about barrel configuration

[illuveatar]

So the swamped barrel looks straight until you measure it. Does anyone know the actual dimensions of these original swamped barrels ?

What would be the point of making such an inperseptibly small degree of swamp ?

 

[Dphar]

You've gone and done it now, Rifleman. They'll come crawling after you for such HC/PC blasphemy. Facts do not, I repeat, do not, trump internal expertise. Prime ya' gun and take cover. :grin:

I expected it. I'm primed and have bullet proof vest on. :wink:
I reported what I saw. Teensy-tiny amounts of center dip do not make a swamp, IMHO. They may be encountered only because of an apprentice using the file too much in that area while trying to make a straight barrel. Dunno, just speculatin'.
BTW, yer "internal expertise" comment has me scratching my head. I'm only a bit educated, not a big academic and am wondering how anything can trump facts. :hmm: Maybe I'll try to figger that out later. Now, I need more coffee and churching before attempting any real brain puzzles. :wink:

You really need to get a grip.
Very few original rifles have the pronounced swamp modern barrels do.
Define "teensy" .020? .070? .100? 150" reduction at the waist What did the barrels actually measure?

Just because they lack the excessive reduction at the waist of modern barrels does not make them "straight".
A straight barrel is STRAIGHT. A tapered barrel is TAPERED, a swamped barrel has a smaller waist than the muzzle. If its slight then its a slight taper. Even a "teensy" swamp can take 8 ounces to a pound off a long barrel depending on the tapers and waist dimension. This is not insignificant.
If you insist on creating your own LA-LA land definitions as to straight/tapered/swamped that's fine. However,we don't have to accept something you are trying to prove by distortion.
I really do not care if people have straight,tapered or swamped barrels.
But I do have a problem with people trying to make tapered or swamped barrels straight just to justify their preconceived notion of what the past should be so that what THEY own NOW will fit into the period they want to fit into.
This is delusional thinking.

Dan

 

[George]

So the swamped barrel looks straight until you measure it. Does anyone know the actual dimensions of these original swamped barrels?

They weren't all that way. I have an original smooth rifle with an old barrel, at least back to last quarter 18th century, and it's swamped. It's true what is being said, the swamp doesn't hit you in the eye as some modern ones do, but it's easily seen if you look for it. My barrel is octagonal, 1 1/8" at the breech, tapers to 3/4" about 8 inches from the muzzle, then expands to 7/8" at the muzzle. One of the reasons it is not really noticeable is that the barrel is 49 1/2" long. It was originally about 2" longer than that. It makes a very handy and surprisingly comfortable gun to shoot. One reason for that is that the bore is "relieved", as the old boys said. The bore is 28 gauge but, starting about 3" from the muzzle, it opens up to 20 gauge, reducing the metal, and thus the weight, at the muzzle. The barrel weighs 4 lb. 14 oz., the rest of the gun 2 lb. 1 oz., total 6 lb. 15 oz.

Spence

 

[Dphar]

So the swamped barrel looks straight until you measure it. Does anyone know the actual dimensions of these original swamped barrels ?

What would be the point of making such an inperseptibly small degree of swamp ?

First we need to know what the "teensy" swamp really is.
A .950 oct barrel 12" long is slightly more than 1/4 pound lighter than a 1" barrel of the same length. This is only .025 per side. If we increase this slightly to a .070 reduction at the waist, still only .035 to the side (think 8-9 sheets of 20 pound printer paper, a sheet is about .004 thick), apply it to a 42-44" barrel, consider tapers from the breech to waist, length of the waist, slightly smaller muzzle etc. It becomes significant weight wise. But its not very obvious. This is still less than 1/3 the modern taper seen on many barrels.
Some modern swamps are well over 3 pounds lighter than a straight of the same length. In many cases they are almost too light. Giving wall thicknesses in the waste that require a lot of care in cutting dovetails.
A taper or swamp allows a lighter barrel with a heavy breech. Important in the days of pretty poor metallurgy. Today it makes it easier to install vent liners and allows a larger breech thread in some cases.
Dan

 

[Dphar]

One other thing. If you are looking at museums in Arkansas the guns you are looking at could be from the 1870s or the 1850s or the 1840s. By the 40s the welded iron barrels were being replaced by steel barrels and by 1830+- the barrels were getting thicker walled. Perhaps due to improvements in the powder or the fact that steel was being used more and more in gun barrels and it was often brittle and fracture prone.
So the era of the firearms examined is a major factor. Looking at an 1860s Squirrel rifle made in St Louis is far different than looking at a 1778 Dickert made in PA.

