Keith;
You are of course absolutely correct in that there are indeed many varieties & Strengths of steel. However when it comes to double shotgun frames of a century ago most were built using plain low carbon steel, which was then normally case hardened. As has been pointed out though previously these guns were normally Proofed, in the white ie prior to being case hardened.
Based upon Ted's input my best conclusion at this point is that the fault with the Tobin is mainly a poor design, cutting away too much vital metal from the bar. Tobin may well have used just as good quality steel as did Lefever for instance, but the Lefever simply does not have this problem.
I also believe another major factor on a lot of those Cheap imports is so many of them simply received no care at all. Most never had the hinges cleaned or oiled & if the barrels were cleaned at all it was a minimum run through with a patch which didn't remove the salts left from the corrosive primers. So many of these guns are found with badly pitted bores, far worse than most guns which were used only with black powder, as in the black powder days most realized the necessity of good cleaning. practices. It took a number of years for folks to realize that smokeless powder guns also needed cleaning.
Anyway to me this has been a very interesting subject & I appreciate both Ted 's & your input on it.
Last edited by 2-piper; 02/18/19 09:22 AM.
