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Here you go Destry



1869 Price List



I believe Parker sourced their Decarbonized barrels from Remington

From Fire-Arms Manufacture 1880. U.S. Department of Interior, Census Office

The earliest use of decarbonized steel or gun-barrels is generally credited to the Remingtons, who made steel barrels for North & Savage, of Middletown, Connecticut, and for the Ames Manufacturing company, of Chicopee, Massachusetts, as early as 1846. It is also stated that some time about 1848 Thomas Warner, a the Whitneyville works, incurred so much loss in the skelp-welding of iron barrels that he voluntarily substituted steel drilled barrels in his contract, making them of decarbonized steel, which was believed by him to be a a novel expedient. The use of soft cast-steel was begun at Harper's Ferry about 1849. After 1873, all small-arms barrels turned out at the national armory at Springfield were made of decarbonized steel (a barrel of which will endure twice as heavy a charge as a wrought-iron barrel), Bessemer steel being used until 1878, and afterward Siemens-Martin steel.

An E. Remington & Sons 1854 broadsheet listed the following MATCHED BARRELS FOR DOUBLE GUNS:

Plain Iron------------$4.50
Stubs twisted plain---$8.00
Stubs twisted fine---$10.00
Cast steel------------$8.00
Cast steel, solid or drilled from single bar-----$15.00

"Cast steel" usually refers to the Huntsman hot-rolled crucible steel process of 1742 used to make farm implements. A sheet is folded over a mandrel and the long edge hammer welded to form a barrel. A more modern use refers to the Bessemer process of 1856 for converting pig iron to "Decarbonized Steel" or "Bessemer process homogenous wrought iron".

I've heard Ed M. say he thought they were leftover musket tubes from the Parker Snow musket production run. I can't remember where he said he got that information but I've heard him say it more than once.

DLH

Sounds like they're fairly stout, if they'll take twice the pressure of a wrought-iron barrel. But the advice to err on the safe side is always wise when we're talking about guns with much age on them.

What is missing is the next sentence, which I did not post at the time:



So the advantage of decarbonized steel was the lack of imperfections.

Back in 2005 there was a long discussion about the strength of various steels. Geno provided these figures from a 1905 work by Prof Buturlin.

Steel Type Max (lbs/sq in)
Damascus -------------- 31,291 to 52,626
Typical 1905 Steel --- 64,000
Winchester Steel ----- 39,400
Winchester Nickel --- 88,600
Krupp Special --------- 85,340
Krupp 5 M ------------- 92,450
Bohler Antinit ------ 116,630

Pete

I saved this from a long time ago --

Question: Remington Model 1889 Hammer Gun -- "Decarbonized Steel Barrels" -- The Remington Catalogues which I have (1902, 1903-4, 1904-5 and 1906) list the Model 1889 hammer doubles in Grade 1 as having "Decarbonized steel barrels." What does this mean? How do "Decarbonized steel barrels" differ from the "Remington Steel" or "Ordinance Steel" of the hammerless Models 1894 and 1900? Oscar? Anyone?

Oscar’s Answer -- Prior to the late 19th century, steel meant only high carbon steel that could be hardened and tempered to make the many useful things such as springs and other items subject to high wear that only could be made with this material. Other ferrous metals were all lumped into the iron category. This included cast iron with a very high carbon content which was extremely brittle and wrought or malleable iron which was cast or pig iron that had essentially all of the carbon burned out of it and was very soft and easily worked. I believe that this was also called gun or gun-barrel iron because it was used to make many gun barrels and other gun parts. This is what we call today low or very low carbon steel. I believe that decarbonized steel is simply this low carbon content wrought iron and the name decarbonized steel was more of a marketing gimmick to give the impression of high strength rather than a realistic description of metallurgical properties. Parker Bros. also used barrels marked as Decarbonized Steel for a while on some of their lowest grade hammer doubles. I have seen this nomenclature used on European guns as well--mainly lower priced ones. I would doubt that the barrels were as strong as the Damascus barrels made at that time.

1898 letter to the editor:



Dave,

I would agree with what you posted. I think decarbonized was simply a way of saying Bessemer, as he used the term in his patent.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=Q4FUAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=bessemer

Pete

My own mini proof house


Just for comparative value, in the past I have obtained the actual measured tensile strength of a bunch of guns, then, with a few sectional measurements I did compute the supposed internal pressure at which the barrel explodes under hoop stress - from that value we then derate the numbers by whatever safety value we need.

So, here is what an old Mannesmann special steel double barrel assembled in Belgium gave me.

measured hardness of about 140 HB scale
steel tensile strength converted from measurement: 70000 PSI
unsafe blowup pressure at about one inch beyond the chamber: 21000 PSI
derated by a 50% safety factor (as an example): 10500 PSI

unsafe blowup pressure at the rim: 34000 PSI
unsafe blowup pressure halfway down the barrel: 12000 PSI
unsafe blowup pressure before choke area: 11000 PSI

The 70000 PSI tensile strength is very soft as we could imagine with something of a decarbonized steel. The evidence of the softness on this gun is also visible in the deep stamps of the proof marks and many nicks. It is not a heavy gun at all either.

I found this interesting.

Be safe.

SixBears;
Your figures are interesting & appear to be correct. I would however caution on one point. The 70K is as you stated tensile, or as sometimes referenced ultimate, thus the bursting point. The point which is really of most importance for a shotgun bbl is the yield or elastic limit. This is the point at which when the pressure falls away the bbl retains a swell/bulge rather than return to its original shape. This would most likely be in the 40-45K range for the quoted steel having a Brinell Hardness of only 140. I have data from Machinery's Handbook for a 1035 steel in soft condition @ BH 170 showing ultimate of 83K & yield of 51K. Thus the actual usable pressure will be less than indicated lest the bbl be bulged.

Guys,

I just got an e-mail from Alex Papp from RST about their 10 ga shells. He lists the pressures as 5500 psi for 1-1/8 oz lead, 6500 psi for 1-1/4 lead and 7300 psi for 1-1/4 oz Nice Shot.


Jack K

Yeah, it's a bummer when you can't hold the bulge in and it blows up a head on the shooter - and it all happens so fast.

You're very right 2-piper to mention the yield strength as the first pressure to be worried about inside a barrel. For the gun's sake.

Yield strength being that strength at which the steel first deforms with permanent damage, it is always below the maximum tensile strength where, of course, things break because we pulled too hard on them. To give ballpark figures on what yield strength is, simply consider that for high strength steel, yield occurs at about 90% of the maximum burst pressure. For medium steel, the yield occurs at 80% already and for really soft steel, the permanent bulging will start readily at only 60% of the maximum-break-everything pressure.

Most guns fall in the lower-medium 80% bracket, but it depends. Some modern guns are made of high strength steel and the guns discussed in this topic fall in the low range. Damascus does not fall far below the value for my special Mannesmann.

So in my example, we had

unsafe blowup pressure at about one inch beyond the chamber: 21000 PSI

unsafe pressure at which bulging deformations are permanent at 60% since this is a low strength steel barrel to begin with: 12600 PSI

derated to a 50% safety factor which would mean we are just seemingly 10% away from damage - really thin margin for loading errors: 10500 PSI

derated to a 40% safety factor leaving a breathing room of 20% now: 8400 PSI

derated to a 30% safety factor leaving a breathing room of 30%, this is 1 to 2 margin, now: 6300 PSI

The pressure to aim for depends on the risk taking comfort of the operator.. Good call.