Dan

 

[illuveatar]

I don't want anyone to get emotional here but it would seem that the modern swamped barrels are less historically correct than I have been lead to believe. At least in some cases, were all originals(~1760s-1830s) swamped so slightly ?

I agree that swamped is swamped and flat is flat and we would be wrong to call a slight curve flat (the Earth used to be called flat too). But if the differences between the degree of curvature is greater than the difference between an original's curve and a straight barrel doesn't the argument become daft ?

 

[Rifleman1776]

Dan, your dates and basic premise are OK. But location of museum means nothing. Guns traveled with their owners. Cody Museum has guns made in St. Louis, not somewhere in Wyoming.

 

[hanshi]

I'm curious; do you think the muzzle dia was greater originally? If 2" have been cut off could that reduction have taken off much of the flair? I'm going to measure mine and possibly post the numbers for comment.

 

[hanshi]

Please understand that I'm way out of my league on this subject of barrel configuration. I really have no idea what the norm was 200 plus years ago. What I do know is that I like swamped barrels for a hunting rifle and for rifles to be used for "everything" (target, hunting, plinking, woods walks). For shooting targets, especially from off hand, nothing, I mean nothing beats a fairly long, muzzle heavy barrel.

I have a 38", .50 swamped rice barrel. At the breech it measures 1.05", 0.720" two feet from the breech and 0.898" at the muzzle. How does this compare to most modern swamped barrels and to original swamped barrels? Comments welcomed and requested.

 

[George]

I'm curious; do you think the muzzle dia was greater originally? If 2" have been cut off could that reduction have taken off much of the flair?

The barrel was cut off at the breech end because the breech burned out. The muzzle is as original.

Spence

 

[LaBonte]

I don't want anyone to get emotional here but it would seem that the modern swamped barrels are less historically correct than I have been lead to believe. At least in some cases, were all originals(~1760s-1830s) swamped so slightly ?
not necessarily - at least some of the modern made swamped barrels are based on originals - ie the Isaac Haines style is one. For info on the swamp of originals get a copy of Shumway's Rifles In Colonial America - it lists all of the barrel dimensions fro each gun. Some are lightly swamped, others more heavily so in keeping with the majority of those made today although Rice makes a lightly swamped barrel copied from a Southern rifle.

I agree that swamped is swamped and flat is flat and we would be wrong to call a slight curve flat (the Earth used to be called flat too). But if the differences between the degree of curvature is greater than the difference between an original's curve and a straight barrel doesn't the argument become daft ?

as to flat or swamped if doesn't look swamped or it was a slip of the file, etc. - when all flats are equally swamped then it's more than likely intentional and just because it doesn't match your ideas of swamped - i.e. you're making an opinion, not working with facts. Swamping begins in the forging stage and is not just a matter of grinding or filing. Look up the videos by the boys from Williamsburg on building a hand forged barrel and you'll see what I mean.

 

[LaBonte]

Please understand that I'm way out of my league on this subject of barrel configuration. I really have no idea what the norm was 200 plus years ago. What I do know is that I like swamped barrels for a hunting rifle and for rifles to be used for "everything" (target, hunting, plinking, woods walks). For shooting targets, especially from off hand, nothing, I mean nothing beats a fairly long, muzzle heavy barrel.

