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

don't think i can bring myself to do that....these barrels are from a very high grade greener, with 4 wedges of engraving at the breeches, and over an inch band of matching engraving at the muzzles. marked with "2" atop each tube - so they from a two barrel set....proofed at 13, measure .722, with 35 thou choke on both sides. bores are absolutely clean and bright as new.

i'd feel like a criminal to take a saw to them....

best regards,

tom

Dr. Drew, I'll cut off a couple of inches of the 30" Whitworth Steel barrels of 27853 for your analysis. Will take a little while but trust me, the "check's in the mail." With all those SxS's being destroyed in UK, someone surely can come up with some samples of Whitworth steel, Seimens' steel, "Bessemer steel" barrels before the crusher ruins the barrels. I'll ask Diggory if he can come up with some samples for Dr. Drew.

Sent this to Diggory:

Diggory, on this line we examined two Reilly's from the mid-1870's with steel barrels fully 4 years before Purdey made his first Whitworth barreled shotgun.
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=651141&#Post651141

Turns out Powell was selling guns with steel barrels - - - probably Seimen's technique - in the late 1860's, early 1870's. Reilly probably copied him.

Drew Hause has done a lot of work on metallurgy and we're looking for samples of Whitworth steel barrels from the 1870's-80'a and for the other types of steel barrels being offered at the time. Wonder if there is anyway you could come up with some samples from guns being crunched up? It would seem to be an article that would resonate with the community for your magazine and history.

Also any chance of analyzing the post 1868 Snider-Enfield Arsenal steel barrels?

Gene

You can purchase guns out of the stock/action/fore end section at Holt's for pennies, they are all out of proof and the barrels will have notches cut out of them but fine for metallurgical testing. I will be happy to import a few antiques for testing purposes free of charge. Drop me a pm and we can work out the details. This will likely be your most cost-effective method of sourcing tubes to test.
Steve

Thank you Gene. I'm excited to see where this might lead...other than a diminished bank account
It will be important to know the gun maker, any barrel maker's marks or initials, and date of proof range of the harvested barrel segments.

Diggory got back and said he will query some sources. We'll see. Maybe we could group fund the analysis if we can come up with the samples.

Thanks everyone. I only need 2" for composition analysis; about 5" for tensile strength testing and composition analysis.
Again, it will be critical to know the maker and some estimate of DOM.
This is my last invoice from METL for the whole show, for one sample, so it needs to be worth the expense, which IMHO, knowing the composition and tensile strength of Whitworth would be.
Before someone points out the obvious, I get it is for one sample, from one maker, at one point in time.

Hi Gene, Just came across a Reilly PINFIRE, that was sold at an auction in New Zealand. Serial Number 12776. I have printed the very full description, and colour pictures, if you need to see the. Is this gun in your database? Dave

It's a new number David. Would appreciate details if possible.