doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Steel Barrels on a Reilly in 1876??

(If Mike doesn't mind I'll post this here). Mike Harrell has received his beautiful Reilly U-L hammer gun .500 BPE double rifle from Gavin Gardner per this line on the double rifle, paradox forum below:
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=650684#Post650684

It is really a quality gun. But there's a conundrum. The SN is 20674 which dates to very late 1876 or very early 1877. This is a very solid estimation. The address on the barrels is "502 New Oxford Street and rue Scribe, Paris also from the late 1870's. The address should have changed to "16 New Oxford" after November 1881. The gun looks absolutely 1870's and the proof marks appear to bear this out.

The barrels should be Damascus yet it appears these are Steel. They bear the same SN as the gun and again have the original address for Reilly. There are no Whitworth grainsheafs on the barrels only a barrel maker stamp "S. SM" which Mike believes is "S. Smith." Reilly did not advertise Whitworth steel barrels until January 1882 and the earliest Whitworth barreled shotgun is dated to December 1881.



The label in the case is the one used for 16 New Oxford Street between July 1887 and May 1897.



'The first thought was perhaps the gun had been brought back to Reilly for service in the early 1890's and the barrels changed from Damascus to steel but this is not so. There is another Reilly .500 BPE SxS rifle SN 19953 from 1876 very similar to Mike's rifle, which also appears to have steel barrels (which cannot be confirmed).



So the question is: Were non-Whitworth steel barrels being made in UK in the mid 1870's? By whom? Is there any record of an S. Smith as a barrel maker from this period? This could change the Reilly history a bit. . .and would mean Reilly was using steel for barrels a good 3 years before Purdey got around to it.

I think so Gene. Here is my 1870's vintage Edward Paton with steel barrels, not marked Whitworth, and interestingly enough, damascus top rib. No idea as to who would have made the tubes but I do agree, it would be interesting to know.

...perhaps the timescale for steel was different in rifle barrel making ?

Bessemer/Decarbonized steel was used for rifle barrels prior to 1850

William Deakin and John Bagnall Johnson were granted British Patent 647 March 3rd, 1866 and established the Patent Punched Steel Tube Company, Albion Works in West Bromwich. “Punched” describes the manufacturing process, and the composition of the steel is unknown, possibly Siemens-Martin.
Metallurgy of Steel, 1905
http://books.google.com/books?id=RaF9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA512&lpg
As early as 1866, Messrs Deakin & Johnson, of Bilston, were making weldless rifle barrels from a steel block about 1 inches diameter and 8 inches long, by punching a hole from each end under a steam hammer, and then rolling the blank presumably in the same way as weldless tubes are now rolled in the process of ‘rolling off’.

William Wellington Greener, The Gun, Third Edition, 1881
http://books.google.com/books?id=LAsAAAAAQAAJ
The cold-drawn steel barrels made in 1865 and the few following years were far superior to the plain iron and decarbonised steel barrels generally used. These barrels were drawn out, whilst cold, from blocks of steel, by pressing them with punches through orifices. They could only be drawn out an inch or two at a time, and required annealing each time before placing in the machine. Owing to the slowness of the process, and the heavy expenses incurred by the great wear upon the tools and machinery, the company were unable to manufacture at remunerative prices, and consequently closed after a few years.

William Siemens established the “Sample Steelworks” to develop the Siemens-Martin “Open Hearth” process in 1865, and his steel was in general industrial use 1870 - 1875. P. Webley & Son began using Siemens steel barrels about 1880

Wm. Powell & Son used Whitworth steel for barrels in 1875. The first Purdey Pair Nos. 10614 & 10615 were delivered January 1, 1880 with the “New Whitworth Fluid Pressed Steel”.

Samuel & Charles Smith were at 18 Oxenden Street until 1875
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=197514

Thanks Dr, Drew. Mike has a beautiful gun and I was flummoxed. Expertise on our board makes for a real education. I'll be changing the Reilly chapter on steel barrels and cribbing from some of what you've posted.

I had assumed that Whitworth was the be all and end all in steel barrels for sporting guns.....and knew he took out his patent in 1865 but that it didn't leak over broadly into sporting guns for a number of years. It's clear steel barrels were tried well before Purdey used Whitworth barrels in 1880. And, steel barrels were used on new Snider Enfields once the old iron Enfield rifle-muskets had been converted.

Is there a way to tell what kind of process was used to make the barrels for Mike Harrell' gun?

Too, the use of steel tubes for rifles and steel tubes for scatterguns really didn't parallel one another in time. Scattergun steel tubes were delayed a decade or more and there was some inherent resistance to leave scattergun pattern welded tubes and migrate to fluid steel tubes. Rifles didn't have that resistance or acknowledgement.

Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Thanks Raimey and agree. The old Indian saying, "When the tiger jumps on your elephant's head, the recoil of the gun is not important" or some such...i.e. I'd imagine the users of the big bore rifles did not wear tweed coats. (and sniff about their Damascus barrel designs).

On the Reilly line I've posted the new chapter XI, subchapter 76 on Reilly and steel barrels, much based on Dr. Drew's research. If there are no objections, I'll change the Reilly history,

I must say that I learned a bunch from this line. Now if someone can clarify what process Enfield was using in 1869 to make steel barrels for the Snider-Enfield, that would be a bonus

Oh yes, I forgot to add a Sabanless "Roll Tide."

Yes, my youngest son finagled a ticket to see the match. Ah, I can watch a few minutes of it before I am reminded on the vulgar NIL factor and just like Saban vividly said from the podium, you can't get the good guys without bribing them.... >>What's in it for me Generation<< But I digress.

I would say follow the wares of Léopold Bernard of Paris. It was this exact decade/time period(1865) that he took the Eastern Railroad to task and draggin' them it Court for transporting E. Bernard(of Liège) tubes(psuedo/fake where he would stamp any tube for 2.5 Frs.).

And I am kindly reminded again that Powell was using >>Punched Steel<< for their scattergun tubes commencing in 1866. So, with all this occurring @ the same time we should closely examine the scattergun tube steel in the 1860s.

Pattern welded tubes w/ rifling are most difficult to trace. I have never seen a price list and maybe not even a blank as all that were touted were the ones for scatterguns. Maybe it was the mechanics that convinced the end user(Hunter) that they really wanted Damascus so that they import cheaper pattern welded blanks from Liège instead of embracing the more expensive new fangled fluid steel?

Serbus,

Raimey
rse

Powell had customers requesting >>Bessemer Steel Barrels<< by 1872. So from the mid 1860s(1865) till the early 1870s(1872) we are seeing the migration from all pattern welded tubes to a mix of Steel tubes of the era along with the Damascus.

Serbus,

Raimey
rse