doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Barrels, not what they should be?

With all the hot topics of collector's grades, handsome wood, engraving style and the amount of case color - not much about finely struck barrels. After all, the barrels are the heart and soul of a gun. They are the difference between the collector's cabinet piece and the gamegun.
The vintage Americans, and the non-Brits seem to be sluggish in the lively barrel department.
Looked at some high end Spanish clones, they've got somethings right...but what about the barrels?

So you could take a Winchester M24 and stick on some 'finely struck' barrels and it becomes a cabinet piece?

That's a little like arguing a woman's true beauty lies in her elbows.

The barrels on most classic American doubles are fit for lumberjack!

I was thinking it was more equivalent to parts more inboard and slightly upward, hopefully.

But to Lowell's thoughts, I recall my AYA #2 having very nicely struck barrels and thinking they were fairly thin. From what Lowell has mentioned on this subject several times, it appears he values not only a well finished exterior with consistant wallthickness, but also very thin walls. So, I guess that AYA was well struck.

Lowell, the H&H video spends a bit of time with the barrel guys showing the various steps in achieving what you brought up. I highly recommend it, if you don't already have it.

I got nothin!

jack

I'd think there is more to a lively set of barrels than being struck thin. Balance achieved along the entire length is the thing. The truth is, barrels are what seperates good guns from great guns. Some of the high grade American cabinet pieces(grade, condition and the percent of case color sorts) barrels are not that much off the field grades, if any.
GregSY, maybe you've not found those great set of barrels yet - or so it sounds!

Don't mount and swing while looking at the gun. Don't thrash it about while looking at it. This will resolve many of the issues of these seminars in comparative gunology. Personally, I think I'd rather drive a 28" AyA than push a 30" SW. But taking one thing with another as Garwood used to say, and then taking them to pieces and reassembling some other way, and disregarding the light 16 and the swizzlestick 28 and the fact that yours has been honed out three times and mine hasn't and that the Japs never once considered filing down the outsides of theirs, your desirable shootin iron is the one you hit something with rather than the one you can wiggle around in the air like a baton cause it's got more in the middle. And life's too short to shoot with an ugly gun so we have to settle for shooting some of the pretty ones occasionally. And you can never have too many so why not just have some of each?

jack

It seems to me that on this side of the pond we traded grace and charm for price, hard use, daily service and food on the table.

Now that most no longer "hunt or go hungry" we can worry about the finery.

Now I've never really hunted a super high grade AH Fox, but it would be a shame to say it shot much like my Sterlingworth.
Thousands upon thousands seperate the two in cost, and one would hope that something other than ligthnin' bolts would grace the barrel work.
Buy the barrels, and the better the better?
Unless it's a wand of a smallbore, not much is said about the barrels from the well beyond the field grade boys.
I suspect no dew on the barrels of these one-up-manshippers.

Lowell close your eyes and keep telling yourself that Sterlingworth is a Super Fox....try it in a thunderstorm and you might manage to get some lightning bolts.

It's pretty much proven beyond any reasonable arguement that the heavier, longer barrels make everyone shoot better and more consistantly. Virtually all competition guns of any clay sport or live bird sport have longer and heavier barrels than a 28" 'game gun'. Granted there are some upland hunting conditions or birds that require shorter and quicker handling guns, but it sure ain't pheasants or dove.

Now I'll be the first to tell you that lugging a 7 1/2 lb 12g club up and down Calif razorback hills is a bear... and I've done it for years until discovering 20g guns, and recently 410's. But even though the heavy guns were a burden to carry, I could shoot more consistantly with them. We're all consumed by the attraction of lightweight guns, myself included. But truth be known, I think some of the best game shots I've seen were using 7 1/2 lb guns or heavier. I guess those lightweight "game guns" are just sexier.

Chuck, if that was the case all the chaps would have been using their pigeon guns on the estates shoots.
...but they didn't!
The lite 6 1/2lb English Sle 30" 12b was the gun of choice for well over one hundred years for those who could, and did.
It was for shooting, not lugging for those great sets of barrels.

Lowell these 'Chaps' that 'could and did' you keep refering to...

Didn't they have people to 'lug and load' their guns for them ?

Bad shots miss, good shots hit. For some reason, good shots are much less concerned with shotgun dynamics and quality of strike than the bad shots.

That quote should be a framed needle point in the "Hall of Wisdom"

To quote Dandy Don Meridith from a Mondaynight football game; "Howard, you have a tremendous grasp of the obvious."

Michael Yardley wrote something on just this subject some years ago. I believe his comment regarding using a sxs "game gun" in lieu of a modern target long barreled o/u was that he gives up about 5% in scores.

My early Hunter Arms L.C. Smith Gr.3e 12 ga. 30" bbls are not what I would call 'lively', but they are certainly well crafted bbls with much attention paid to small details such as gold inlay at front of rib, excellent matting and engraving of rib, wonderfully struck without a ripple to be found, and interesting smooth round notches cut at the muzzle end of the top and bottom ribs.

...and some fret over case colors and others over gold inlays!
I'd say the ones concerned with shotgun dynamics may be closer to the field than the overstuffed chair types.

These guys even had chaps load guns for them. Probably had gun cleaners too.

That's seems to be typical of old American guns, plenty of spit and polish with little attention to barrel "blueprinting". What one ends up with is a nicely decorated "Viking club"!
Just compare a typical heavy English fowler to an American equivalent and you will see what I mean.
If one does not have money for of fine English make some Continentals also make lively guns.

Yes they do; un petit fait vrais but if you keep on with this, Paul, someone will have a coronary. Shoot what you want; even LG's despised Guyot probably fits in the category of well-struck and light. And keep your loupe in place for examining those wonderful blown SWs with the forend worth more than the gun. Reminds me of a bunch of Garand enthusiasts trying to assemble the Frankenstein monster [0][-]

jack

Speaking of those blowed Sterlingworth tools - it was farmer's error no doubt about it!
The best of the best in field guns, it was shotout with a zinger filled with steel.
Those boys just didn't know better, but wanted to follow the letter of the law and not harm the fowl.