doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lengthing chambers and safety limits

Please don't talk to me about anything involving A***s.

You know, we've gone round and round about the US Proof house discussions on this board. Seriously though, wouldn't it be only a moderately difficult lobbying task to get SAAMI to acknowledge proof and then to certify the means and the private companies permitted to prove arms? The SAAMI working group should be amiable to this if a bit of lobbying was done in this area.

Guys-
We already have US Voluntary proof houses. Each manufacturer proofs in accordance with their procedures.Because of US courts,the manufacturers have a vested interest in making sure each of their guns is safe. This is why we had to put up with heavy trigger pulls so long, and no US maker chambers for 5.6x50R. Things are bad enough with out getting the Gvt. any more into it. Mike

I understand the reluctance to establishing a US proof house, as others have noted, we don't need any more government oversight. Look at what the British and European governments have done on the business of gun ownership and regulation. As an American, I can't buy into it. To presume that it will remain voluntary is naive, IMO.

Guys, I'm not suggesting regulation. I'm suggesting a response to the suggested need. A SAAMI "authorized" proofer under some sort of SAAMI framework would be non-governmental but it would allow us to subject guns to proof based on reasonable standards and a credible entity. Not suggesting we need a new Obama cabinet post to handle the bureaucracy.

The British and many of the European proofhouses were around long before those countries adopted more restrictive firearms laws. It wasn't a case of using the proofhouses to protect the people from gun violence, but rather using them to protect the people from unsafe and potentially dangerous products. If you're going to take away all guns or similarly restrict private firearms ownership, then you don't really need a proofhouse.

Why would a (or several) private proof house evolve into some sort of anti-gun Trojan horse.Underwriters Labs has been around for eons and works just as intended. I am sure there are plenty of other comparable private standards organizations.

I didn't go back & check, but this discussion was up not long ago & went into multiple pages. The "KEY" word here is "Voluntary". As talk of a proof house arises virtually always the word "Mandatory" seems to creep in. This is what so many, including myself, object to. You cannot have mandatory without Government involvement.

It would have been helpful, prior to the standardization of US gunmakers on 2 3/4"/3" chambered guns, all of which--within a given gauge, except .410--have the same service pressure, if the industry had used proofmarks to indicate the standards under which their guns were proofed. There were no industry-wide standards prior to SAAMI (mid-20's), and even after that, we had a bunch of different chamber lengths for different gauges. And, from what I can find in the literature, different proof and service pressures. All of which wasn't much of a problem as long as appropriate factory ammo was readily available--which it was, at least up to WWII. After that, shorter American factory shells disappeared pretty quickly, and a lot of gunsmiths dealt with the problem by lengthening 2 1/2, 2 9/16, and 2 5/8" chambers to 2 3/4", and acting as if that solved the problem. Which it didn't then, and doesn't today on old American guns which have been rechambered--any more than taking a 2 1/2" Brit gun and punching it out to 2 3/4" means that you should use any and all American 2 3/4" factory loads in that gun, even if it's cleared 850 bar/"standard" CIP proof. The advantage of the British system is that we at least know when the gun has had its chambers lengthened, and that it has been reproofed. But that only happens because it's all mandatory over there.

Miller is right---again. Voluntary is key. I'm involved in forest sustainability and certification of private lands to the world's highest environmental standard: the Forest Stewardship Council. It's voluntary. It also provides greater access to more demanding markets. Your choice. Certification with independent third-party audits proves we're not Amazon North, as proofhouses "prove" specific standards have been met to assist safety and determine value. Your choice.