Indian Muskets

[Comfortably_Numb]

The US Military had problems with 1903 Springfield barrels blowing up, and that's with 1920-30's era metals and manufacturing processes. There were far more than one or two exploding barrels. If we follow your logic that exploding barrels are a threat, then no one should ever shoot a 1903 Springfield, and by extension be concerned that other products of US Arsenals during the same period could be dangerous to life and limb.

https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=551861 (See post 21 for several pictures of burst Springfield barrels and a discussion of the problem.)

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And this has what to do with Indian made muskets?

 

[tenngun]

And this has what to do with Indian made muskets?

To me it tells me that barrels can blow, even the best.
The question ,is Indian barrels safe to shoot? The answer is yes, provided you care for the barrel and load it safely.
An idiot can blow up any gun, he may have to work harder for some guns then others, but ‘safe’ is in the hands of the shooter.

 

[Straekat]

And this has what to do with Indian made muskets?

It has to do with the logic linked to the idea Indian made muskets are bad, and your position that American made muskets are better. An Indian being offered an American arsenal made m1903 hearing that American arsenal made, proofed and issued weapons have a history of blowing up, could draw the conclusion based on your logic of being wary of a country that produces suspect weapons, should not buy or use any American made weapons.

You can post pictures, but that doesn't mean anything about what caused the barrels in question to burst. Unless you have lab reports you don't actually know whether there was a metallurgical problem, user error, or even both.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

Ok, I surrender. Indian made muskets are wonderful.

 

[Sicilian Hunter]

Ok, I surrender. Indian made muskets are wonderful.

Are you French?!
Do you have an Indian musket that's never been fired but only dropped once while you reached for the sky?!
LOL!!!

 

[zimmerstutzen]

According to the form that posted that picture the bess barrel was Indian and failed at the British proof house. You'll have to do a Bing search to find it. I found it, I'm sure you can too. If memory serves it may have been gunboards.com
Why are we discussing savage barrels again? And no I don't get your logic. It seems to be "don't pay attention to the blown Indian barrels, look at Savage barrels instead." Hardly makes sense.

Oh pretend you don't "get it" You say all Indian made guns are bad because of pictures of some failed guns. So by that same logic, (YOUR"S), we can look at the far greater number of savage catastrophic failures and safely assume all US made muzzle loaders are pipe bombs. Really simple rationale.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

I already said I surrendered. You guys are right. you're right about everything. You will always be right. Everyone that thinks you're not right is an idiot. I can't imagine why I ever questioned the quality of Indian made muskets. I'm an idiot, a no good moron. A complete dolt bordering on insanity.
I am now an Indian musket fan boy. I just ordered 2 dozen to make up for my stupidity. How much smokeless powder should I get so I can go shoot my muskets when they get here?

 

[Trot]

Not trying to stir the pot, but. In Civil War reenacting Italian guns outnumber Indian made by an enormous percentage. Yet failures in the Italian guns are rare. I was able to find only one, an Armisport p1853 Enfield that had the breach fail, this appeared to be from a flaw in the casting. Also, in an earlier post someone mentioned that the lab report on the Brown Bess stated that powder other than black powder was used. This is not true, what the report stated is that the fowling appeared abnormal. The fowling was not tested to see what it was.

 

[Artificer]

Not trying to stir the pot, but. In Civil War reenacting Italian guns outnumber Indian made by an enormous percentage. Yet failures in the Italian guns are rare. I was able to find only one, an Armisport p1853 Enfield that had the breach fail, this appeared to be from a flaw in the casting. Also, in an earlier post someone mentioned that the lab report on the Brown Bess stated that powder other than black powder was used. This is not true, what the report stated is that the fowling appeared abnormal. The fowling was not tested to see what it was.

Yes, but H.P. White found no reason to test the fouling, as there was evidence of a barrel obstruction that caused the barrel failure.

The point that seems lost is that even if smokeless powder had been used in blank firing (and that is not easy to get it to go off that way without a duplex load of BP and smokeless powder) there should have been nothing else in the bore when the blanks were fired. Hence even the higher pressure caused by smokeless powder would have all gone out the open muzzle and not caused the barrel to burst, BECAUSE there was nothing holding the higher pressure gas of the partial smokeless powder inside the barrel.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

I have been thinking about my post above and it has come to me that some forum members are not going to be familiar with loading and firing blank loads in Flintlock Muskets during reenactments. I apologize for that and hope this will better explain what I meant.

