Sourcing of barrels... Now there's an interesting subject. The easy answer is that both British and Belgian tubes were used in British gunmaking. Regardless of source, the tubes (for a double gun), were brazed together, barrel lumps and loops brazed or soldered on, and ribs soldered on, and sent to the proof-house. Akehurst notes that in the 1870s, John Marshall (Monway Iron and Steel Works, Wednesbury, Staffordshire) "supplied the majority of damascus shotgun barrels to the Birmingham gun trade, and while generally of sound quality, they contained a lot of "greys." These greys were caused by small pieces of scale becoming embedded in the metal during the fire welding. They did not materially effect strength, but they left marks when the barrels were polished, which rendered them unfit for the barrels of best guns." In muzzle-loaders you could not see down the barrel, so greys were of no consequence; with breech-loaders, it was another matter. It was because of greys in British barrel tubes that the trade sourced barrel tubes from Belgium (mostly) and France. They were much clearer of greys, but were softer. To quote J. H. Walsh in The Modern Sportsman's Gun and Rifle (1882) regarding the use of Belgian tubes:
"We were, in common with our competitors, excepting for first and second quality, using a large proportion of these tubes; in fact, we think that quite three-fourths of the tubes used in Birmingham are Belgian make, and nearly all the London trade use them, with this difference, that they use the best quality, which are no doubt harder than the cheaper kinds, but are still softer and less durable than those of English make, and cost as much."
"For many years we have been almost entirely dependent upon one maker for Damascus, stub Damascus, and laminated steel iron; he, having a monopoly, has not cared to trouble himself to keep his iron up to its original good standard, notwithstanding the fact that, in consequence of its high price and want of clearness (freeness from greys), his trade has been gradually leaving him and going to Belgium."
"One reason for the cleaner forging done by the Belgian smiths was that they used a smaller forge fire composed of a mixture of powdered clay and small coke that kept the work cleaner than the big coke fires of Birmingham."
It would seem that the most beautifully figured Damascus tubes used in British pinfires were of Belgian origin, made into finished barrels by British smiths and proofed in Britain. The Rose Brothers of Halesowen, with their patented machine-Damascus barrels were British tubes, strong, but not as attractive as the imported barrels.
In trying to determine where the first British pinfires were put together in the mid-1850s, I think the answer is London. If a London firm had the capacity, it could add lumps and loops to the brazed barrel tubes, and the first outworker actioner, EC Hodges, was London-based; Lang, Blanch and Reilly were London-based. Post-1858 I think Birmingham would have been quick to adapt to changing demand and develop the skills necessary to produce barrelled actions, for a demand that really only started after the Field trials. Subsequent to the trials, it might also have been cheaper for the London firms to have much of the work done to order from Birmingham workbenches. Perhaps we'll never know, but I'm going with this hypothesis for now, and will happily be proven wrong by new data!
Last edited by Steve Nash; 02/04/21 06:12 PM.
