doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Verney-Carron Helicobloc

I do not have a stake in whether tubes are sourced from Austria, Bohemia, France, Germany or Liege. I have no bias toward Liege. It matters not what the truth might be, just as long as it is the truth as best it can be formed. I have seen countless situations where a retailer went to extreme lengths to hide the origins of the components of the sporting weapons. To me all are infuriating, as I carry the torch of the unsung small pool of talented mechanics that made it all work. Now if proper economics were in-place, sure V-C could have easily sourced Holtzer at that point in time. Analysis of a piece of tube will reveal the properties and if the composition of Holtzer steels for the period is available, then it might go a long way in solving the problem. Is the steel type names consistent across V-C's catalogues? Holtzer could have utilized a compressed cavity mold but most steel concerns found out quickly that small arms tube production was not a money maker and that's why the Germans invested so heavily in barrel production in Liege. Berger & Co.(later Witten), found this out the hard way and ceased between 1885 to 1886. From the many previous instances, just an advert in a catalogue is not indicative of tube production. Stated en nauseum, show me some external inputs that indicate tube production. I'm not basing this one just on one steel concern or 1 gun making centre as all used a very similar modell. So much misinformation has been propagated for such a long time that many find it difficult to embrace the truth.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Jacob Holtzer & Co. of Unieux - 1900

Still in the cursory stage as I don't know all the players, but in 1900 they don't seem to be concerned with bar stock for sporting weapons tubes.





Soci�t� de Firminy looks promising as they peddled rods for gun tubes and they had a steel named Acier Satan, which must have been harder than hammered hell. I'm sure they got a demerit or 2 for noise pollution on the helve-hammers. I don't know if you have been around a diesel pile driver, but from what I can gather it was worse than that.

http://books.google.com/books?id=6I0eAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA791&lpg=PA791&dq=soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9+de+firminy+acier+satan&source=bl&ots=kh0a4VBO71&sig=g3liGZ2XQEVZN2zrRUIqTfX-tNQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vd2WUfqJKYOm8QSL8oGwBw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9%20de%20firminy%20acier%20satan&f=false

1891 - Acier Satan, Acier Chrome - many more and may contain some info but will take a bit to sift thru it.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Raimey, that's good stuff. I only wish I had the ability to digest all of these things.

Mr. Hallquist, thanks and it will take some time to put the overall picture together. But on the last 2 paragraphs that I posted from 1900 they are just sentences away under the Soci�t� de Firminy heading but Mr. Brustlein was known as the Alloy King of France and was at Jacob Holtzer & Co. to at least 1877 and possibly later. In 1900 I'm not sure if he was still there or not. With the last snippet of barrel making in Unieux(an assumption can be made it was Jacob Holtzer & Co.), I'm not sure who exactly was doing the hammering.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Henry Rieger Paris - 1900 Expo Listing - Dossier Lafltteau et Henry Rieger, � Paris, rue Vivienne, 37, Henry Rieger successeur. 37 Rue Vivienne
http://www.littlegun.info/arme%20francaise/artisans%20k%20l/a%20laffiteau%20dossier%20fr.htm


Joseph Ronchard - Cizeron - 1900 Expo Listing


Leopold Bernard - 1900 Expo Listing


Gebr�der Verney - Carron & Joannes Verney - Carron

My French is poor, but V-C is not listed as a reputable tube producer and it seems that they are on the hunt for the best tube steels.

French patent Nr. 366459 � May 21st 1906 � Toplever improvement

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Well, my French is pretty decent. As of 1900, they had a reputation for the production of fine firearms. The text does not state that they're looking for barrels; rather, that they're loooking for "material of very great resistance" FOR their barrels. That doesn't establish that they made their own barrels, however . . . nor does it establish that they didn't.

On p. 8 of the 1922 V-C catalog are 4 Xrays of the type of steel used in high quality V-C barrels: Diamond steel, followed by the 3 types of Holtzer steel they use. Whatever Holtzer did in 1900, by 1922 they were producing steel that was being used in V-C barrels, whether V-C themselves made the barrels or not.

Maurice Forissier states that the Verney Carron, "acier diamant" was in fact provided by Holtzer.
I think that I read somewhere that at least in the 1980s, VC was one of the largest tube maker in Europe. They have had a cold hammering tube operation for a long time (I don't know how long).

There were quite a few barrel makers in the St Etienne area. Ronchard-Cizeron, Breuil (who also used Holtzer steel), Heurtier, etc... It does not mean that V-C did not do it either.

Best regards,
WC-

But WC, in looking back in time you are compressing it. Just like P. Beretta. They now have a whale of an operation but it did not start out that way and for the most part it was post WWII. I am skeptical that V-C made their own tubes. Some time circa 1890, Holtzer was rolling out 45k tubes per month for the Lebel. So for a time they were in the business, possibly military related. Like I've stated: show me the machinery.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Curious about the Xray images. Does it say Xray? The tubes were not dependable to say the mid to late 1920s and I wonder how they coerced to penetrate for a particular skin depth.

Possibly was it just a lot of magnification?


1902 Iron & Steel

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

I guess that I am agnostic about it. I don't know that they did and I don't know that they did not. The company still exists, so maybe we could ask them...
Would Kebco help?
WC-