For the best safety possible, it has long been standard practice in reenacting w/Flintlock Muskets that the "blanks" are nothing more than BP held in folded paper cartridges. Small staples to help keep the paper folded, have been outlawed for decades, as even something that small could be a projectile that could hurt someone else up close. What makes this important is there is nothing in these blanks that could become an obstruction in a barrel, that would cause the blank loads to burst the barrel.

Now, following period Loading and Firing Drill as closely as possible, the folded ends of the Blanks are bitten/torn off the ends of the paper cartridges and a small amount of powder is poured into the pan and the cock/hammer is closed over the powder in the pan. Then the Musket is turned muzzle up and the rest of the powder in the paper cartridge is poured down the barrel. Finally, the now empty paper cartridge is dropped on the ground. This last is a safety procedure to ensure that a charred/glowing/burning paper cartridge is not ejected from the muzzle and possibly sets fire to the grass in front of the reenactors during firing. Bottom line, there is nothing in the barrel but powder when blank loads are fired that could cause an obstruction, which can/will burst a barrel. That meant in the case of the one Musket with the burst barrel that H.P. White examined, there had to have been an obstruction in the barrel that caused it to burst and H.P. White found evidence of exactly that had been the case.

Also, it would have been extremely difficult to load a blank cartridge with a "duplex load" that contained both BP and Smokeless Powder and this is important, to even get such a duplex load to work in blank firing. Most of us know that Pyrodex and other Black Powder Substitutes will not work properly most of the time in ML Flintlock guns. Take this one step further and True Smokeless powder is very near impossible to set off by just the sparks in a Flintlock Priming Pan. So to get a Duplex Smokeless/Black Powder Blank Cartridge to work, it would have to be assembled so ONLY Black Powder came out first to be loaded into the pan and then a mixture of Black Powder and Smokeless in the rest of the charge. I am not saying loading a blank cartridge that way is impossible, but it is barely in the realm of probability.

Finally, to develop higher pressures in a ML barrel, the gas pressure in the barrel of a ML has to have some kind of Projectile or something that at least partially seals the bore ahead of the charge. If there is no projectile or barrel stoppage of some kind, there is very little gas pressure inside the barrel as the majority goes out the huge hole in the barrel and the much smaller vent hole.

I hope this is a more clear explanation of why H.P. White probably didn't test the fouling that may or may not have been used in the Musket with the burst barrel and why even if Smokeless Powder had been part of the powder charge, it could not have caused the barrel failure.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

Sorry, cut the end off when I posted above.

When you strip everything else away, we are left with the fact there had to have been an obstruction in the bore of the Indian made Musket for the barrel to burst.

Safety Inspections are done immediately before reenactors take to the field for the reenactment to ensure there is nothing in the bore of their Muskets. Such an inspection would have identified any barrel obstruction in the bore before the reenactment began. So that leaves us with two possibilities, as far as I can imagine:

1. A proper safety inspection was not done and there indeed was an obstruction in the bore before the blank firing happened.

and/or:

2. The owner of the musket introduced something into the bore when loading and firing DURING the reenactment that caused the barrel obstruction.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

Oh, something more. I assume H.P. White also ruled out the possibility of other kinds of detonating explosives used in that barrel, as well as problems with the alloy of the barrel metal. I say this with confidence of having worked with them over the years while I was on active duty, including their investigation of a NM M14 that "blew up" on us in the late spring/early summer of 1975. I have the highest regard for H.P. White from many interactions with them.

Gus

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

I would wager more people here know how to load a blank than know who H.P White is.

 

[BEP]

I also read that H.P. White report: it spoke of a grey substance built up in the barrel. The substance was not identified; the testing was done on the metal of the barrel itself and no flaw was found. There's one more thing to be considered. I'm not picking on reenactors but the pictures supplied above involved them. Firing blanks causes a lot of fouling, the whole length of the bore. There is no swabbing between shots nor is there anything pushed down the bore to displace fouling. Artificer's above posts describe the loading procedure used by reenactors. Unlike live firing, there is no projectile pushed down the bore to ensure that the powder charge is all in the breech and not caught up on fouling the length of the bore. When a powder charge is completely in the breech it burns progressively and even though this burn is rapid, the whole charge does not ignite at the same time. If, however, fouling (as found in that barrel tested by H.P. White) causes the charge to be spread out along part of the bore, it can "flash ignite" and all ignite at the same time, causing a significant pressure spike. Our son is a reenactor on a F&I War group, he has been taught that after pouring the blank charge down the bore, to slap the breech area of his musket sharply in the area opposite the lock, to make certain that the powder charge is in the breech area.

