tubing for barrels

[Flintfan69]

Improved maintainability

That should read "improved machinability"

have to love auto-correct

 

[Robby]

Easy now fellows. This discussion about DOM tubing crops up with regularity here and on other M/L forums, and always seems to morph into an argument about the suitability of 12L14. It also seems, there is NO answer to the questions. No testing has been done by any engineering firm that will satisfy anyone.
The only test done with 12L14 that I read, was purely anecdotal, and done by a very well respected barrel maker to satisfy his own concerns in using 12L14. If I remember correctly he tested them through all the mishaps done by almost any shooter, like short seating, double load, double ball, etc., and even packing it to the point of rupture, which showed that to material did not shoot shrapnel but splintered like a banana peal.
Is that definitive, NO! But it satisfied any concern I had.
DOM, who knows!! I think anyone using it should let that fact be known to the fellows on either side of him.
Robby

 

slintering like a banana peel, interesting

to do that leads one to think the problem is in
the rifling and not the seam/weld of the tube?

if not the problem, the genesis of the failure?

do you have any links to that report? i would like to read it.

thanks

bob g

 

[George]

slintering like a banana peel, interesting

Like this, maybe?

Spence

 

that looks like an "elmer fudd" gun if i ever saw one! wow

do you know the cause of the failure? looks like the end of the barrel was blocked?

bob g

ps. very hard to tell on this little netbook screen

 

[Rifleman1776]

The only 'banana peel' results I have seen have been on modern rifles.
The ml failures I have seen were bulges with splits.
Dunno wat that means.
And, please note, I qualified by saying these were what "I have seen".

 

[George]

do you know the cause of the failure?

Bore sighter left in the muzzle.

BTW, it's not a DOM barrel.

Spence

 

i bet that was exciting!

ruined a pair of shorts too huh?



bob g

 

[George]

Not my gun, just pictures sent me by a friend.

I'd be curious to know how many posters use DOM barrels. It's my impression there are a lot of them out there in use, but the owners either don't know or won't say. I guess we will eventually find out when they all blow up.

Spence

 

[jerrywh]

Dear weary. If almost every major muzzle loading barrel maker is using 12L14 or 1137 why is it logical to assume that it is inferior steel for making muzzle loading barrels? There is a huge potential liability involved in that business. There are thousands of lawyers just waiting for the opportunity to take advantage of any chance.
Long hammock, John Getz, Bob Hoyt, Rice, green mountain, Colerain and Joe Williams are not all doing this just to save money in light of the great risk involved. Name how many failures have been substantiated?
Ed Rayl is terrified of liability justifiably or not and it is reported that he used 8620. That's fine. It gives him peace of mind.
Some of the proponents of using modern gun barrel steel for muzzle loaders are doing so in order that they may profess to sell a superior product or for unfounded fear of liability.
That's business but it's not paying off. For hundreds of years muzzle loading barrels were made of lap welded wrought iron. Very inferior stuff compared to 12L14.
There is a lot of confusion because of the difference between modern powders and black powders. I have conducted many dozens of proof tests on both 12L14, 1137 and seamless tubing over the last 55 years. some of them were extreme to say the least. I once fire off a 11 ga. shotgun barrel with 600 grains of ffg DuPont and three ounces of shot three times with no sign of a failure. I still have that gun.
When you combine the years of experience of all the barrel makers using these alloys against the experience of the critics it is ridiculous.
I suggest that there have been a lot more modern gun barrel failures than muzzle loaders by far.
Does it bother you to think that you might be smarter when you get two or three time older?
I do respect yor opinions. I just can't see the logic behind some of them.

O

 

[jerrywh]

I saw that happen once when a reloader used pistol powder in a weatherby because he ran out of rifle powder.

 

[jdkerstetter]

Does it bother you to think that you might be smarter when you get two or three time older?

Nope. But does just being older make ones opinions so valuable that they can not be debated? Must the elder resort to condescension when asked to defend his statements? If I become that old curmudgeon I hope someone has the decency to put me in check.

