Original vs Modern Rifle Barrels?

[sheriff john]

Going back about 45-50 years when I first was introduced to M/Ls, my mentor built quite a few rifles using salvaged original barrels as well as high-end modern ones. All were accurate shooters. Because at the time, we were both on very limited budgets, I asked why he messed with the old, hand-forged barrels.

He proceeded to hang two side-by-side from wires or strings (don't remember which) and tapped each with a hammer. The new barrel rang like a windchime, the old original had a distinctly different sound. Theory was the new barrels vibrated whereas the old forged barrels did not, making the old barrels worth the effort to refresh into accurate shooters. At that time, old parts were common, fairly cheap, and more interesting than commercially available goods. Wax-cast parts sometimes had hidden flaws not apparent 'til you'd spent hours filing on them. It was a different time.

The man was an artist in many ways. I "helped" him fresh out and re-rifle a couple on a hand-powered rifling "machine" - each cut deepened with a piece of heavy paper beneath the cutter. When the cutter emerged from the end of the barrel, it was very hot as I remember.

Anyway ...my hat's off to those who can, as he did, start with a slab of wood, a mixture of old parts and new, figure out means to get a job done and end up with a rifle that is not only a good shooter but also quite attractive. So ...anyone experienced in shooting old, forged barrels ?

I have several old-timers I'd like to shoot again but the bores are long gone.

 

[Artificer]

Going back about 45-50 years when I first was introduced to M/Ls, my mentor built quite a few rifles using salvaged original barrels as well as high-end modern ones. All were accurate shooters. Because at the time, we were both on very limited budgets, I asked why he messed with the old, hand-forged barrels.

He proceeded to hang two side-by-side from wires or strings (don't remember which) and tapped each with a hammer. The new barrel rang like a windchime, the old original had a distinctly different sound. Theory was the new barrels vibrated whereas the old forged barrels did not, making the old barrels worth the effort to refresh into accurate shooters. At that time, old parts were common, fairly cheap, and more interesting than commercially available goods. Wax-cast parts sometimes had hidden flaws not apparent 'til you'd spent hours filing on them. It was a different time.

The man was an artist in many ways. I "helped" him fresh out and re-rifle a couple on a hand-powered rifling "machine" - each cut deepened with a piece of heavy paper beneath the cutter. When the cutter emerged from the end of the barrel, it was very hot as I remember.

Anyway ...my hat's off to those who can, as he did, start with a slab of wood, a mixture of old parts and new, figure out means to get a job done and end up with a rifle that is not only a good shooter but also quite attractive. So ...anyone experienced in shooting old, forged barrels ?

I have several old-timers I'd like to shoot again but the bores are long gone.

Original barrels up till around 1820 were all hand forged Iron. There was/is good and bad about them. Being soft iron, they had to have the rifling "freshed out" fairly often and to a lesser extant, had the lands reamed out as the wore or got corroded. They also were inclined to have inclusions in the metal, if the barrel makers didn't use the highest grades of refined Iron or further refined the metal to those grades. I have owned two such barrels on rifles over the years and though I can't prove this scientifically, they seemed more "forgiving" of the powder and ball/patch sizes than steel barrels. Of course I can't rule out my two barrels were not unusual in that regard. I just don't have enough of a baseline of shooting other Iron barrels.

Steel barrels hold up better to wear of rounds fired and people have learned their barrels will shoot very much longer today than shooters in the 18th or early 19th century got from their Iron barrels, before rifling or reaming is required.

Gus

 

[Josephg]

I have many of both. The new made modern barrels are more accurate than the old barrels. But I don't have any old barrels that are new. In short, I don't know. Guess I just wanted to increase my post count.

 

[hanshi]

I don't know anything about how the old barrels held up but I've had experience (some) with iron in general. Steel seems to rust more easily than iron; but that's all I know about it.

 

[oldwood]

Also.........Some time before cartridge guns came along , the fledgling gun companies , like Remington and others , started shipping 42" octagon to round " cast steel" m/l barrel blanks w/ a predrilled smooth .40 cal. hole. I found one at a flea mkt. 20 yrs ago. Shipped it out to Gassaway . W. Va. and had it rifled to .50 cal to make a test rifle. One of the old time shooters had an article about using "cast steel" barrel blanks. Don't remember which book the article was in. Another good reason to reread some of my library...........oldwood

 

[andy52]

I have a barrel from a 1850ish cap lock that I'm sending to Bobby Hoyt and this is what he told me.
The barrel is in .36 and I asked if it could be sleeved, he told me yes but he didn't recommend that.
He told me that a older iron barrel would be more accurate re-bored to .40 then a modern steel sleeve.

 

[sheriff john]

Thanks for the info. When one considers the time, effort, knowledge needed to create an old-time barrel, they deserve more respect. Also, not surprising old-timers refreshed barrels as a matter-of-course. Even with rough bores, a couple of my originals shoot better than they ought to. One, a .38, eats thin patches on the way down but shoots ok with pillow ticking and a smaller ball. Guessing there's still enough rifling to put a spin on it - even with a smaller ball, but I really don't know.

