doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Sherman Bell's Data on Barrels

I was talking to an old friend today and discovered in conversation that he did all of the testing Mr Bell summarized in his articles published in DGJ. He told me he had all the data and it had never been published. Some really interesting stuff on why Damascus is so strong,with X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy of shotgun steel.
A mountain of data(well a closet full anyway).
Anybody interested in seeing the analysis besides me?

"drduc," as an admirer of Sherman Bell's published works addressing damascus barrels and their testing, as well as his suggested reloads for antique and vintage guns, you can add me to the list of those who would have a great deal of interest in reading the newly revealed data you discovered. And what a fabulous trove of unpublished information it seems to be! How do we go about receiving permission to acquire and review the data, if that is at all possible? How can one help?

Regards,

Edwardian

I'm certain that a lot of us here would love to see it.

Yes

I would relish any more info that Bell had accumulated on this, too. I corresponded with him about the testing of some other loads, but he never published data on them. I seem to recall Bell stating in his articles that Tom Armbrust did all the pressure testing. Is Tom the friend you are referring to?

SRH

+1

I also would be most interested in seeing this information.

I'm definitely interested in all of the research Sherman and your old friend had done on Damascus barrels.

My goodness. Could this be the pseudonymous �Zircon� who issued a call on two public internet forums in 2005 �Contribute Junk To Advance Barrel Strength Knowledge� requesting barrel samples for composition and strength testing. By 2006 he had apparently accumulated almost 40 barrels, both fluid steel and Pattern Welded. Part of the sample included the Parker GH with Damascus barrels and the Parker VH with Vulcan Steel barrels that had been the subjects of destructive studies published by Sherman Bell.

An abbreviated Failure Analysis of these two barrels appeared in a public blog in January 2007 as follows (in part):

I am doing a failure analysis of a pair of Parker barrels - one set damascus, and the other set homogenous. A close examination of the fracture surface showed progressive, low cycle fatigue marks on the damascus barrel. Each succeeding round had higher and higher pressure. After several rounds, a crack started at the extractor screw hole. Each successive round caused the crack to open up just a bit further, until finally the pressure could not be contained and (the barrel) failed in a ductile fashion.
The �fluid steel� barrel failed by brittle rupture. The fracture surface was about 3X as long as for the damascus barrels. In other words, the same 30,000 psi final internal load created a lot more fracture surface in the homogenous barrel than in the damascus barrel.
One of the (myths) with damascus is that it will fail at the welds where the original rods were forge-welded together. When I looked at this particular set of damascus barrels using a metallographically prepared sample I saw NO EVIDENCE of weld joint failure, slag in the weld joints, porosity in the weld joints, etc.
Both barrels ripped lengthwise for some distance and then the rupture terminated in a circumferential crack. In the case of the damascus barrels, the crack spiraled around with the weld pattern, but it was not on a weld, rather it was on one of the in-between areas. The spiral welds (ribband edge welds) remained tight and the parent metal is what failed.


Zircon also sent a comprehensive Failure Analysis and Metallurigcal Study, complete with photomicrographs, to the BOD of the PGCA. I personally communicated with Zircon in February 2008 and he stated that the barrel testing had continued. He did not respond to my attempts to contact him thereafter. To my knowledge, there has been no other report by Zircon since that time. The fate of the donated barrels is unknown, but I believe PeteM was unable to retrieve the barrels he donated to his disappointment.

In the fall of 2014 I submitted a 2 part article to the DGJ for publication which includes a Failure Analysis and Metallurgical Study, part of which has been shared here, and more details from Zircon's study (that were made part of the public domain in a public blog) and our conversation.

I remember Zircon and the request for barrels. Has it really been that long?