EXPLODING BARRELS

[Feltwad]

I would say that a shotgun barrel is more prone to bursting{exploding} than a rifle barrel because of the more single components needed to load.
Feltwad

 

[Dr5x]

I would say that a shotgun barrel is more prone to bursting{exploding} than a rifle barrel because of the more single components needed to load.
Feltwad

FELTWAD.
I WOULD LIKE YOU TO EXPLAIN THAT THOUGHT A BIT FURTHER AS A SHOT GUN HAS LESS RESTRICTIONS PLACED ON THE PROJECTILES LEAVING THE BARREL I DON'T FOLLOW YOUR THOUGHTS
DUTCH

 

[FPrice]

Looking for some guidance on how clean my barrel might be. I've attached a picture (hopefully clear enough) of the last patchs we ran through the bore after several sessions of cleaning. Now I am guessing that this is an older rifle which has not been used all that much. We are using diluted Ballistol. My son is concerned that the breech end of the barrel may have some light rust from the previous owner.

 

[Dphar1950]

BARRELS EXPLODE WHEN THERE IS NO WHERE FOR THE EXPANDING GAS TO EXIT. IT'S AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
Usually. If I understand correctly it is caused by something in the barrel that plugs the bored there is no way out except by shattering the steel of the barrel.
When I saw good folks having to use a hammer or mallet to pound a patched ball down barrel whether the up coming powder explosion gases will still be able to find itshoprfull rifle bore.I felt a need to move away from these folksThat's why I began the practice of a quick wipe in and out of the barrel would remove any obstruction.
Shortly thereafter the other reason for wiping became obvious.You have a fairly perfect fit of a lightly lubricated that you are using in your rifle. Each time you fire it it tends to bake on a hard layer of powder residue. so you are now firing shot after shot of an increasingly smaller bore as far as the patched balls are concerned. No consistency.
If you ball/patch combination is a bit too small. sometimes the third shot has shrunken to the point that will be the most accurate of your 4 or 5 shot string. This.of course means shots 1 and two shots saved mainly to build up that residue for the third shot. A minor waste. It is best to give a quick wipe between all shots and learn how to get that ball patch fit as perfect as possible on all shots.
Yes. there are people. lots of them who can shoot all day without wiping.. but I wonder what kind of groups they are getting.
Dutch Schoultz

This is not entirely true.
barrels can fail do to flaws or poorly installed parts or misloading. Though even a short started ball/bullet will not burst a barrel made of good materials. However, flaws in low grade steels are common can result it barrels failing. Some steels have very low tolerance to shock loading and firing a firearm shocks the barrel. Shot gun barrels made of steels like 1144M ("M" means modified) can fail due to work hardening. 1144 (also called "Stressproof" by LaSalle steel who developed it) class steels are know to work harden. Remington found this out the hard way sometime back and paid out a LOT of money to people getting maimed when barrels failed after long use at pressures far lower than the tensile strength of the steel used. But it work hardened and became brittle. Shotgun barrels are made very thin so the guns will be light and swing easily. But they flex every shot. Flexing will cause work hardening when it gets too hard to flex it will fail. Now to ML barrels. Many, dare I say most? Traditional ML barrels made in America are made of a pre-work hardened steel. This is what cold rolling does. It makes the steel more brittle. This allows the chips to "break" easily and allows smoother finishes and faster feeds in machining operations this is part of making "free machining" steels for industry. They also contain flaws. To lubricate the cut hey have relatively high levels of lead, phosphorus and sulfur. These will cause flaws in the steel. If the steel is then annealed (basically heated to red and allowed to cool slowly) to relieve stress and reduce brittleness this can cause the lubricating metals to migrate and make even worse inclusions . But if the steel is being used to make wood screws or low grade machine screws in an automatic screw machine its not relevant, has to cut nice and clean so its cold rolled and made lubricating metals right in the steel. It becomes relevant when the steel is used in gun barrels. The flaws in the bar can be mad worse by cold rolling, even cracks can form etc. Not good in a gun barrel and I think this is where most ML barrel failures occur. Another is deeply cut "wedding rings" in 1/2 octagonal barrels. HUGE stress risers and a potential failure point. 1144 is about a 100000 psi steel. It should be impossible to burst it with modern shotgun loads. 12L14 is a 100000+ psi steel so in theory it should be perfectly safe as a gun barrel EXCEPT. Its not shock resistant and can fail at low pressure when its applied rapidly as in a propellant charge.
Its very hard to blow a barrel with BP. The bore does not get smaller every shot if you use any decent patch lube. Tallow or Neatsfoot Oil or a mix of NF Oil and beeswax etc. And at any rate its not going to stick a ball at the pressures needed to cause a decent barrel steel to fail. The lead ball will fail first. Fredrick Mann called lead bullets "putty plugs". Even if the ball is an inch or two off the powder it should not harm even a good wrought iron barrel much less a good steel one. So if the barrel is going to fail because the bore is fouled its the STEEL that is at fault not the load or the fouling. Think about the carbon and jacket fouling in a modern rifle shooting a 100 shot match if you think that the reduction in bore size means anything. Wiping. It depends. It depends on the powder, the charge weight, the bore size and the used. If you use tallow, if it shoots well, and a blow tube its possible to shoot a long string of shots with decent accuracy. The fouling is softened and the barrel will load easily. If you are using a drier, high friction lube, then you need to carefully wipe. With a 2 or 3 parts water soluble oil to 5-6 parts water mix put on the patches and the water allowed to evaporate I have a barrel that will shoot the same hole at 60-100 yards if I can. But I wipe with a damp, not dripping, patch once up and down each side then a dry patch the same way. But its not a good idea for hunting or a trail walk. Besides the rifle weighs about 18 pounds. But still with a wind free day and a tang sight the hunting load I tried in another rifle wills shoot 5 shots into 8" at 200. I need to get to the range the wind finally stopped gusting to 40-50 mph.

