A couple of things I believe worthy of note. 3-iron Stub is a "Stub Damascus", ie twisted in the bar prior to winding. Stub Twist is a horse of another color & is not twisted in the bar. Greener's 40:1 ratio is bbl length to bore dia & is not load related. 96:1 was a weight to load ratio applied to shotguns.
2-piper:
Thanks for the correction as I was way off on my units. But I don't think we were attempting to compare 3 Iron & Stub twist as shown of PM's lovely 4 bore. Like revdocdrew, I too, upon first glance, think the tubes to resemble laminated. And from the ledger, the name could be just another marketing ploy seeing that at this point in history the scattergun as we know it was receiving its fine tuning. The action, for the most part, was in its final stages and the only item left was the tube. The makers had a good idea of the final tube product and its strength, but steel analysis and production had not reached its zenith just yet, but it was being driven by the engines or war(1859-Henry Bessemer & Co. w/ Woolwich Arsenal, Bessemer at the time had the following clients to mention a few: Sir Joseph Whitworth, Messrs. Sharp, Stewart and Co., Sir William Fairbairn, Messrs. Beyer, Peacock and Co., etc.,). With this new technology, steel products DROPPED by a factor or 10. As always, it is all about economics and at this point some variant of steel tubes backed by economics, had the potential of replacing tubes by previous tube making techniques. From a sporting perspective, tubes were in high demand and some sort of mechanized production had to be in place. The mid 18th century saw the advent of the Bessemer process which removed carbon, and reading Greener's tube making techinques one will see and injection of air also, but not silicon or phosphrous(Spiegeleissen-German or franklinite-US). Phosphrous contents say over 0.05%, which makers had a handle on controlling the value circa 1876, made the steel very brittle and Britian was blessed w/ ore w/ high phosphrous content. Around 1870, the carbon and manganese contents were controlled. So now the makers know how hard or how soft they want the tubes to be thru empirical data and the iron/steel makers had a varying handle on the individual components of the steel, so as the composition of iron & steel changes due to discovery, why would the gunmakers not change the names of the "new" tubes(Twist, Damascus, Fluid) as a marketing technique? Therefore, it is critical to categorize like pattern welded tubes in order to correlate. But then there has to be a "litmus" test to further place the tubes in there proper place. Efforts have been made to attempt to date iron/steel but I don't know if the results are conclusive just yet.
But getting back to my question after a very long tangent, was "WWG" Greener's mark of manufacture? It's amazing how one question will attract so much info and it was neat to see the locks w/ "WWG" on them. I would have thought(assume-antithesis of exactitude) Greener to get his locks for Joseph Brazier & Sons at the Ashes Works, Wolverhampton, as advertised: "Now ready, price 45s., free by post; or in seventeen Parts at 2s.6d. each, post free, 32 stamps."
Kind Regards,
Raimey
rse