I don't have a dog in this fight and really do not care where anyone's firearm is made. Honest. I merely presented the above as a possibility, to be considered by reasonable people.

 

[Grenadier1758]

I, too, am a reenactor and have taken on the role in our group of checking our muskets for use in the battle reenactments. I have seen some muskets that have had little internal bore cleaning and the fouling builds up to the point that a cleaning jag can't go down the barrel. We don't allow such guns to be used to fire blanks until a cleaning patch can easily go to the breech. You can drop a metal rod down the barrel to "ping" to prove it is empty. We require that a bore sized cleaning patch can go to the breech. We have often fired 20 to 3o blank rounds in a reenactment. A good cleaning is a must to get the fouling out. Especially while the fouling is soft.

My unit has a start of the season camp to review what we need to know and do to prepare for the year. Part of it is a good overview of musket maintenance.

It was too easy for some of our group to neglect the bore. After all we are only firing blanks. Why clean the bore between events? Well the pictures from 2007 show why. My speculation is that the powder was able to get past the bore restriction. The previous firings had loosened the fouling and eventually became more than a restriction. The person who was using the musket that burst was one of the two officers on the field and should have known cleaning procedures and the necessity of having a clean bore, not just one "pings".

 

[RAEDWALD]

You know, there are all kinds of people that declare 12L14 to be unsafe for a ML gun barrel. it's used by Rice, Hoyt, Getz etc. , and yet it's considered the industry norm for custom swamped barrels in the USA. Ever wonder what those India barrels are actually made from? I don't know what they are made from, but if I had to guess I'd say "seamless" tubing. What alloy seamless tubing may be made out of in India I couldn't say.
really makes no difference to me as i'll never own an India made gun.

Carbon steel type BS970 /080M40 seamless. Of course any steel will make a barrel if you use enough wall thickness. Hence cast iron artillery pieces. For the task this steel is quite adequate. There are steels which will give you the same strength for less weight but they are more expensive. There is no such thing as gun barrel steel. There are many, many steels and some are better than others. This one is middling but fit for purpose in these wall thicknesses. There are also assorted 'seamless' types. One could drill out solid rod. One could make a pierced 'puck' and machine hammer or draw it into a tube. In the case of the Indian guns they are made for heavy duty marine high pressure hydraulics and I believe are 'drawn over mandrel' from seamed very thick tubing. This used once to be a noticeably lower standard but these days, with modern techniques and testing, it is a sound method. India not only makes some excellent modern steels but led the world in steel quality until the mid 19th century. Not to be confused with everyday steel tubing made from steel strip folded into a tube and electrically welded at the join. Todays finest USA long rifle makers use the old fashioned manually folded strip hand hammer welded to a tube complete (and this is no criticism of their skills) with assorted inclusions of slag and scale. No one seems to mind using these and treasure them and pay large sums for the privilege. I have around here many metres of 19th century wrought iron waggon tyres if anyone wants to play 18th century gun barrel maker.

But I urge no one to especially purchase an Indian musket. I have no problem myself with buying one but merely wish people to be able to make an informed choice.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Ok, I surrender. Indian made muskets are wonderful.

No, CN, even I won't say that (all) Indian manufactured muskets are wonderful. Some of the ones supplied are every bit as shoddy as you have experienced. We do need to know how to identify the difference between shoddy construction and how to apply good quality assurance inspections to the muskets we have. Inspection before one buys one is one good step. It is important to know which of the manufacturers supply low quality and which supply acceptable quality. Inspection during use will prevent problems caused by imperfect breeching to identify guns that probably shouldn't be used for shooting blanks.

I have seen guns that were made of American parts in the 1970's that my gun club refers to as "West County Specials". Some just look klunky. Some are functional but are Frankenguns that have all sorts of mismatched parts from multiple schools and eras of construction.

There were Japanese made guns that had two part barrels that didn't align the bore, yet don't damn all Japanese guns as we praise the Mirouku Besses and Charlevilles and the Dixie Mountain rifle. We do explain how to improve the function and how to find replacement parts.

We often see original (American made) guns that the breech plugs can be turned out by hand and have been fired for 120 years.

