doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Barrel Imtegrity Question.

Absolutely Correct Larry;
No currently known propellant suitable for use in shotgun loads will reach its peak pressure outside the chamber of the gun. Fast & Slow are relative terms. Even the slowest of shotgun powders are Fast relative to rifle powders, & the slowest of the rifle powders are Fast relative to powders suitable for large artilery pieces etc.
If you compared the pressure curves of say 7625 & 700X, both pushing 1 1/8oz of shot to 1200FPS you would find the following; The 700x load would have the higher max pressure while the 7625 load would have a higher retained pressure at the 10" mark. Both however would have hit their peak (max) pressure within the confines of the chamber likely not more than �" apart.

From the description, I tend to think there is little problem. However, I'd strongly encourage you to have a known barrel man look at it.

KR-----Especially true since L.C. Smith, a.k.a. Hunter Arms, USED SOME LONDON STEEL barrels, probably best to have it checked out.........

KR--where do you come up with this stuff, are you half a bubble off or what....?.....




Boy, isn't that the truth Chuck..........!......Keyboard engineering critics galore.........


Sounds like a dent repair to me IM and it will probably check out fine by a competant smith........


Best,

As to the sources of fluid steel tubes used by Hunter Arms, please see
http://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=17ixogftgITEblNUWtmFBv96ZvgjK6eFell8GsAWd-KI

Short version

Brief submitted by J.G. Riga, Feb. 15, 1913 to the Tariff schedule hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives
�Shotgun barrels are not made in this country and they can not be bought, and all the small gun manufacturers are obliged to buy all their barrels abroad and this duty would really work a great hardship to all the double-barrel gun manufacturers, such as the Hunter Arms Co., Fulton, N. Y.; Ithaca Gun Co., Ithaca, N. Y.; Baker Gun & Forging Co., Batavia, N. Y.; Lefever Arms Co., Syracuse, N. Y.; the Crescent Fire Arms Co., and the Hopkins & Allen Arms Co., of Norwich, Conn.; A. H. Fox Gun Co., Philadelphia, Pa.; N. R. Davis & Sons, Assonet, Mass., etc. All the above manufacture double-barrel guns, which is a real sportsman's gun.�

I scrolled through Drew's post fairly quickly, but I'm not sure that a name like "London Steel" tells us as much about the quality as when you've got the name of the manufacturer of the steel stamped on the barrel (as in Krupp, Whitworth, Siemens-Martin, etc). Not that "London Steel" is cheap stuff, but given that it was used on 0 Grade guns, it's probably safe to assume that it was not made by someone like Whitworth. Later on, when Hunter switched to names rather than numbers for the various grades, London Steel was used on the Ideal Grade, while Nitro Steel barrels were used on the Specialty and Crown Grades. You didn't get Whitworth Steel until you got to the Monogram Grade. To me, Nitro Steel sounds less prestigious than London Steel, but price would seem to indicate Nitro must have been a step up. Or maybe just a different name for the same stuff.

The barrel grades on L.C. Smith were no different than any other gun manufactures, you got what you paid, the higher the grade the better the barrels and workmanship.
In catalogs for Hunter Arms, extra barrels were half the price of the gun if that is what you wanted. You could also order a cheaper barrel or a more expensive barrel.
An example would be in a Deluxe Grade, in 1913 this gun cost $1,000, an extra set of barrels for it would be $500. They would be Whitworth barrels from England.

As to strength of the cheaper barrels, all L.C. Smiths were tested with double loads, and in the 1920's when they started stamping the barrels water table or what ever you want to call it, it had NP along with HAC incorporated in the logo.

As to what is better, how many Field Grades are there still in use?

Tis' a shame the 2 inches of barrels cut off all those doubles years ago went to the war effort.
Wonder if there is a difference in composition or strength between:
Smith Armor, London, Crown, Nitro
Parker Titanic, Acme, Vulcan, Special Steel, Parker Steel
Lefever Dura-Nitro Steel, Royal Nitro Steel, Premier Nitro Steel
J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co. Nitro
Tobin Trojan Nitro
Folsom/Crescent Armory & Nitro
Aubrey/Meriden Armory
Baker Gun & Forging H_mo-tensile steel, Flui-Tempered steel, Holland Special Steel.

ALL these barrel tubes mentioned above were imported from Europe and then weighed and assembled in this country as barreled pairs. Then completed and fit to guns.




Or were they, all...?....

Best,

I've wondered the same thing, Drew, as far as difference in composition is concerned. Not much question about better wood, more engraving, and more careful workmanship as you go up in grades, but I've often wondered whether the barrel steel was really different--until you get to the barrels with a maker's name.

Whether or not the various tiers of barrel steels with makers were of some strength or quality difference was also a question we were interested in addressing in the barrel steel testing project that was started but never finished a half dozen yrs ago or so.

My opinion is that there is not much if any business or engineering justification to have actual different strength steels as the material itself is probably the cheapest aspect of a barrel. Even today, barrel quality steel is cheap, probably less than $5/lb.