 

[Black Jack]

Yes, I have a special place in Heaven, not because I don't swab, but because I don't gripe about other people's loading practices. Just give it a rest for Pete's sake.

The swabbers don't want to be confused with empirical evidence.

Nobody here is "+itching". We are just discussing best practices in loading techniques for both safety and accuracy. Conversations like this are a way to learn from each other. Both you and I (and others) can profit from this.

 

[Feltwad]

FELTWAD.
I WOULD LIKE YOU TO EXPLAIN THAT THOUGHT A BIT FURTHER AS A SHOT GUN HAS LESS RESTRICTIONS PLACED ON THE PROJECTILES LEAVING THE BARREL I DON'T FOLLOW YOUR THOUGHTS
DUTCH

There are several causes for a burst or bulge shotgun barrel the most common is soil and snow but there are other seating of wads can and will burst or bulge , wads have to of a good fit to the bore if not then it is like on a sxs gun that when one barrel is fired the wading in the other barrel may move which then becomes a obstruction. Another common fault is over shot wads that are less than 1/16 thick these often get by past by the ramrod and cling the bore wall and when fired open up becoming an obstruction any foreign body that enters the bore of the barrel when loaded can burst or bulge a barrel even a spiders web when a loaded gun stands for several days before fired
Feltwad
Cause wad by past by ramrod

 

[Col. Batguano]

I think you nailed it Dutch when you said regarding the swab vs. not swab debate; the acid test is what accuracy is achieved with the given method. Why not try them both and see which works the best (or acceptably) for you?

I personally think that loads and the technical aspects of them get more attention than they deserve. The difference between a perfect load and a pretty good one might be a max of 1-2 MOA. The difference in actual shooting technique between a guy that's pretty good and one that's really good might be 5-7 MOA. You tell me where the greatest yield in improved accuracy is? While the technical aspects of load development may be fun to tinker with,the big payoff is in dealing with the nut behind the butt.

Some guys when they go to the range never get off the bench, but all their practical shooting (when it really counts) is done from unsupported positions. Yet they never practice these,

 

[Rich]

Seems to me, if you want the absolute best accuracy, each shot needs to be as close to the same as possible. I generally shoot a fouling shot. Between each shot I run a damp patch down, then a dry patch. My targets speak for themselves. I have experimented may ways, A wipe with 7 parts water and 1 part balistol followed by a dry patch works perfect for me.

 

[Dphar1950]

Also where you live can effect the wiping. Humidity less than 30% is common where I live and sometimes it will drop to 20 or less. Its not like shooting in Iowa or Indiana when I was a kid.

 

[TFoley]

That's a good group but at 25 yards the ball hasn't really decided where it wants to go. I would like to see a 500 yard target fired the same way. There is a lot to be said for the spit patch that is really hard to study because no two people spit the same.TYou seem to have solved a problem that stumps others/ We are trying to help the stumped.

Dutch

Of course, your comment is moot because AFAIK, NOBODY shoots a patched ball at 500 yards. However, here in UK and in the rest of the world MLAIC/MLAGB competitions, we DO shoot the thirteen-shot .577/.58cal military match up to 600 yards - and wiping the bore is not permitted. Mind you, it is with a Minié or Pritchett-style bullet, not a ball.

 

[Grenadier1758]

I'm really thinking that @Dr5x, Dutch, really meant to type 50 yards and not 500 yards.

 

[Feltwad]

I think this thread has got of track I thought the heading was exploding barrels
Feltwad

 

[Ames]

For what its worth, I'm happy shooting spit patches, up to 15 or 18 without wiping. Warm weather. When the humidity is high and the fouling is soup, I load powder and ball, then wipe on top of it. Accuracy seems fine for my purposes.

 

[lyman54]

Looking for some guidance on how clean my barrel might be. I've attached a picture (hopefully clear enough) of the last patchs we ran through the bore after several sessions of cleaning. Now I am guessing that this is an older rifle which has not been used all that much. We are using diluted Ballistol. My son is concerned that the breech end of the barrel may have some light rust from the previous owner.

View attachment 19838

Now that's clean. I take very good care of my zouave but no matter how well it's cleaned I always get fairly dirty patches.

 

[Sun City]

I don't 'swab'!

I'm a 'wiper'....twixt every shot!

Hawken Caplock Accuracy by Sharps Man, on Flickr

 

[Bad Karma]

A .32 in a 1” barrel?

 

[Bad Karma]

I think this thread has got of track I thought the heading was exploding barrels
Feltwad

It did seem to take a tack to the left huh? What would a forum be without thread drift?

 

[Feltwad]

It did seem to take a tack to the left huh? What would a forum be without thread drift?

Happens too often instead of sticking to the original thread becoming non productive and boring.
Feltwad

 

[FPrice]

Now that's clean. I take very good care of my zouave but no matter how well it's cleaned I always get fairly dirty patches.

Thanks. I thought so but my son was concerned. I am glad to see him taking such an interest in this. He is fairly mechanically inclined (more so than me) and it takes him away from the computer.

 

[ugly old guy]

There are a lot of people who recommend cleaning with hot soap water which does do a fine job, but then there is those dang rust colored patches.

Dutch, that is why a lightly oiled (or a patch with whatever patch lube you use) is run up and down the barrel after cleaning; to prevent rust.

I've used hot soapy water to clean my barrels exclusively since c.1987.

I found it works just as well if not better than commercial products aimed at the black powder shooter.

FWIW when I had cartridge arms, I sent a lightly oiled patch or a lightly oiled mop up and down the bore to help prevent rust, even then.