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Posted By: felix Steyr MONOBLOC barrels - 02/03/19 12:08 PM
Steyr MONOBLOC barrels
...
A rather long prologue/narrative to this post/thread.
It started with an occasional inquiry to me during a lunch
in a shooting club on the name of Atkin on a pair of guns.
The man who had it on offer wanted to know my opinion and
a possible price.
At the next meeting the owner appeared with the pair.
He had recently bought it and wanted apparently "test the
market". A nice pair with one gun rebarreled, standard sidelock, all in unmolested condition.
I told him that there is for sure a double-guncase
behind. So next time he came with the cased pair.
Seeing the case I told him he should go back to the vendor
because there is for sure a case cover.
So next time he appeared with the cased pair incl the
found case cover.
I told him he should keep the pair and go hunting with it.
To complete it I sold him a nice small Atkin cartridge
magazine.
When asking what else he has at home he appeared next
time with a Steyr sidelock 16 bore with this uncommon
feature of barrels in Monobloc construction.
This means the barrels, the barrelhooks, the hook for
the forepart, the toprib made from one solid billet
of steel. No bottomrib, no soldering at all.
We agreed I wold make photos of the barrels and the
gun and put it into this forum.
This did not happen and my contact to him got lost as he
retired.
I finally fould him now and we agreed to meet in march to
complete the story.
....
The second beginning to this story is this comment in a
thread in the common section titled "Ironies of the trade".
Reading there that 2 English companies Boxall&Edminston
and Longthorne are building their O/U barrels from
one solid billet of steel.
The first went broke, the second is telling in their homepage
that famous Whitworth had a patent on such
one-solid-billet-made barrels.
I admit that this UK story has triggered me to complete
the Steyr story.
....
I contacted Steyr. They have been sold more than once in
recent decades and their multiple divisions split.
Steyr arms - as they are called now -have several of
these Monobloc-guns in their collection.
Even a rarity of a socalled "Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand"
double-bore rifle with this monobloc construction.
To make it clear, we are speaking of the years
1901 to about 1930, very very long before CNC times.
There emerged some hammerguns with this barrel-type
in recent years at local auctions.
Featuring with their OEWG name (the abbreviation for
"Oesterreichische Waffengesellschaft").
When asking Steyr if they can provide any info on the
patent/machinery used to produce, they came back
and one of their retirees told that Steyr had a cooperation
with Pieper/Liege and the monobloc is based on a
Pieper patent.
I am not sure if this info holds as Pieper is well known
for a shotgun with "sleeved" type of barrel-construction.
I contacted littlegun.be . They referred me to the
author of a book on Bayard-Pieper and gave me his e-mail .
The book has no Isbn, since long out of print, I sent an e-mail to the author.
I got an answer via littlegun.be.
The details I got back refer to another
patent. Need to wait now till I have the photos.
....
I thought it may sense to put it up here - there is so much
intelligence in this forum - may be someone has the
book or knows which and how the machine-tools they used
to make these monobloc-barrels.
....
Photos to follow in march...
...
Felix Neuberger
..
PS:I am "suffering an obsession" to find out how they
did the barrels contour - which is not a simple
cone-contour but a swept one.
Its all 100 years before CNC...
....
Text edited feb 12/2019
Posted By: canvasback Re: Steyr MONOBLOC barrels - 02/03/19 04:26 PM
Felix, I may have the Pieper book in question, but I will have to dig it up. Don't know where it is right now. I'll be back.
Posted By: WildCattle Re: Steyr MONOBLOC barrels - 02/04/19 12:06 AM
This was done in France before WWII as well.
There is such a gun for sale right now in the US. Of course, I don't think that the seller has any idea. The gun is way overpriced, or I would have bought it for the heck of it.
If you see a French gun with "Monobloc" on the barrel flats, it's a one piece barrel set.
I think that Jean Breuil, the famous barrel maker from St-Etienne, was a specialist.
It's still quite rare. I only have heard of a few. One was on this forum at least 5 years back.
This is not to be confused with "canons frettés" which is the same as the US "Monoblock". The Robust is a famous example of such a gun.

