doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Square Barrels

Have square or rectangular smooth bore barrels been built or considered in the past? I know there were experiments with rifled barrels. Just wondering since there is no rotation in the barrel as a rifle, the force in a shotgun is a singular directional push forward and I can't see the external ballistics being much different from a round barrel. Perhaps internal ballistics are different but beyond my current understanding.

Was it just the ease in shaping a rod over a round mandrel, the fact that round barrels would take less metal and be lighter, or perhaps another factor I have not considered?

I'm going to guess that the internal dynamics of the projectile would be unstable enough to possibly cause pressure issues? OR: Friction increasing in the corners to a point where equilibrium would be lost. I really don't know.

Maybe the same reason submarines and eggs are round?

Hens like the para-scope down when laying.

Bores of many shapes have been tried .There was the thought that square bullets were more effective against infidels , but that was a very long time ago .

Never actually seen a square smooth bored gun but one glaring problem I could foresee would be the disadvantage of the strength of the barrel . Lets be honest have you ever seen a square hose pipe or pressure pipe? To make such a barrel the extra weight due to the thickness of the walls would be impractical in any sporting gun. Let alone the sheer impracticality of cartridges ,wadding etc .

They ought to pattern wonderfully ............. no matter what shot charge you loaded you'd always have a SQUARE LOAD!!

Couldn't help it, you just made that one so easy.

SRH

That was a fat pitch, Stan . . . but you connected solidly.

A circle is the strongest structure. The reason the British Comet jet airliner, otherwise a successful aircraft, crashed, was due to the square windows. Vibration stresses caused cracks to begin at the corners of the windows where structures are weak. The cracks got worse and ultimate brought on fuselage failure. A corner is a joint and a joint is the weakest part of a structure.

It was a fact that square bullets were effective against infidels but Moslems don't use them against us nowadays.

Could be it was also easier to drill a round hole than form corners. A bit back, I had a chance to look over an old Turkish damascus muzzle loading rifle barrel. It had a star shaped bore that looked hand scraped to form the points. It was probably labor intensive to make, and it was pretty chunky. Someone way back probably figured out they tended to unzip along one of the points if it didn't have a good bit of safety margin.

Square barrels won't help me I want rectangle ones. I can get up and down but having an extra foot of lead on each side of the pattern would be nice. I have a comp. choke which is flattened do it looks like a figure right with two center points which was designed to arrest the wad. The concept was to flatten the pattern and eliminate the natural center density to give you a side even pattern that was about three times wider than it was high. Needless to say it was a flop or every gun would have one.

Exactly. Thats why gas cylinders and pressure vessels are round with hemispherical (domed) ends, the pressure acts evenly on the entire surface, where as if there were corners, the pressure would concentrate there.

Also, from a purely practical point of view, its FAR easier to make a round barrel then a square one.

Years ago I read and article about a riot gun with a horizontal oblong muzzle said to spread the shot horizontally giving a wider shot pattern on man sized target without wasting lead over the target, "a street sweeper".