Recent posts have discussed the material used in gun action bodies. Some time ago I was shown the action of a good quality self opening 12G box lock ejector by a well known London maker. The gun showed normal English proof marks. Cast in the water table of the gun were the words, "Cast Iron". The action was likely cast and processed into Malleable Iron ,a material that has ductility and good tensile strength . I think that the use of cast material was likely a cost reduction effort by the maker. Issues with cast iron are; welding is very difficult and case hardening is not recommended.
Has any one else encountered this type of Action material?
As I remember Ithaca made some low end double guns using malleable iron recevers. If I remember corretly malleabl iron was used on Nitro Specials and perhaps Western Long Range models.
Didn't the the Marlin 90 O/U use iron receivers?
I think one of my old Crescent guns had a "Cast Steel" marking. I don't know if they blurred the line between cast iron and cast steel, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Chuck: "Cast steel" usually refers to the Huntsman hot-rolled crucible steel process of 1742 used to make farm implements. To form a pipe or barrel, a sheet was folded over a mandrel and the long edge hammer welded. A more modern use refers to the Bessemer process of 1856 for converting pig iron to steel. It preceded modern fluid steel. I don't know the difference from Remington's 'Decarbonized Steel'.
But folks called barrels pretty much whatever they wanted - T. Barker 'Daminated Steel' !????
Crescent single shot and Iver Johnson Champions as well- Castings from the cope and drag system will usually show a grainy surface- cannot be case hardened--
Drew,
My Crescent marking likely refers to the method the final product (frame) was made. It's clear that the frame was cast when you view unmachined areas.
Several makers experimented with cast actions . Churchill for example , later BSA's and Ruger shotguns appear to be all cast and many Italian and Spanish makers use a lot of cast parts .Trigger guards ,trigger plates ,triggers , tailpipes and forend irons have all been cast. Modern Miroku's also seem to have a lot of cast parts .Single barrels of all makes were cast .I once had several hammer gun actions that had been cast ,that is rough un-machined castings of hammer gun bodys I don't know who they were made for as I bought a job lot of old junk at an auction that these were with it .
Ruger made/make most of, if not all their guns from the "lost wax" or "investment" casting method. The Browning(Miroku) 525 Sporting (Citori) that I have is an investment cast stainless steel frame, along with many of the bits in the action. Earlier Citori's were fully machined internally, and I would guess that meant they were either forged or billet (barstock) actions.
As I remember Ithaca made some low end double guns using malleable iron recevers. If I remember corretly malleabl iron was used on Nitro Specials and perhaps Western Long Range models.
My understanding is that was one difference between the Nitros and the Westerns: the Nitro has a case hardend action while the Westerns were malleable iron. But as Dennis Miller used to say back when he was still funny. "I could be wrong."
gunman,
In 1975 I was privileged to tour the F.N factory at Herstal for the purpose of reviewing their ,lost wax, lost foam and investment casting process. Also in 1975 I reviewed these casting production methods with the late Don Masters of Churchill.
The action body of the gun the subject of my post, was a malleable Iron casting,likely produced by the shell process or as a traditional sand casting made by the cope and drag method.
It would appear that perhaps the action was a prototype and that the MALLEABLE IRON was not accepted by the trade.