 

[JCKelly]

Sheriff John and hanshi - Modern steel is all metal throughout. Old "wrought iron" is like modern low carbon steel except it is mixed with stringers of slag, a good 3% by volume. It is the presence of this slag that makes wrought iron dull the sound when struck, That is, not vibrate so much when used in a rifle barrel. I believe all would agree (even on this site) that whatever tends to reduce vibration in a rifle barrel when fired, tends to increase accuracy.
That slag also gives wrought better corrosion resistance than steel. That is why wrought iron was used, about up to the mid-20th century for structures that had to withstand the weather. There was a patent issued as late as 1934 for a more efficient way of making wrought iron. I believe it entailed mixing molten low carbon steel with slag. The last heat (A heat is a "batch", to you non-steel making guys) of wrought iron was produced in Pennsylvania about 1960. By that time, I believe, the use of galvanized steel took over where weather resistance was needed.
So yes, an old wrought iron barrel has more resistance to rusting than does one of our modern muzzle-loading barrels made from screw stock.
A "steel" barrel has greater tensile strength and can be made lighter than can a wrought iron barrel. Unfortunately modern US muzzle-loading barrels made of screw stock are another & unpopular story.
Yes, I have worked a bit in the steel industry, and yes, I am interested in the history of manufacturing, especially black powder weapons.

 

[Bnewberry]

Interesting stuff! I have read that when trying to test if black powder could cause a barrel to blow up some found that the iron barrels they tested didn’t often fail. Assuming the weld was good, an iron barrel is tough.

This is consistent with the finding that an iron barrel needs to be refreshed more often as toughness and strength/wear resistance are on a spectrum in most ferrous metals, when you increase one characteristic you sacrifice the other.

 

[Artificer]

Wrought iron can also be made from cast (pig) iron. The pigs are re-melted on a shallow sand lined bowl by a blast of flame. The molten iron is stirred and the blast burns away the carbon as it is exposed on the surface. As the carbon content drops the melting temperature rises until the mass is no longer liquid. The resulting bloom is then forged into bars with large water powered trip hammers. The more the bar is folded and welded back on itself the more highly refined the iron becomes. The "grain" of the iron becomes finer as the silica inclusions become smaller and smaller.

A bar of wrought iron that has been cut part way through then broken to reveal the "grain."

More here:
Iron & Steel (flintriflesmith.com)

Gus

 

[sheriff john]

Learning more is fun, I think. In the book, MISSOURI GUNSMITHS TO 1900, by Victor Paul there's a treatise from 1861 by Edward Mead describing barrel-making. Started by having women sort used horseshoe nails to eliminate cast ones to the three-man forging technique and everything in-between. Even with advent of powered trip-hammers, belt-driven polishing drums, etc. Barrel-making was a skill highly valued.

The 3-man welding team could turn out 16 barrels a day, according to Mead, in 1861.

When I look at the old, original rifles and consider the time and skills involved, it's pretty amazing what they ended up with.

 

[11Bravo]

Thanks JCKelly, This is very interesting to me as I was a pipe fitter and welder. Working in NYC I dealt with pipe sometimes from the mid ninetieth century. Welding new pipe to old I could tell the slight difference. When I started in the trade to about 1975 red strip wrought iron pipe was available for steam condensate because of it's corrosion resistance. Same go's for outdoor furniture and fences and gates. After 1975 you could get a yellow stripped pipe called Yalloy (sp) for more money and not as good IMO. My boss and other good firms just used extra heavy sch. 80 for the condensate and standard sch 40 for the steam. Later on the job specs all called for sch 80 on the condensate.

 

[JCKelly]

Wrought iron can also be made from cast (pig) iron. The pigs are re-melted on a shallow sand lined bowl by a blast of flame. The molten iron is stirred and the blast burns away the carbon as it is exposed on the surface. As the carbon content drops the melting temperature rises until the mass is no longer liquid. The resulting bloom is then forged into bars with large water powered trip hammers. The more the bar is folded and welded back on itself the more highly refined the iron becomes. The "grain" of the iron becomes finer as the silica inclusions become smaller and smaller.

Yes, all true. Your pictures are great. This was, I believe, the normal way to make wrought iron for the last seceral centuries. Mixing molten steel with molten slag is strictly a 20th century idea. IMHO any way.

A bar of wrought iron that has been cut part way through then broken to reveal the "grain."

More here:
Iron & Steel (flintriflesmith.com)

Gus

 

[Artificer]

Thanks for the pictures should go to whoever is keeping Gary Brumfield's website on the web, after he passed way too young a few years ago.

I don't think I've ever seen anything like it on the internet.

Gus

 

[Rifleman1776]

Great story, you were fortunate to have had that experience. I don't know anything about the old barrels except what I read. I do know that my modern barrels are still doing well after tens of thousands of round put through them. I can only surmise the old iron barrels were inconsistent in composition and performance due to many different people making them without the knowledge of our modern science.