doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com In Proof, Out Of Proof - Brit Guns

Chamber pressure is actually higher for 28s and .410s, and at least the German proof house recommended more wall thickness for 24s and 28s. Most .410s have pretty stout barrels.

The proof test for a 3" .410 is 5 TONS per square inch.

The key difference of course is public safety. Selling an out of proof gun being illegal is to save the unwary from the unscrupulous.

If you have the tools and knowledge to make a judgement call, by all means do so.

However, note they proof makes no mention of wall thickness. It is all about standing up to the test. If the walls are 10 thou but very strong material, they may well pass, but they could be 50 thou or poor quality or defective steel and fail.

Without attest, it is a guess, some will be more educated guesses than others.

Proof divulges flaws in the gun barrel which just pure wall thickness tests don't. Wall thickness is of course a good guide but not definitive.

Eightbore, Proof isn't Government interference as it was set up by the gun trade to prevent badly made guns being sold to the public and to protect the gun trade itself. They make the rules and enforce them. Lagopus.....

I may be mistaken, but I suspect your rules of proof assisted the confiscation of handguns. They aren't everyone's cup of tea, but you have some of the best engravers in history that can no longer create their timeless art on that form of firearms.

No! The proof laws played no part in the confiscation of hand guns here in Britain
It was an act of Parliament voted on by the members of parliament and given the final sanction by the members of the House of Lords.
To some people it may be misguided and stupid but that is a parliamentary democracy for you, some things you agree with and others you do not but with democracy comes the responsibility to accept being outvoted.

I think the attitudes about and politics involving guns and government will remain vastly different between the countries. And I have no doubt a national proof house here would attract the wrong politicians, and become a battle ground for control.

as it is - I carry a bore and wall thickness gauge and hope that along with a detailed visual inspection it will give me some not over rated confidence. When purchased based on the above, antiques normally go to a gunsmith I trust just to be sure.

The issue on this side of the pond is that back before WWII, we stopped making short-chambered guns. 12, 16, 20, 28 all became 2 3/4" standard. For some time, the ammo makers continued making short shells for the short-chambered guns. But that stopped not long after the war. Result: Gunsmiths thought the solution to a short-chambered gun with only 2 3/4" shells available was to lengthen chambers to 2 3/4"--even though the 2 3/4" shells were loaded to a service pressure standard about 1,000 psi higher than the short shells.

For the most part, that worked relatively well. American shotguns, especially 12's, are heavier in general than British game guns--which meant there was metal to spare. It didn't always work so well with smaller bores, especially very light ones with thinner barrels or with receivers that were also made lighter, but they were a minority. And we have no national proofhouse, nor do we have a law that says a gun can't be legally sold following significant material alteration. It's strictly a case of "caveat emptor". So we have a lot of vintage side by sides with lengthened chambers. Probably a good idea to check barrel wall thickness, on small bores in particular, on which the chambers have been punched. And thanks to the interest in vintage guns, websites such as this, and publications such as Double Gun Journal, more Americans now understand those issues. But that does not help replace the removed metal in all of our formerly short-chambered guns that are now 2 3/4".

In proof or out of proof is only a state of being or a technical status and even that does not exist in the US. Means notheing here because 99.9% of buyers do not understand in or out of proof. Remember the 20 ga. Clark that Tony Treadwell had reproofed, that passed proof and then developed a bulge or split in less than a box of shells. Those were proper shells and the gun had just passed proof so just because it passes proof there is not absolute guarantee that it is going to last forever. Shame because that was a very nice looking gun when he got done restoring it.

Ever wonder why is there no Proof house in the US? Because we are the worst people for that type of protection. In the US people tend to think that a proof type test should guarantee something is safe and will last forever. If it fails the first thing a person over here wants to do is find out who to blame, because it can not be his own fault, and then figure out if they have a legal claim. That is why a proof house system would never last over here. Every failed gun would have some lawyer looking at a potential claim against the proof house and if that is not possible then a class action suit against it for all the failures. The thinking would be the proof house test is not high enough pressure so it does not detect all potential failures in advance and therefore the proof house is not doing its job.

The second problem is that reloading is too popular here. Too many of us reload and we all know how loose quality control can get in some people's reloads. Ever shoot a round of skeet with a fellow with squib loads? Every wonder if he got the missing powder into another shell. Ever shot behind someone who had a shell with just a little too much powder in them? If his gun fails he denies ever using reloads. Then he would seek legal action against the proof house if his gun was proofed in the US. They already try to go after the maker if they can.

A US proof house would be just be another soft, easy target for them. Shame really because I think there is a real nich market for a proof house over here. How many here would welcome a proper proof house here that could reproof a gun to a know standard? I would. A proof house is not an absolute slam dunk for long term safe use but it would be welcome confirmation that a gun is in basic shape for safe use. Right now we just go by looking, measuring and hope we have not missed anything that will come back to bite us on the rear end.

Just a reminder. H.P. White Laboratory, Inc. in Maryland will proof Twist or Damascus barrels for $500 to a pressure of 20,000 psi, or the pressure desired, and has allowed at least one owner to watch the procedure
www.hpwhite.com
http://www.hpwhite.com/uploads/file/100-00.pdf

I recognize that one must value the gun, or one's digits, substantially in order to justify the expense.

BTW: It was the hope of Major Sir Gerald Burrard that NDT would eventually be added to Proof Testing; writing in the Second Edition of The Modern Shotgun, 1948 in �The Protection Afforded By Proof�:
The best plan of all would be to incorporate in Provisional Proof one or more of the methods of �Crack Detection� which have been developed so successfully since about 1935. X-rays are used regularly in all big steel works for the detection of flaws in steel, but it is at present doubtful whether the results are always quite so definite when examining a tube as they are in the case of flat plates. Magnetic and Fluorescent Crack Detection has proved very satisfactory and is comparatively cheap and simple.
It may well be that the rapid advance of scientific research may open out new and better methods for the detection of flaws, and it will be a tragedy if the hands of the Proof Authorities are tied by an Act of 1868.

Working on that