I have always wondered why Mod. 21s have dovetailed instead of chopperlumps. Anyone know? Chops

Model 21 barrels are of chopperlump construction. The lumps are then machined so they can be dovetailed together, then soldered rather than brazed which does not destroy the heat treatment of the barrels. This is a totally different system than British dovetailed barrels where the entire lunp is dovetailed to the barrels. I hope this makes sense.....it used to confuse me too.

Buzz,
Did you mean to say, the British braze the entire lump to the barrels instead of dovetailing ,or do I not understand.?

I didn't look it up but I believe Schwing wrote that is was so they could solder them at a lower temperature and retain the steel's properties. The Model 21 dovetail is vertical. There are dovetails that run parallel with the axis of the barrels.

I probably wasted your time. I bet Don Moody will pipe in here with a definitive answer in a little bit.

Best,

Mike

I believe the British dovetail the lumps themselves to the barrel flats then braze. With dovetailed you can usually see a faint braze line lateral to the lumps on the barrel flats whereas with chopperlump you will see a faint line running down the middle of the two lumps where they are usually brazed together. A Winchester 21 is soldered rather than brazed. So, with chopperlump, the lumps are made as an integral part of the barrel and with dovetail, in the british sense, the lumps are made separate from the barrels as an individual and then dovetailed to the barrel flats, then brazed. A picture is worth a thousand words; someone will hopefully post some diagrams to better explain this.

I do not think anyone heat treated the barrels. I don't think that anyone could put them to red heat without messing up the thinner tubes. Years ago I passed on a M-21 @ $1400. It was a 20 bore, splinter and straight stock. Beeb kicking myself ever since. I am just a blue-collar fan. Chops

Chopperlump: I looked this up in 'Winchester's Finest The Model 21': Page 59, "The idea behind Burton"s patent was to develop a new system of joining the barrels together that would be strong enough to withstand recoil forces and heat buildup due to rapid firing, while at the same time be inherently sturdy enough to be soldered instead of brazed, thus not destroying the heat treatment of the barrels.". What I think this means is the original heat treatment in producing Winchester Proof Steel and they felt brazing could anneal the steel due to the higher heat, but this is only a guess on my part as to the literal meaning of the above statement.

This description may sound familiar: "The parts may be further locked together by a screw . . . passing through the halves of the lump, and, as an additional security, the parts may be soft soldered." That's from a British patent, dated 1911. The system was eventually used on the BSA doubles, which appeared about 10 years later--and about 10 years before the Model 21.

To my knowledge, barrels are never heat treated in the sense of hardening. I don't particularly know about Winchester Proof Steel, but many of the higher alloyed steels are a bit ouchy for warping at elevated temperature. That may be what is meant. More likely, IMO, is that the machining of the vertical dovetail and solder assembly was cheaper in the plant than the brazing assembly process. Once tooling is in place, machining is cheap compared to hand work.

I think there may be another view. I think the steel blank prior to being bored and machined was heat treated to a particular hardness and strength. That strength is better than the same steel in its annealed state. However that increased strength was still machinable. By converting to a soldering process instead of a brazing process Winchester was able to preserve that original treatment rather than reduce it further through a brazing process that further lowered its overall strength through additional heat.

Greener made the same observation re British guns. If you don't have the tooling and aren't making the guns in some quantity, dovetailing/soldering doesn't make bottom line sense. But if you're making a lot of guns, as BSA did, then setting up the tooling/machining makes sense.

Though it is certainly possible that M21 tubes were "heat treated" to a strength higher than "normalized" (which is commonly 'as produced' from the supplier, and is of slightly higher strength than full annealed), I have doubts. If they were "heat treated" for strength, as most of you know, steel strength and hardness go hand in hand.

Nevertheless, even if they were trying to preserve hardness/strength of "normalized" steel, it would be a significant strength advantage. Depending on alloy and foundry processing, "normalized steels in the "chromoly" family can have an increase in yield strength (the point of permanent deformation, not rupture) from about 20% to 100% above full anneal yield strength. However, hardness tracks with this increase in strength. Alloys having "normalized" yield strengths near 100% higher than annealed condition also are fairly hard, up around the low 30's Rockwell C. That's about as hard as a modern rifle action, modern 1911 style frame/slide. On the other hand, some "normalized" steels are pretty soft, around 12-13 on the Rockwell C scale. But these are the steels that have only a slight increase in yield strength over their annealed condition.

