another term of contention? anyone? ) I have heard a number of older shooters refer to what Simmons did to make subgauge barrels for O/U guns in the past as "monoblocking". The group of other older shooters always seemed to understand the term. But there was no "gun terminology police" to tell them they were wrong.

Someone called my papered Lab a mutt. I have all kinds of pedigree documentation and a DNA registration on the dog saying it's a Lab. Is it still a mutt? Probably. All dog breeds are crossbred if you go back far enough to the wolf.

Joe old chap . . . the title of this thread, and the confusion related thereto, has nothing at all to do with barrels, but rather with the action of the gun. Piper was the one who brought forward the issue of monoblocking vs sleeving.

Piper, there's a difference between confusing water table and action flats--two terms that refer to the same part of the shotgun--vs monoblocking and sleeving. The latter terms refer to two different (although similar in some respects) operations. I know that you know the difference, just as I do. But no one IN THIS THREAD was confusing the two. Not everyone who comes here reads every thread, nor is everyone who comes here the expert that you are. Therefore, I chose to make the very simple and clear distinction between the two that you found in my post--but which you did not make in yours. You did a nice job of defining sleeving, but you didn't point out why it's not synonymous with monoblocking. I did. Clearer for the less initiated, wouldn't you agree? And might keep folks from confusing the two in the future, wouldn't you agree? Writers sometimes see the necessity of making points like that . . . because we don't start by assuming that everyone knows everything.

Larry;
I have made that distintion on several occasions in the past, one not too long back. On that occasion I did gave a full explanation of the "Difference" in sleeving & a monoblock. The thread here was on the use of Watertable vs Action Flats. It was pointed out the British did not use the term Watertable. I was not really intending to steal the thread, just point out the British also did not use the term monoblock, When they cut off an old set of bbls & re-tubed them, they called it sleeving.
Some have objected the term sleeving, but it is certainly much more acceptable than Monoblocking, Nuff Said, my original post was in fact quite sufficient.

2-piper, Larry,
I like both of you guys so it pains me to say this but your squabbling and bickering and each of you having to have the last word is getting tiresome. How about giving the rest of us a break and calling a truce?
Steve

Larry just can't take getting piped

What happened to the remark about hulls? I remember reading some time ago about an English Cartridge maker called the Hull Cartridge Company, or something to that effect. I always assumed that that was the derivation of the term. Come on guys don't quit early.

Hell, it's a water table or action flats.

My Parker and Fox have "water tables".

My Joseph Lang, J&W Tolley, Ugartechea, Berettas and my wife's Beretta have "action flats".

By the same token the Parker and Fox have "barrel balls" and the Lang, Tolley, Ugartechea and Berettas have "fences".

We Americans and you Brits do seem to be "separated by a common language" that isn't entirely common. But I reckon that you've corrupted me because I generally use "action flats" and "fences" when speaking about guns.

But, on the other hand, why do y'all and our Northern neighbors insist on adding the letter "u" to so many otherwise easy to spell words?

Hull is a town in the north of England. It is where the Hull Cartridge Company is based.

Joe, we all understand why you're homeless. But surely, somewhere, there's a village lacking an idiot or a bridge that needs a troll.

And that's yet another substance-free post. One of these days, you may actually say something that contributes to a discussion . . . and I'll be there to congratulate you if and when you do.

Miller, I'll be glad to join you in reminding people when they confuse sleeving and monoblocking. We often assume horses are dead when they're very much alive and kicking. How long have we known that it's OK to shoot longer shells in shorter chambers, assuming appropriate pressures? Yet how often do we have to address that issue? Or that if a Damascus gun is safe with a BP load, then it's also safe with a smokeless load of the same pressure? Those of us who participate here regularly have heard all of that before, but there are always newcomers that haven't. Reminds me a bit of those zombie movies, where you have to keep killing them and killing them and killing them . . .

Hello neighbour! If you would just start adding the "u", we'll do you a favour and make you an honourary member of The Commonwealth

Larry too bad yer always a hull short...

Damn, we've already fought two wars with y'all. Don't need a third. Besides, I've got too many friends up North and over the pond to want to fight with y'all. However, pickin' at you is fair game and you do return the favor.