doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 3 Iron Stub Tubes w/ W.W.G.

Has anyone seen another Birmingham proved double from the 1875-1887 time period w/ a stamp of "W.W.G." on 3 Iron Stub Damascus as found in pic #20 here: http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=98888225 ? Were the initials common or on specific grades? I'm assuming it is a "G Grade" and "Wedge Fast" is the same as the 1873 "Treble Wedge Fast". Note the 68 Haymarket, London address.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Here are the brls, which are nice 'Turkish' Crolle very similar to D2 found on Parker G grades

revdocdrew:

So, you don't consider them 3 Iron Stub? Also, do you think they are in house mechanized tubes or would this be near the time of pattern welded import tubes? Did Parker source them from Belgium, France, ???

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Two of my Greeners from that period have WWG on the barrels and one from 1880 has WWG stamped inside the lockplate.

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I was looking at that gun. It's got lot's of potential for the price.

Mike:

Give it a go and let us know how it turns out!

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Another shot of the Greener brls



"Did Parker source them from Belgium, France, ???"
Likely Belgium and England, like the other US makers. I believe the Bernard II found on C grade guns was also from Belgium.

Parker D2 found on G grade guns





1892 Quality No. 2 LC Smith



1890 F grade Lefever



Remington 'Oxford 4 S.J.'



Colt 1883



ALL could be termed 'Turkish' Crolle

I just bought a double rifle. Funds are short now. If the rifle fell through I was going for it.

revdocdrew:

If possible, give us a 3 Iron Stub and "Turkish Crolle" pic to compare. That 1892 Smith No. 2 almost looks like "Chain Damascus". Anyone: is it a "Grade G"??

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Raimey,

It is impossible from those pictures to determine how many "irons" were used. I will say that the crolle is rather large, so I doubt many billets were used.

Exactly what is meant by mechanized is still not clear. I have confirmed that the Belgian patents are lost except for a single illustration. If there were English patents, I can not locate them. I strongly suspect that the mechanized barrels were twisted into a single piece of round bar stock and bored out from there.


Pete

Damascus-Barrels

These are off a fairly plain gun with Best Stubs twist Ca.1884[im

PM:

4 bore, no doubt? Nice finish. Is it original?

PeteM:

There may be a way, but we just haven't broke out the X-ray machine or electron microscope just yet. The repeating pattern is almost too similar not to be some type of mechanized method.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

4 bore ball gun. Redone by Westley.

PM: could you please post some more barrel pics. That sure looks like Laminated Steel
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfg2hmx7_62d9d3mdmb

The only reason I termed it "3 Iron Stub" is that I opened "Modern Breech Loaders" by W.W. Greener and found the Damascus plate and description as well as the pics in "The Gun". From the period, how did Greener, or British trade, refer to the pattern?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

We'll know when someone finds the British Damascus Rosetta Stone
http://www.internetgunclub.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=1229&forum=38

revdocdrew:


Somehow, I knew that was going to be your response.

PM:

What is the length of the barrels and does Greener's 40:1 rule of thumb of barrel weight to load rule apply?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

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.

Miller is correct.
It should also be pointed out that the illustrations in Greener's 1835 The Gun were reproduced/copied by about every other later gun writer and W.W., and that does not mean those barrels were still being manufactured c. 1880s (or called by the same name)
http://books.google.com/books?id=oIEY4qL...ary_s&cad=0

I can't verify this, but having looked at LOTS of British damascus barrels, my sense is that, unlike the Belgians, they found two excellent patterns, 2 and 3 Iron Damas Anglais variants



and 3 and 4 Iron Turkish (as shown) and didn't attempt to create many patterns only for ornamental and marketing purposes (but I still wish we knew what the British called the patterns )

Revdocdrew,
I am going by the ledger page entry "Best Stubs Twist Damascus" and correspondence with Greener.
I will get a couple of better barrel photo's.

ellenbr,
40to1? I would think at least; 24" 12.5 lb barrels ledgered as a ball gun.

Here are the images from Greener

http://damascus-barrels.com/Image_Barrels_2.html

Pete

Note that even if the 4ga has the .935" bore for paper cases a 40:1 ratio would give a bbl length of 37.4". A .729" 12ga would thus have a 29" bbl by this ratio. While these bbl lengthgs would seem to certainly be adequate for the larger ga's I would think a 22" bbl'd 28ga (.550") to be somewhat short as the smaller ga's are normally loaded heavier in proportion than the larger ones. I would think though that bbl lengths of 30-32" in the 28ga are for reasons totally unrelated to ballistics.

2- piper,
I was thinking something else, in that case then no not 40 to 1 barrel length to bore size.This gun was not built with the intention of throwing large amounts of shot in the air.
Proofed as 5 .976 a bit larger now.

PM; Yes I understand. To the best of my knowledge I believe the vast majority of the large "Gauge Rifles" were built with bbls much shorter than a 40:1 ratio. As best as I recall the statement made by Greener, which is the only reference I have personally seen, was to the affect that there was no "Ballistic Advantage" to a gun having a length to bore ratio greater than 40:1. Obviously he was not speaking of later bottlenecked high velocity rifles as a .300 Magnum with a 12" bbl would be "Totally Obnoxius". Taylor mentioned using a .600 Nitro having a bbl length of 24", which based on nominal caliber would be exactly a 40:1 ratio, but I believe the 8 & 4 ga "Rifle or Ball" guns had nowhere near a 40:1 ratio for practical managment of their great weight. At the ranges used I would suspect any slight ballistic loss was of no consequence. My point was simply the only two ratios I could recall Greener stating was the 40:1 which was bbl length to bore dia & 96:1 which was gun wt to charge wt.
PS; Both ratios are subject to debate, even as regards guns of the time frame when written.

Have added a 'Turkish Crolle' chapter to DamascusKnowledge.com
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfg2hmx7_221fst4kndq

revdocdrew
Very tight and plain

Thanks for posting those excellent pics PM which I'd like to add to the 'Laminated Steel' album with your permission.
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery.fcgi?p=999&gid=18063717
I believe that is 3 Iron Laminated Steel-with imagination you can see within the ribband weld lines two full rods between two 1/2 rods

This is Dr Gaddy's example of English One Iron Crolle, also called 'Stub Damascus' or 'Laminated'
A single 'iron' formed from a molten mixture of iron and steel is twisted into a 'rope' then wrapped around the mandrel and hammer forged



There was also something called 'Laminated Damascus'



The 4 parts steel with 1 part iron (or thereabouts) was heated into a semi-molten 'bloom' then hammered and rolled into rods. IF two or three rods were twisted (but much less than Damascus) to form the ribband, it would have a pattern, rather than a mosaic of the iron and steel like this



I think it is unlikely that by the 1880s anyone was making 'Stub Damascus'

revdoc
Wouldn't be the first time a ledger entry was wrong. Use the photos as you wish.

Thank you PM. Please e-mail me at revdoc2@cox.net if you'd like be to attribute the pics to you.

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