doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Sir Joseph Whitworth fluid compressed steel

Top Gun, the one D M Lefever crossbolt Optimus Grade that has been seen had Krupp Special barrels, a step up from Krupp barrels. The catalog of the period noted this offering.

Daryl
As noted I don't have my reference materials here at the office. I couldn't remember the barrel steel markings on your Optimus (a fabulous piece by the way!), nor can I remember the exact markings of the Krupp barrels on the two Uncle Dan Grades (I'm sure their not mill run Krupp); but thanks for the assist in pointing out that Dan Lefever didn't limit his high-grade gun barrel steels solely to Whitworth and Finest Damascus. Tom

You simply cannot use the word never or always in a discussion of Lefevers. However, one of the 2 known Uncle Dan grade guns (the 12 gauge) has Whitworth Barrels. The 16 gauge has Krupp. I am not aware of an Optimus grade Lefever Arms Co. with Krupp barrels, although that doesn't mean there aren't any. All I have seen with fluid steel barrels were Whitworth although Kilby barrels were offered in 1892.
The point being is that the story I originally quoted doesn't make a lot of sense when it states that the Krupp barrels were thought to be superior to Whitworth for bargaining purposes.

Purdey used Krupp steel from July 1898 till December 1898 for a total of 80 plus examples due to a strike I believe it was. Rigby used a Krupp absorbed concern(Annener Gu�stahlwerk/Annen Steel Company) as a tube steel source. After say the mid 1880s, and for sure by 1890, there probably wasn't a dime's difference between Whitworth, Krupp & Wittner steel tubes. Only way to say for certain would be to lop off a few inches and send them thru the Dr. Hause gun-barrel testing protocol.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Barrel donations still gladly accepted

Composition analysis by optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and tensile strength testing runs about $110 per sample.

Mr. Brown:
Pretty good bird-doggin'. So were the stamps applied prior to arrival in Liege in order that when translated it makes sense. Or were the stamps applied by the mechanics in country of origin of the sporting weapon after they had translated the phrase from some French equivalent back to English, i.e. who or where were the stamps applied? I strongly hold with the latter. Whitworth did make the hollow vessel and I'd assume that Purdey would have been the middle-man. Or is there knowledge that hollow vessels could be sourced straight from Whitworth. Or did Whitworth peddle ingot steel to the Belgians?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Can't offer you any help beyond the translation from the French and how it differs from the standard English version. But interesting that "acier comprime" shows up quite often on French/Belgian guns. A Verney-Carron catalog refers to the steel they call "acier diamant" as "acier au creuset comprime".

Well, you see many different phrases, some atop some not. I contend that the Belgian were applying the phrases with their own die set.

Some other phrases are:
"Canons Acier Krupp", "Acier Anglais", "Excelsior Stahl Witten"(in block form) coupled with "Marke Alder"(on the underside is something like Acier Special C??), "Krupp'scher Flussstahl"(I think this one to be German inland)

And regarding Krupp, by the mid 1880s one sees the term "Krupp'scher Kanonenstahl" when seems to gain traction catapulting Krupp to the forefront of alloys and their footprint stretches to weapons centres like Liege & Terni.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Terni and on to Spain:






Destroyer Trademark





Obsequio del Real Club de Espa�a de Torreon
Campeonato Tiro Pichon Torreon


Fluid Pressed Steel Whitworth's

Most interesting Spanish Sarasketa(?) Pigeon Prize/Gift for Christmas of 1921 that wears tubes of Whitworth steel.

Cheers,

Raimey
rse

Very interesting-your last paragraph recalls an article in the DGJ on a similar A-2- Monogram Grade Smith-Volume twenty-two, Issue 4 Winter 2011. I noted with interest on page 119 the error "We also know that unrestricted German U-boat (did England have U-boats then, one might wonder)--warfare resulted in the sinking of the RMS (Royal Mail Steamer) Lusitania on May 1, 1915--et al. History seems to tell us that disaster actually occurred on May 7, 1915. The Lusitania left the New York harbor in May 1st, 1915-and later discovery showed she was carrying illegal explosives to aid England in her conflict against German, a clear violation of the neutrality act extant back then. I chuckled a bit when I read that, almost as much as I did when I saw the movie "Animal House" and the late John Belushi's character in a rant: "And when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor"- --

Krupp added nickel as an alloy in about 1891 to their ordnance grade steel, but the old Prussian High Command officers in ordnance still were favoring brass for cannon and mortar barrels in the early years of the "War To End All Wars"-- old habits die hard, do they not?? Der Fuchs!!