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Forums10
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Apr 29th, 2024
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 94
Sidelock
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OP
Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 94 |
When were steel barrels introduced? I looked at a Charles Boswell 1895, steel barrels, sleeved. Is it possible these barrels are original?
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 6,304 Likes: 222
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 6,304 Likes: 222 |
The 1860s and 70s saw several types of "non twist or Damascus " steels being tried. The Brazier Website says that Purdey first used Whitworth Fluid steel around 1880.
Last edited by Daryl Hallquist; 09/07/07 07:44 PM.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 527
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 527 |
The Boswell barrels weren't marked "3 Bell Steel" or with a #3 ?, just curious. --- John Can.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 5,954 Likes: 12
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 5,954 Likes: 12 |
I have an 1882 Woodward top lever hammer gun with steel barrels. They have been around for a long time. I doubt that you will pin down an exact/actual date of introduction.
Last edited by Rocketman; 09/07/07 09:33 PM.
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Joined: Jan 2006
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 9,529 Likes: 355 |
Sir Joseph Whitworth's adaptation of Bessemer's principle of hydraulic pressure casting was patented in 1874, but Chris Batha's site states Sir Joseph Whitworth Fluid Steel Barrels were not introduced until 1890.
Last edited by revdocdrew; 09/07/07 10:32 PM.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 94
Sidelock
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OP
Sidelock
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 94 |
On the bottom of the barrels (flats?) on both sides (3 per followed by a little square). I assume the original barrels were damascus and later cut off and new steel barrels attached. On side of existing barrel is marked sleeved. I was told this gun was made in 1895.
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 12,743
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 12,743 |
Lefever Arms Co catalog;
price list page dated "Jan 1 1889"
Optimus grade "Whitworth Fluid Steel" or Kilby
Would seem somewhat odd Lefever would offer them on this side of the pond if Whitworth had not started building them yet on the other side.
Miller/TN
I Didn't Say Everything I Said, Yogi Berra
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Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 4,598
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 4,598 |
Almost forgot I had this. From Fire-Arms Manufacture 1880. U.S. Department of Interior, Census Office.
It ought to be stated that while military barrels are, in this country, generally rolled down upon mandrels, the barrels of sporting guns are drilled full length, as is the practice at the Winchester armory and at Colt's armory. It is significant that at Enfield the English method of barrel rolling, so generally introduced into this country, and the present practice at the United States armory and other large works, has been abandoned for the former and more expensive method of drilling the barrels full length. This is the method also approved in the Prussian armories...
Barrels were first forged by hand, but in 1817 the method of welding them under a trip-hammer was patented by Asa Waters, of Millbury, Massachusetts....The practice of welding barrels under trip-hammers, instead of by hand, was not introduced at Harper's Ferry until 1836.
The earliest use of decarbonized steel or gun-barrels is generally credited to the Remingtons, who made steel barrels for North & Savage, of Middletown, Connecticut, and for the Ames Manufacturing company, of Chicopee, Massachusetts, as early as 1846. It is also stated that some time about 1848 Thomas Warner, a the Whitneyville works, incurred so much loss in the skelp-welding of iron barrels that he voluntarily substituted steel drilled barrels in his contract, making them of decarbonized steel, which was believed by him to be a a novel expedient. The use of soft cast-steel was begun at Harper's Ferry about 1849. After 1873, all small-arms barrels turned out at the national armory at Springfield were made of decarbonized steel(a barrel of which will endure twice as heavy a charge as a wrought-iron barrel), Bessemer steel being used until 1878, and afterward Siemens-Martin steel.
Pete
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 6,250
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 6,250 |
Perhaps what you are seeing in some of these older English guns are new steel barrels by the maker replacing the original damascus. Really, how many hammerless Purdey and Boss guns do you see with damascus barrels?
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