I'm glad you were goaded into defending your stance on this matter and for the record I don't have a problem with using barrels made of 12L14 either and never said I did.

I have no opinion on the DOM tubing debate and don't foresee using any barrels manufactured from this material.

For those interested, here is the account by that "well respected barrel maker" that Robby was alluding to, pulled exactly as it was posted in another forum in reply to another who was calling into question the use of 12L14:

"Have you ever blown up a barrel made from 12L14 steel? We have taken 12" long pieces of barrel, threaded and breeched both ends, drilling a hole in it for a fuse, and blew it up.

From what has been said on this subject, one would think this would act like grenade, blowing shrapnel all over the place. Not so, it merely opened up like a banana peel.

We also did the same thing to a piece of barrel that was made in a foreign country, I won't say which one. Now, this one did act like a grenade, we found only about 1/3 of the barrel, the rest was blow to god knows where.

We also did a lot of proofing real thin barrels with huge loads, could not get them to blow. Also shot barrels with short started balls, could not get them to bulge or blow.

The only way we could get a bulge in the barrel was to load the barrel with powder and a patched ball pushed all the way down onto the powder, then short starting a ball on top of all this......bulged the barrel but did not blow it off.

As a result of all of this playing around, I kind of thought to myself that it's sort of foolish to proof a barrel, at least one of ours which I know how it is breeched.

There have been a lot of comments by people who have never made a barrel, nor did any experimental blow-ups. Unless you know what you're talking about you are doing a great disservice to the muzzleloading game...............Don"

Enjoy, J.D.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Not my gun, just pictures sent me by a friend.

I'd be curious to know how many posters use DOM barrels. It's my impression there are a lot of them out there in use, but the owners either don't know or won't say. I guess we will eventually find out when they all blow up.

Spence

I do.
And so do many (most?) of Jackie Brown's customers and both the TVM shops.

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

Like most guys the age of my grandsons your brilliant.
Lets just say you win and forget it. OK?

I did want to mention that if you are going to make sarcastic jabs at my intelligence due to my age, you should at least use the proper word. It's "you are" or "you're" not "your".

Now that's some fall back defense, one that could be used against almost everyone posting on this and every other forum. Why not forget your age based sensibilities and get back on topic?

To the moderators, sorry to have posted my but sometimes OT gets a little silly, especially when it gets personal and has no bearing on the topic whatsoever. If you need to remove this post (and a few others) please do so.

Now to my thoughts? DOM? No way in H - E - Double Hockey Sticks will I ever use it, no reason to.

 

OT a bit
i remember being a young mechanic, and being ridiculed by an older mechanic, his comment was always the same

"son i have forgotten more than you will ever learn"

my response

"that is exactly the problem, you have forgotten!"



now i am approaching the old guy status, so i guess i will try to refrain from treating those younger the way i was treated.

back on topic

thanks for the link to the destructive testing.
i could surmise that he was using rifled barrel stock in his testes and they only banana peeled when double breach plugged making it a pipe bomb.

it appears to me that at least we can determine that 12L14 is adequate for the job.

now i guess i will need to repeat this test with a piece of DOM to see just how it fails. and then maybe do a DOM barrel that has been rifled to see what happens.

one would expect to see a split down the weld (maybe) with an unrifled dom, however maybe not?
it might open up somewhere else?

we ain't ever going to know without testing i guess.

it looks like a lot of testing to determine just how safe a particular piece of dom is?

thanks guys, i think i have gotten all i am going to get out of this discussion.

tag your it? anybody?



bob g

 

[jerrywh]