If a gun from a particular manufacturer is bad, then it is bad. I don't expect you to throw in the towel on firearms manufactured in India or anywhere else.

 

[RAEDWALD]

Help me understand. If they are making their barrels out of tubing wouldn't they use tubing that was the correct bore size? Also, I have "rebuilt" a couple of these things. The wood is white and incredibly soft. You could nearly inlet the parts just by smashing them against the wood. Probably why there are so many problems with broken stocks. As far as I know Teak and Rosewood are very hard and I believe Rosewood is very expensive. I think they're using some sort of tropical bongo wood for their stocks.

I don't know what wood they are using but in India 'Rosewood' is a term that covers pretty well any hardwood. It is a wood trade thing not a botanical taxonomy one. It is part of the old principle that, largely, you get what you pay for. Indian hardwood in India is cheap. Walnut is very expensive. The old Honourable East India Company spent many years and much effort and cost to find a source of stock wood in India that they could use for their muskets to both restock after damage and to allow the metal parts to be brought to India from England more cheaply and locally stocked more cheaply. They concluded that it was best to continue making whole muskets in England and ship them put complete as no Indian wood tried met the needs better. Today, of course, modern wood engineering will allow stocks to be made from all sorts of things, even bamboo. Look at wooden kitchen chopping boards in your stores to see what can be used today. But the reproduction market demands simple timber and selling Indian muskets means keeping the price reasonable. I suspect the wood type depends on what was available each time they buy. Sometimes excellent quality and sometimes merely adequate. Occasionally poor. A bit like buying low to middling price wine.

 

[Artificer]

When a powder charge is completely in the breech it burns progressively and even though this burn is rapid, the whole charge does not ignite at the same time. If, however, fouling (as found in that barrel tested by H.P. White) causes the charge to be spread out along part of the bore, it can "flash ignite" and all ignite at the same time, causing a significant pressure spike. Our son is a reenactor on a F&I War group, he has been taught that after pouring the blank charge down the bore, to slap the breech area of his musket sharply in the area opposite the lock, to make certain that the powder charge is in the breech area.

Please understand this is a discussion and not an argument and I read your post with interest.

Yes, loose black powder is going to ignite faster than when confined in a barrel with a projectile ahead of it. However, when the loose powder is not all down in the breech and is throughout the bore, I can't see how it would all "flash ignite" at the same time. Instead, the powder near the breech will ignite and send forward hot gas which will in turn ignite the powder further up the bore. That actually means it will burn over a longer period and since even a dirty bore has a large hole with nothing to retain the gas pressure, I can't see how there would be a spike of pressure?

The first day I met and began the recruiting process with my old unit, the Major's Coy of the 42nd RHR, the Black Watch; I was actually very pleased to see they were wiping their barrels and locks down after each blank firing during the day and then after a number of blank firings, swabbed/cleaned the bores of their muskets that afternoon/evening. Now this kind of maintenance is required for "British Regular" Reenactor Units as it was and remains expected our muskets always look ready to stand inspection. I will say I found this generally true of other British Units as well.

Gus

 

[BEP]

Gus- not arguing, just discussing. When powder is distributed throughout the bore there is the potential for it to be ignited not just by the hot gasses that you mention but by the flash of igniting powder or perhaps by the ignition source. That flash fills the bore and can ignite the rest of the powder charge virtually at once. I know that we do not mention cartridge firing weapons here but a circumstance like this has been documented when reloaders make "sub-loads" for their firearms. A normal powder charge fills or nearly fills a cartridge and, when ignited by the primer, burns progressively throughout the case. Sub loads, using powders that only require small amounts, can lie in the bottom of the cartridge case - the case acting as a sort of a "trough". The primer flashes over the top of this spread-out powder igniting it all almost simultaneously and causing huge pressure spikes. The same principle can be extrapolated to black powder distributed over a section of a muzzleloading bore.

I merely present this as a maybe. One of many. It's more than likely that we'll never know for absolute certain what caused barrel failures. I noticed that two of the burst muskets pictured earlier were percussion ignition. Very similar to modern primer ignition. It's just a thought, not intended to challenge anyone or "get in someone's face". Often when posting in forums like this one, ones intentions can be misunderstood. I find it difficult when writing to express tone and it's important to say that I am merely speculating on a possibility, not naming a cause. And certainly not arguing. There's enough of that already.