Best regards,
WC-
Posted By: Elaine Stewart Re: Steyr MONOBLOC barrels - 02/25/19 02:44 PM
Hi Felix, just to clarify, our barrels are monolithic from one single piece (not monoblock). We machine the entire barrel set from one block of steel. We have patents on this. Whitworth also developed a method of making barrels from a solid block and patented it but our method and end result is different.
Boxall and Edmiston manufactured their barrels using conventional methods, but sadly no longer in business.
Posted By: Elaine Stewart Re: Steyr MONOBLOC barrels - 02/25/19 02:49 PM
Incidentally, we will be at The Southern Side by Side Exhibition in April if you are passing!!
Posted By: felix Re: Steyr MONOBLOC barrels - 03/03/19 05:18 PM
Ad Steyr Monobloc
....WIP...
I got hold of a Steyr shotgun with these type of barrels,
could make some photos which are attached here.
I have realized that monobloc has different meanings to different people, so here are my findings.
The Steyr Monobloc barrels
. are NOT chopperlump/demibloc barrels ( as with Purdeys)
. are NOT dovetail barrels ( as with many highgrade
English or Belgian guns )
. are NOT sleeved barrels ( as with this inexpensive
barrel-repair method / by late J. Foster or Ladbroke/Langton)
. are NOT monobloc barrels ( as with a patent of H. Pieper
with the stepped seam between sleeve and barrel)
. are NOT monobloc barrels ( as with all the Perazzi guns)
They are made out of one piece of solid steel.
Barrels, barrelhook, hook for the forepart, toprib,
its one monolithic piece . No bottomrib, no soldering.
(E.Stewart has used this precise geological term in a previous
post for their product).
The gun I had at hand has Vienna proof from 1919, barrelweight
1250 g. A 16-bore, the standard calibre in central Europe
before WW II.
The contour of the barrel lengthwise is swept, the outer
barrel radius at the breech obviously larger than at the
muzzle.
So the barrelcontour is NOT that of a cone.
Steyr has been and is an industrial enterprise,
and not a lock-stock-and-barrel-shop of an artisan
gunmaker a la Ferlach or Liege.
So we speaking of an industry product and not of the
opus of a gunsmith with hammer/chisel/file.
I have told these facts to Alain, who runs this Q&A
facility in the Belgian internet forum littlegun.be.
As I am not fluent in the French termini technici,he
has kindly agreed to translate it for his collegue
Michel, the author of the book on Henri Pieper.
There is an article in the Gazette des Armes aril 2015
on this H. Pieper.
Of German origin , an engineering freak and very successful
entrepreneur,
one of the leading figures of the Liege gunmaker empire.
There are 2 tasks to clarify:
1. What has been the patent behind the productions of these
Steyr monobloc barrels. Some details point to this
H. Pieper.
2. What has been the machinery in use for it.
I am looking foreward to get an answer from the Belgian
gurus.
..
I will get access to a Steyr sidelock monobloc gun in march.
The owner told me that there more around in the vicinity
of Steyr, both in Anson- of Hammer-version.
Lets see what we can find out .


..
Couple of photos taken in non-photolab-environment
and uploaded here
..
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56427
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56428
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56429
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56430
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56431
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56432
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56433
..
Felix Neuberger
Posted By: ellenbr Re: Steyr MONOBLOC barrels - 03/03/19 06:54 PM



Tubeset weight of 1250 grammes.


Final Pass - C = 16.2mm on both. Tubes must have been very close to the final state initially.
Right tube is stamped 16.27 while the left tube is stamped 16.26.


1st Pass or Preliminary datastring: 14.19.16.2( in early 1919 the diameter of both tubes was 16.2mm)








Waffenfabrik Steyr

Cheers,

Raimey
rse
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