"Nope. But does just being older make ones opinions so valuable that they can not be debated? Must the elder resort to condescension when asked to defend his statements? If I become that old curmudgeon I hope someone has the decency to put me in check"
In the first place that remark wasn't made to you. So where do you come in? Being older doesn't neccessarily make one smarter or have more knowledge. Having 35 more years of experience in the field in question does make a difference.
In order to clear things up. I have no fear of true seamless tubing. The barrel I tested with 600 grs of ffg was the true seamless type. It's the welded seam stuff that scares me. Thats' what I call heavy wall conduit.
The long quotation you posted signed Don is from a post where Don Getz, I and some other guys were arguing the merits of 12L14 several years ago. I can't recall who all was in on it but it all started on the danger and inferiority of that steel if I remember correctly. I was defending Don. Caywood claims 12L14 is dangerous. That's what started the conversation.
About 40 of more years ago I conducted about the same test as Don did. I took a foot long section of 12L14 drilled a 1/8" hole for a touch hole pluged both ends and set it off with some dynamite fuse. All the pressure blew out the touch hole and the pipe never blew up. It wasn't full or powder but almost.
I'm sorry if I lack tact. I never intended to insinuate that anyone here is dumb or stupid. I guess it would be more tactfull If I said you will know a lot more about gunmaking when you are two or three times as old. Providing you don't drink too much or smoke pot. Tact Is something I might learn here.
How's this? I wax cast the butplate from sterling about 10 years ago. Just engraved it the last two weeks.

 

[jdkerstetter]

Jerry, As I indicated in my first post on this thread the only reason I jumped in was the comment on youth. Had it been the first time I would have probably let it go.

I appreciate the talent and knowledge you bring to the forum and your admission that you could have worded your responses differently.

I know we agree on many aspects of the "trade" and differ on others. I'm sure we can all treat each other like gentlemen here and agree to disagree sometimes without casting dispersions. That being said, I believe we agree on this subject.

Thanks for the well worded reply. Enjoy, J.D.

 

[John Taylor]

While I did not take the time to read every post and may have missed something, I believe there is a point that has not been in the discussion. Any steel that has stress as something pulled over a mandrel will not give good accuracy. This is why all the button rifle barrel are stress relieved. I have played around with DOM and rifled a few. The weld does not show up when rifling so there are no hard spots that can be observed. I quit using it because it does not shoot as good as a drilled barrel.
On the list of barrel makers, Jim Carpenter has 12L14 and 4150. When I get a drill blank form him I specify 12L14 for muzzle loaders and 4150 for cartridge guns. The only cartridge barrels I make are for old BP rounds, usually for an 1873 Winchester.
The only barrel ruptures I have ever seen were caused by the shooter, usually not having the ball on the powder. Most of the time this will ring the barrel and not blow one up.
It comes down to this, if your going to build a rifle start off with the best barrel you can get. This does not mean the highest price barrel as a Green Mountain barrel will shoot as good as any top name barrel out there. And I'm not saying this because I am a dealer for them, I have seen what they will do over and over again.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Beautiful engraving, Jerry.
Merits a big 'WOW'!! :thumbsup:

 

[FL-Flinter]

Reply not directed at any particular poster.

I was trying to be content sitting here watching the show but I just can't take it anymore.

First and foremost, considering all the talk about double-charges, double-loading, double-balling and all the other loading errors, the discussion should be on educating the shooters about the necessity for safety and proper loading techniques. Thirty some years ago when I started shooting ML's, the first order of business was to clearly permanently mark the ramrod with a notch or brand line once the final load was established, if the mark doesn't align with the muzzle, something is wrong and the load is pulled because it's a matter of safety and there is absolutely no excuse for not putting safety first when any kind of gun is involved. For as many hissy fits are thrown over electrostatic discharge and black powder, one would think that as much care and concern would be applied to the actual safe loading and operation of the gun as well. I mean seriously, the anti's wouldn't have to do anything more than copy & paste from these forums and their case would be made without them having to speak a single word.

Second, this thing called the Internet is both good and bad because people with no or very limited understanding of metallurgy or metal working can type in an alphanumerical alloy designation and get a list of numbers with which to argue but they have no concept of what the numbers mean or how they are obtained. This utter nonsense is as much a waste of time as the gun rag writers blabbering on and on about velocity and energy when neither one is worth a drop of snot when evaluating terminal performance potential for any given projectile. Every time these topics come up, people go to throwing numbers around and they mean absolutely nothing because they do not factor in shock-loading nor cyclic fatigue which are the two most common causes of material failures which may or may not be related to work-hardening.

