It appears that I have once again triggered the Preacher into another hysterical response to a comment I made. Several days ago, in the "Boyd and Tyler 16 Gauge" Thread, the Preacher said this:
IMHO a vintage double without pitting means honing.
I responded to that sheer conjecture with this:
This statement by the Preacher is both absurd and unfounded.
The presence of pitting in the bores of a vintage double may indicate that it was never honed. On the other hand, barrels that have been honed could also continue to be neglected, and could subsequently develop new pitting. Guns that were used with corrosive primed shells could develop pitting very quickly if not properly maintained. And some barrel steels were less resistant to corrosion too.
However, there are plenty of vintage doubles that have nice shiny bores, in spite of never being honed or polished. That's because there are plenty of vintage doubles that were owned by guys who made a habit of cleaning and oiling their guns after use.
This sort of misleading information tends to get accepted and repeated, so it should be understood that you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet.
Apparently, my observation has been festering and causing a measure of distress that resulted in this insane little "Show-and-Tell" Thread full of old ammo ads from his vast gun picture and vintage advertising collection. And more unfounded conjecture with zero valid evidence.
Time to deal in some facts instead of fear mongering for a change. Even before another Preacher named Rev. Alexander Forsythe invented percussion caps that relied upon a fulminate compound, there was this stuff called Black Powder, that left a very corrosive residue in the barrels of guns. Shooters soon learned to either clean their guns after shooting, or faced the consequences of severe barrel rusting and pitting. Early corrosive primers and percussion caps, in conjunction with black powder, continued the very real need for maintenance. The development of smokeless powders helped somewhat, but the mercury fulminate or potassium chlorate primers still left a corrosive residue that needed prompt cleaning... or else!
The development of non-corrosive priming compound such as lead styphnate was a real advance that permitted shooters to be less obsessive about maintenance. But routine gun cleaning is still needed, and is hardly OCD behavior as the Preacher seems to think. Perhaps the Preacher thinks that everyone here who has asked about bore cleaning, bore lubes, etc. is OCD, just because they wish to keep their guns in good condition. Gun cleaning is no more OCD than flushing the toilet after taking a crap.
Another hard and verifiable fact is that corrosive primed ammunition continued to be used long after non-corrosive priming was introduced. There is still a great deal of corrosive surplus military ammo available that is safely used so long as you don't forget to promptly clean your gun. I have a few SKS 7.62 x 39 rifles that no doubt saw use with corrosive military ammo, yet have very nice bores. I also had a Yugoslavian SKS that had a bore that looked like a sewer pipe. It shot patterns instead of groups, so I sold it cheap. If the Preacher took a good hard look at vintage advertisements from shooting magazines of the past, he would see lots of ads for gun cleaning kits, cleaning rods, bore cleaning solvents, gun oils, innovative bore mops and bore brushes, etc. But he would NOT see many ads selling barrel honing equipment, or services to do barrel honing. I am NOT saying barrel honing was never done. It just wasn't done nearly as often as the Preacher wants us all to believe.
A good many shooters engaged in regular cleaning and maintenance, and as a result, there are still plenty of vintage shotguns, rifles, and handguns that have nice shiny barrels... in spite of never being honed, lapped, or aggressively subjected to significant removal of metal. It seems apparent from the small number of vintage shotguns the Preacher has owned, that they were mostly low grade doubles that saw hard use and obvious neglect. His one and only Damascus barreled gun is a OE Grade L.C. Smith that has pitted barrels that he has told us measure .016" thick at 14" from the breech. When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you pretend to be a shotgun barrel expert, but own nothing but a few low grade guns that saw hard use and neglect, I suppose it becomes easy to think all old guns are either pitted, or must surely have been honed. I have a Stan Baker bore gauge, and have measured quite a few guns with nice shiny bores that are standard bore diameter. And guess what... most of them were Syracuse Lefever doubles which were produced decades before non-corrosive priming was introduced!
I have noticed that an inordinate number of small bore Lefever DS Grade guns have pitted bores, and believe KYJon has mentioned the same. That may mean the Dura Steel fluid steel barrels were an alloy more prone to corrosion, or they were simply neglected. Or both. I cannot say that I have inspected or measured the bores of a statistically significant number of DS Lefever guns. But I also own some with perfect shiny bores that measure right on the money, and overall condition suggests they were used, but well maintained. Routine bore cleaning and oiling works wonders.
I laughed out loud when I saw the Preacher's pile of frosted and pitted barrel segments. He presumably solicited them when he was doing metallurgical testing... which showed us very little except the composition of those particular segments. That pile of segments proves exactly nothing... except that the guys who donated them were not stupid enough to cut segments off of perfectly good and shiny barrels. What a sad pathetic joke! And the photo of one double that was honed out to .739" looks very alarming. But the burst was almost certainly mainly due to an obstruction like snow or mud in the bore. This "evidence" is the same hysterical Chicken Little sky-is-falling behavior that led him to mislead people about some big scary frame cracking issue with small bore Ithaca Flues guns. It's hogwash, pure and simple.