Here's one method of joining barrels. This assembly gets brazed on the RBL Launch Edition.

For all practical purposes to the owner there isn't any difference between the various methods of joining barrels. It comes down to what's economical for the maker. Of course they make a virtue of their method in their advertising. Many, many guns have been made using all systems and I have never read of a failure due to the particular way the barrels were joined. The sole exception I recall reading about was the bottom barrel of a Beretta coming loose and sliding forward an inch or so due to a faulty joint and I would have trouble believing that unless I saw it. I believe that Winchester copied the BSA system and then talked it up as being a better way for sales purposes. They would do that of course, wouldn't they.
nial

I think I agree with Nial on this. Chopperlump barrels certainly give one bragging rights and are clearly more expensive than dovetailed barrels....but are they really any better?? I doubt it. I have a 106-107 year old Hussey with Dovetailed barrels and it is a fine gun. One can see the brazing lines just lateral to the lumps if you look hard and the dovetail joint looks as strong to me as the day it was made so many years ago.

I'm in agreement, sans for the Beretta I saw a picture of with the tube slid forward a bit, I've never heard of nor seen a failed barrel join. Yet "chopperlump" seems to elicit some big superiority debates and some believe nothing else will do.

I, personally, experience a Brit style dovetail braze joint failure on a 1921 vintage Hellis Premier SLE. The failure was clearly due to an original cold braze joint; there was less than a dime size contact patch in the original braze, yet the gun had been shot considerably. Rather than an inditement of dovetailed barrels, this convinced me that properly brazed dovetails have little likelyhood of ever failing. Frankly, I'm not at all sure but what choppers were cheaper to make than dovetails, once the supply of dovetails and dovetail making barrel makers sorta dried up. The dovetail lump is one more piece and a bunch of fitted area.

Here are the various ways of joining barrels as described by Burrard:



Fig 4 is "dovetail lumps", Fig 5 is un-named Fig 6 is "through lumps" and Fig 7 is "chopper lumps".

Here is a pic of "dovetail chopper lumps".

Fig 5 is usually referred to as the "Shoe Lump". My J P Sauer & Son/V L & D Knockabout sidelock has this type of lump. There is no mechanical advantage to this shoe lump, but it does have a very large brazing area.
There is also what is normally referred to as "Conventional" which is similiar to the dovetail but without the side points, the lug just tapered to a point at top & fit between the bbls. As best as I can see the braze lines my Lefevers all have this conventional contruction. They of course bolt into the rib extension so there is little downward pull on the underlug.
As I recall Winchester moved their dovetail further foward than shown in Burrard's diagram. This at least partianally elimanated on of the major objections to its use, that of wider spaced breeches. The other objection is that of necessity the lu has to be built of bbl steel, a seperate lump can be built of some form of tool steel & will thus normally be harder.

This is from Ned Schwing's Model 21 book, page 57

When Winchester decided to build a double barrel side by side shotgun it wanted a set of barrels that were strong and accurate. The result was barrels forged in the Winchester Plant from specially heat treated alloy steel having a tensile strength of 115,000 to 120,000 pounds per square inch and an elactic limit of approximately 105,000 pounds per square inch. This was more than twice the strength of the usual barrel steel. Without the use of the special aloys and proper heat treatment the figures would be significantly less: 75,000 pounds per square inch for tensile strength and 60,000 pounds per square inch for elastic limit.