This also includes the arbitrary use of alloy designations which lack identifying the exacting specifics of the particular version of said alloy. Such as the case where some will spout off about how great/poor xxxx alloy is/is not while lacking the understanding that said alloy likely comes in many different forms which may include being “fully annealed”, “tempered” to some level or “case-hardened”. The alloy designation based on its composition remains the same but the difference in how the alloy is processed, tempered or hardened can produce profoundly different performance results in a given application.

Third is proper terminology. While there's little significance in arguing the term “lamp” as opposed to “light bulb”, there is prudent significance in addressing the dangers created when matter-of-fact statements are made by people who have no comprehension what terminology is applicable nor the correct definition thereof.

DOM means Drawn Over Mandrel, any tube be it round, square, rectangular or any other shape that is formed or finished by drawing it over a mandrel is “DOM tubing” no matter if it has a seam or not. If one chooses to make a distinction between the “formed” and “pierced” methods of manufacturing DOM tube, then such distinction should be properly applied.

“Welded” means nothing more than “joining” unless there's some other descriptive terminology included so as to specify the actual joining method. Welded seam tube is manufactured using resistance welding, electron beam welding, plasma arc welding, gas metal arc welding, submerged arc welding along with several other “welding” (joining) methods. Each specific welding process has its own unique characteristics that affect both the static and dynamic properties of the finished product. Unless all the pertinent data concerning both the material and its method of manufacture are known, the material is considered to be “unknown”. Using nothing more than the unspecified term “welded” for the purpose of either condemning or supporting any material or product serves only to place ones ignorance on display.

Fourth, common sense and the real world. Nothing displays asinine stupidity more than the claim “A gun barrel made from modern gun barrel steel cannot fail with a black powder load.” Even if one lacks all understanding of technical details, just the slightest hint of common sense is enough to suggest that confining a propellant inside a gun barrel in a manner that is inconsistent with proper safe operation has the potential to result in catastrophic failure of said barrel no matter what it's made from or how it's made. Related is the hideous statements made about alleged “proof testing” with gross overcharges and/or improper loading techniques. Proofing is done to ensure a given level of assurance that the assembly is safe for use with “standard service loads” not accidents, incompetence or plain old stupidity ”“ if such were applied to other items in our daily life we wouldn't have much of anything to work with because if one tries hard enough they can choke on a basketball. Simply dumping multiple charges and projectiles into a bore only proves “it didn't fail this time” but what happens when that same barrel fails with a “normal service load” at some point down the road because it was damage during the alleged “proof test” that was conducted lacking any regard for reasonable standards? Just because it didn't blow-up or deform this time does not mean that the proportional limit of the particular assembly has not been breeched thus rendering it unsuitable for service.

Here's an example: The guy who owned the rifle in which these cases were fired admitted to intentionally overcharging the rounds in an attempt to gain more velocity. His reasoning for doing this was because he read on the Internet about how well the particular rifle held-up to high-pressure proof loads so he exercised complete stupidity making the determination that it was safe to run the gun at or above the proof pressure.

For those who may not know, this picture shows the excessive operating pressure of the load required to cause deformation of the case head by extruding it into the bolt face. Unfortunately the rifle did hold-up to just one too many of these excessive pressure loadings because it was sold to an unsuspecting buyer who suffered serious injuries when it finally did blow-up with a normal service load.

No manufacturer or supplier of metal, be it DOM tubing, structural shapes, solid bar or whatever is going to make any statements concerning the suitability of a product for an application because to do so would result in business suicide via litigation ”“ engineers, not manufacturers or suppliers make the determination of what materials are suitable for a given application. Don't believe me, go look at the disclaimers most metal suppliers have on their website and/or sales agreement (receipt) statements like: Although certain items/materials are identified by common names such as “ship & car channel” or “boiler tube” the seller makes no claim or warranty as to the suitability of said materials for any uses.