I have a 38", .50 swamped rice barrel. At the breech it measures 1.05", 0.720" two feet from the breech and 0.898" at the muzzle. How does this compare to most modern swamped barrels and to original swamped barrels? Comments welcomed and requested.

as I noted above the Isaac Haines barrel is as far as I know a copy of an original.
Here's the barrel chart including sizes from Rice - they call the Isaac Haines a Transitional and yours would be the B weight albeit your measurements and theirs are slightly different. While this chart is for Rice barrels, the standard barrels, such as the Haines, Beck, etc. are pretty much the same no matter who makes them..

The Rice Southern Classic I mentioned above is :
42" long .937" breech, swamp .750" (in the middle of the barrel BTW, muzzle .812"
that is a 1/16" (.0625") difference on each flat between the breech and the muzzle and 1/32" (.03125") difference on each flat between muzzle and swamp. Not a lot in either case......

 

[hanshi]

Gotcha. :thumbsup:

 

[Rifleman1776]

Look up the videos by the boys from Williamsburg on building a hand forged barrel and you'll see what I mean.

My one and only trip to Williamsburg revealed several areas where demonstrations were show and not education. I have no faith that what is presented there (guns or otherwise) is historically accurate. Some things may be but enough is not that, in my eyes, they have no credibility. Expensive sideshow.

 

[54ball]

Whats the point of this???

:stir:

Folks this is an example of historical revisionism.

Even though it is something as trivial as the diameter and profile of gun barrels made 200 years ago it is revisionism just the same and that is dangerous.

Swamped barrels have been documented, photographed, traced and measured for decades. Several books have been written on the subject and many have spent their whole adult lives dedicated to the study of this subject.

To deny the existence of the swamped barrel in the face of overwhelming evidence is ludicrous and just a little scary. Whats more disturbing is how the band wagon filled up.

This post is not about the barrel measurements from 200 years ago. It is about how some would like to deny history and make up their own. That is a serious matter. It also about how some just love to embrace an untruth or more simply a lie.

It makes one wonder if they truly believe this, what else do they believe or can be led to believe on far more important subject matter. :hmm:

That last few comments were not directed at any one individual.

 

[asbrown]

:slap: :surrender: What I can't seem to wrap my head around is this. There is definitive historical proof that swamped, tapered, and straight barrels were produced in almost all time periods. The % of each and their geographic locations may have changed but they were all there. The most common production of each design changed as time went by, but they were never mutually exclusive. I don't believe any of the serious historians on this site would catagorically say that no straight barrels were made between 1730 and 1830, or that after 1840 noone made a swamped profiled barrel. So what are we arguing about?

 

[Rifleman1776]

The original point is my claim that a currently made replica does not have to have a swamped barrel to be 'authentic'. I have never denied the existence of swamped barrels back in time. I simply claim that not all barrels 'back then' were swamped.
A recently built rifle is not to be criticized simply because it may have a straight barrel. That's IMHO.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

Swamped barrels have been documented, photographed, traced and measured for decades. Several books have been written on the subject and many have spent their whole adult lives dedicated to the study of this subject.

This is about people wanting to twist history to support their wants/needs of the day, nothing more.

Just like the recent deleted posts requesting information from those that have dedicated the time and money to do the research and get it right, and then they want to pick fights with the information presented.

The best part is the " I want something for nothing " crowd, they want those informed individuals to freely give all that they know on the subject, yet those asking want to have to do nothing more than ask for the education.

I'd like to see 'em try it at an institution of higher learning.

It's pathetic.
:slap:

 

[illuveatar]

I think this thread has gone about as far as it can productively or otherwise. I'm not terribly concerned that I have a straight barrel for my new build since I'm not trying to replicate any specific school or period. My next gun will probably be built by the books (Shumway and Kindig) I'm saving my pennies for them now.

None of the modern barrels swamped, tapered or straight that we use are made of the same material or by the same process as the originals anyway so it seems to be something of a moot point IMHO.

I'm waiting to buy one of Mattybocks hand forged barrels on the cheap. :grin:

Ok, that was a joke but does anyone regularly make and sell hand forged barrels these days ? Do any of you guys have one ?

 

[hanshi]

Thanks for the answers to my question. It doesn't seem like a lot, these little measurements, but you can feel them better than you can see them.