Then two paragraphs down:

Each Winchester barrel forging had a large long surfaced integral lug. While the idea for interlocking barrels was not new it was an idea that was not employed at that time among other American double gun makers. In addition to this interlocking system, Winchester used soft solder, a mixture of 50 percent lead and 50 percent tin, to join the barrels togeth. Becasue of the strength and reliability of these barrels Winchester was proud to place th Winchester Proof Mark on them. As Edwin Pugsley so aptly put it, "the mark 'Winchester Proof' simply guarantees that it is a heat treated alloy steel of special analysis which is the best that we know at the presnt time for the particular purpose for which it is used."
The footnote to the Pugsley quote says it was in correspondence from Pugsley to Colonel W. F. Sigmund on March 10, 1932.

I was right! I was right!

Pardon me, happens so seldom when I disagree with the guys that really know something.

Best,

Mike

It appears Mike solved this problem regarding heat treated steel with Winchester Model 21's and Winchester Proof Steel.
. It appears Winchester used very high quality steel making their guns. My question now refers to the new Model 21 made by Galazan: is the steel used by them to make all these 21's as good as Winchester proof steel and what is the make up of their steel and where do they buy it or produce it??

Actually Buzz I just said twice what you said first but never mind that. I was right! I was right!

We know that gun manufacturers always told the truth about their products, so -----. Hard to believe they machined a heat treated bar or heat treated finished barrel. Maybe!! Since they didn't reduce the weight of the barrel (retain equal strength), but, rather, stuck to normal barrel weights (thus, higher strength)their barrels were seriously overbuilt. Beyond braggin' rights, to what purpose? And, who was likely to check on the steel strength?

Why so they could win the proof load contest of course! If I ever need a shotgun for shooting several hundred proof loads it will be the 21.

I have an old beater 21 trap gun with 32" barrels that has ring bulges in it just like a couple of my old beater Parker VHs. I feel much safer shooting the 21.


Best,

Mike

Wow, I didn't mean to start a fight over it. What about the lowly but rugged 311's. They were stamped barrel and lug forged in one piece. A hardware store gun with c/l's? Chops

Mine was meant in fun and meant to be self deprecating humor and I certainly wasn't fighting.

I concede Rocketman's last points; Why and Who.

Best,

Mike

Is the suggestion here that there's no value in using steel stronger than required for normal purpose? No value in strength to perhaps withstand out of norm events due to human error in gun safety? Maybe unnecessary steel strength has spared someone injury, or more serious injury? I see some value, so guess I'm who ... even though "why" is way out there on the margins.

Jay

Didn't Winchester take great delight in blowing up English game guns during that test?

If I recall correctly, the test only involved other contemporary American doubles--all of which survived, at a minimum, dozens of proof loads. Given that the standard proof for an English game gun is about 5,000 psi lower than the American SAAMI standard, it wouldn't be quite kosher to subject them to the same proof loads as 21's. A gun that has passed CIP/British magnum/superior proof, on the other hand, is subjected to essentially equal proof pressures.

Schwing reports it as Larry remembers. No English guns.

The Fox Sterlingworth failed after 80 proof rounds...Ithaca after 56...Parker Trojan went 305... The results for the L.C. Smith firing records have been lost, but it was reported that the gun failed during the proof test. The Winchester Model 21 fired 2,000 rounds and was still in good working order.

There is a footnote that says this information was in the Winchester Repeater, Fall of 1984, Volume 1, pp 12 and 13.

So if things are as they are reported by Winchester there is strength and longevity value to the steel and the processes they used in the 21.

Best,

Mike

They used a patent by Frank Burton, 1785765, Dec 23, 1930.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=pF5eAAA...ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA

In the abstract, Burton refers to the "dovetail-grove".

On page 59 of his book, Schwing talks about dovetailing. He says the Burton patent represents a "new system of joining."

Pete

Not to belabor the point but Schwing says they also soldered the barrels together with 50/50 lead/tin solder which has a very low melting poing (compared to brazing).

Best,

Mike

Wait a minute there. Those tests don't say nearly as much as some here contend. It's like comparing apples and oranges. The joint pin on the 21 is further from the breech face than any of the other guns. While I don't know the various wall thickness of the guns compared I suspect the 21 is no light weight in that department and may even be the thickest of the lot. But the most critical thing has to be the distance from joint pin to breach face. This factor will dwarf all others when assessing how much strain an action will endure before failure. Quality of steel is way down the list.
nial

Well we don't know how the guns that failed failed. We don't know if the barrels burst or the bolting system failed or the locks quit functioning or the stock broke. We don't know how failure was defined. Was off face and/or loose defined as failure or failure to fire defined as failure etc...

