jerry huddleston said:
Just a simple question.
How many shots does it take through barrels made of 12L14 steel to proove it is acceptable for muzzleloading black powder barrels. Oh. Just one more. Has anybody on this forum ever seen a 12L14 barrel blow up?
how many
All I have seen is written accounts and photos and one I examined after the fact. Did not see it occur. But it failed up the top flat from the breech face almost to the rear sight. I did see a friend intentionally burst a barrel about 30 years ago
The early TC Hawkens were 12L14 (from all reports, TC, for obvious reasons, never admitted this) and a number DID blow up and people WERE hurt. This stopped so we figured that TC switched steels and all the bad ones had failed. TC survived all this through creative science (had the plaintiff's lawyer done TCs chemical test with BP TC would likely not be making guns today, a but a friend did not do this until well after the case was done). PLUS the fact that ALL MLs are HANDLOADS.
The plaintiff cannot "prove" he loaded it right. Its a MASSIVE safety net for the people using low quality steel for gun barrels. But it does little to replace broken hands and shrapnel wounds.
I used to have, on another website, a PM with a photo of a man setting at a rendezvous with one hand as a result of his fowler barrel failing at the wedding bands. But I lost it when the site upgraded and I failed to move it to my hard drive.
There were NUMEROUS reports of failures in the old Buckskin Report. But don't expect to see it in any magazine today. Its poison to advertising. John's insistence on telling the raw truth eventually put the magazine out of business.
Pa Keeler had a Douglas on a rifle be built fail and put it in MB back in the late 1960s and Douglas would no longer sell him barrels. I saw another at about this time, a 13/16 45 cal. He was a builder and also sold parts as a dealer. So you won't see much about blow ups or barrel steels in Muzzle Blasts again.
There have, for example, been a rash of blow ups of stainless steel firearms. Sako had a recall, a number of stainless 1911 45ACP barrels failed. The 1911 failures were interesting because in that design the BRASS CASE always fails FIRST in an over pressure. Unless the barrel is 416-416R than fails at normal pressure levels it would seem. You see 416 is essentially the 12L14 of the stainless world and to my knowledge is not approved for "pressure vessels". But there has been no write up in the American Rifleman. People that make stainless steel guns buy ads after all. So they can do no wrong. Its a subject that is better kept swept under a rug someplace be it modern shotguns, rifles or pistols or MLs (all have had failures related to SHORTCUTS IN MATERIALS), but its not something you will see written up, again is bad for business.
The burst barrel picture here is a classic brittle fracture. It would not have occurred with 1137 or 4140-4150 GB steels that are properly anealled/heat treated. I am surprised it deformed as much as it did. But its very unpredictable.
Someone here states that the 4140 barrels he has seen burst fragment.
This can be misleading. If a modern barrel or revolver cylinder fragments its invariably the result of using TOO LIGHT A CHARGE. This has been known since the 1930s. But its so counter-intuitive that nobody wants to believe it.
But its been proven repeatedly in the field and in the labs in small arms and artillery pieces.
Bullseye and Red Dot in pistols and reduced charges of 2400, any IMR and similar rifle powders in a rifle will blow modern firearms into fragments. I first heard of this decades ago when people were trying to shoot cast bullet loads in 7mm and 300 Mags with 4831.
However, BP WILL NOT DO THIS, it is chemically incapable.
Modern steels and even properly made welded iron barrels have a higher strength than BP will produce in a firearm.
Since BP will not burst a barrel due to low pressure how is it they burst anyway? The steel is wrong. If the steel is brittle it will be very weak under shock loading. Firearms ALL shock load the barrel. If the steel has inclusions of lead, or phosphorus or sulfur it can be seriously weakened and embrittled. Modern barrel steels like 4150 GB quality are carefully made to ASSURE that they will make the standard for the quality grade. They are tested, then tested again and CERTIFIED to have very low levels of flaws and impurities.
A 4150 barrel will tolerate being heated to incandescence in 5.56 or 7.62 or 50 BMG and keep right on shooting. Anyone who has served in actual combat knows this. How do the barrel not burst? The alloy is carefully chosen and the quality is maintained. Its impossible to buy this steel in small lots. Its made in furnace melt quantities at minimum and must be ordered in this way. The "custom" ML barrel makers cannot or will not buy steel this expensive and hard to get. So small makers who use GB quality steel pool orders to get the tonnage up then take delivery of 10 or 20 or what ever tonnage they need. OR they buy from someone who has steel in stock and will sell them some.
But its impossible to maintain this quality in a steel made with no strict standards and no significant testing, mill run steel. This is what 12L14 is. Its the same quality as a wood screw you would buy at the hardware store.
So rather than ask how many barrels have failed lets ask:
Why would I want a barrel made of the cheapest possible material, that the steel makes specifically say not to use. Then load with powder and lead and place my face right next to the part of the barrel containing the powder charge?
I used to work in place that made rifle barrels. I have seen the results of underloading with smokeless. I have seen what occurs when brittle steel is button rifled. I have a friend who has even more experience in the same field. A major name in modern custom barrels told him in a conversation that anyone who saw 12L14 being made vs 4150 GB being made would never dream of using 12l14 for a barrel.
The only people that advocate the use of 12L14 are the barrel makers who are too cheap or lazy to use even 1137 GB. Using 4150 vs 12L14 will increase tool wear by a factor of 5 or 10 and it will require lapping as well. It would increase the cost and the average ML user in the US is too cheap to pay it.
Gunmakers who use 12L14 risk losing everything if the wrong person gets hurt and has a good lawyer. Even if the plaintiff loses the lawyer fees can run to mid 6 figures (I know an attorney who makes flintlocks). The information has been out there for decades, there is no "I didn't know defense" the gunmaker is supposed to KNOW his trade.
One 12L14 user has admitted IN PRINT that he will use blanks with obvious flaws if the flaw will clean in the machining process. My attorney friend read this and said "that was just stupid".
The fact that the steel has cracks in it should tell anyone that the steel IS UNSUITABLE for an application where its failure could COST A HUMAN LIFE.
Someone quotes Cunningham. He posted a LOT of text in the old Buckskin Report years and years ago trying to refute a metallurgist and a STEEL COMPANY'S advice NOT TO USE 12L14. One of teh final pieces in this long (issue after issue) discussion was from a lawyer. He basically said that Cunningham would have no defense if a barrel failed. In court he would be toast. I suppose i should scan it and post it. But its pointless.
Finally while the handloader defense and creative junk science saved TC years ago, who saves the victim? Who restores his or her missing parts?
A lady I know fairly well lost a large part of her hand last month shooting a rifle that they had been warned repeatedly was totally unsafe for anything more than 22rf. But someone made a 40-65 on the frame anyway and it finally failed.
It was no accident. It was as foreseeable as parking on a railroad track. If you park on the RR tracks long enough a train WILL come. Its no accident. I see 12L14 barrels the same way.
Dan