Nice bit of gamesmanship by Mr. Olin and company I think.

Still a good, rugged and reliable gun.

Best,

Mike

There are too many variables to categorically say any one thing is what makes one gun superior in strength to another. So, I think you hit the nail on the head: apples to oranges. But you can determine that one gun is stronger than another thru testing. In the end, that's useful to some people. If one company uses steel that is 20% stronger than the next guy, but does not utilize it efficiently in his design, it may result in a lightweight but understrength product or a product that is heavier than desired and stronger than necessary for the job.

I'm in the airplane biz. We can make stronger airplanes, but they become less efficient. Somewhere there is a range of balance of the requirements. Within this range, there is an optimum design for the constraints at hand.

But if the proof test was fair and the definitions of failure reasonable and rational then the multiple proof load test did prove the Winchester 21 was stouter and longer lived than the competitors. I just don't know what Winchester's definition of failure was for the test.

I had an engineering course and was taught one way of simulating 1000 times more cycles than you could afford to test for was to increase the load, force, weight etc... on the system you were testing. For instance driving a car designed to cruise at 70 for 100,000 miles at 120 mph for 40,000 miles.

I also suspect that since the failure of each gun was not described that the perhaps the definiton of failure was not reasonable or rational. At least I haven't read what the falures were.


Best,

Mike

Mike, would not have been stock failure. The wood's not attached during the proof process.

I don't believe we know how Winchester did the muli proof cartridge contest for the multiple brands of shotguns. I would like to see a write up of it.

Certainly Winchester wasn't proofing those guns.

Best,

Mike

I have looked up several definition of "not to belabor the point" , but cannot seem to find one applicable to this thread. Am I missing a good source of information ?

This was predated by the French Ideal which had the chopper-lump with vertical dovetail soldered construction since I believe at least 1900. The construction is well detailed in the 1910 catalog.
There are two types of dovetails here. The traditional dovetailed lump (one lump dovetailed on 2 barrels, everything being brazed together), and chopper lumps barrels with integral lumps, dovetailed vertically together, so that the barrels cannot separate because of longitudinal forces.
BSA certainly did it, but I believe that the "Manufacture" did it first.
They did say in their ads that the soldering allowed for less tube distortion during the assembly, because of the lower temperature used.
Best regards,
WC-

One thing does seem "Absolutely Certain" here Winchester did not use it "FIRST" in spite of what Schwing said.

Here's a Schwing quote about "new" that Mike already provided above.

"Each Winchester barrel forging had a large long surfaced integral lug. While the idea for interlocking barrels was not new it was an idea that was not employed at that time among other American double gun makers."

Goodnes, NO, Chops, not a fight. I'm exchanging information and ideas.

M-21 ring bulges, hmmm, Mike, you are the second guy in a month who has a ring bulged M-21. Now, would the obstruction that caused these bulges have caused a "lesser" gun to burst? Also, the proof load test, as I recall the details, failed action working parts, not the barrels. BTW, the bulge area is work hardened and to sustain further damage would require a bigger obstruction than the first in exactly the same place.

For anyone wishing to perform a little work hardening experiment, get a common wire coat hanger and a couple of wire pliers. First, bend one place about 90 degrees by hand and count the number of times required to break the wire. Repeat with pliers forcing the wire to bend in the exact same location (it is difficult to keep the bend in the same place by hand).

On the other hand, I also love my M-21 skeet gun.

DDA

Just think of how heavy a 21 would be if they hadn't used 'special steel'.

Now Grasshopper, you can get the 12 gauge 28" double trigger splinter forend models in at 6-3/4 and 7 pounds all day.

The 12 gauge 3" models are much heavier, as are the "clays" models, as they should be I think. But out on the net there are hundreds of Perazzi and Krieghoff clays models that are as heavy or heavier.

I thought I had gone over this with you already. Please start paying attention.