doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com stub twist?

Could this be stub twist?









I recently saw a link to photos of stub twist in a discussion here on the forum but can't find them again. All I can find is the drawing from W. Greener's book.


Bob

Hard to tell but more likely Laminated Steel
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfg2hmx7_40dxk2scc7
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfg2hmx7_52fs85cfgt

Stub Twist on Joseph Manton c. 1840 14b percussion single barrel. 'JB' likely John Blanch.





Refinished Stub Twist by Paul Stevens



c. 1860 Joseph Manton with Laminated Steel, which may also have been called "Stub Damascus"



More examples http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/18063717

Thanks. Do you by chance know whether W. W. Greener ever made muzzleloaders with stub twist barrels?

Bob

William made muzzleloaders and thought "Wire Twist" (later "Plain Twist") was stronger than Stub Twist. He mostly used an early "Laminated Steel Indestructible By Gunpowder"



See http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfg2hmx7_2584fpzkcfv

W.W. was promoting his "Greener's Solid Weldless-Twist Barrel" and his dad's "Silver (Laminated) Steel"
See http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfg2hmx7_234chsrtv6s

As I interpret W Greener in "The Gun, 1834" he did show Wire Twist being slightly stronger than Stub Twist @ a tensile strength of 79K+ psi for the wire & 76K+ for the stub. It did seem to me though he much preferred the stub over the wire at that point in time, thinking the steel & iron had a much better blend & less apt to break in the weld from a sidewise blow.

He also warned that many wire twist bbls were sold as stub twist ones. Even at that point he was bemoaning the fact that the stubs were getting ever harder to accquire as many of the horse nails were going to a cast product which was totally unsuited for use in gun bbls.

The very steep inclination of the pattern in question looks much like what he described at that time as "Two-Penny Iron" of which he had nothing good to say, it having a tensile of only some 39K psi.

PS; Whether any of this still held true by the time these bbls were made I have no idea. This was all taken from the 1834 work.

And is the picture you included of that steel Indestructible By Gunpowder?

Yes, but my problem is knowing the timing. I would assume that his weldless-twist wasn't something he was doing early on in his career. Don't know about his silver steel barrels. Most of the references I've seen to those are to Silver Steel Damascus, with twisted patterns.

When W.W started his own business he tried to concentrate on breechloaders rather than the muzzleloaders his father insisted on. He apparently never made a large number of muzzleloaders. I have a W.W. Greener muzzleloader made in 1871-73, earlier rather than later in that range. The pattern I asked about is from that gun. I'm trying to unscramble all the conflicting historical threads to see if I can find out just what I have.

Thanks for the link. I have the 9th edition and it is very close to the 3rd you showed.

Bob

The pic above is a Greener pinfire double. This is a percussion double

That was my take on it, too, 2-piper, but as you say, 1834 was early days. I'm much more interested in what he was doing right before his death in 1869.

The pattern I asked about is on a W.W. Greener percussion double, so I doubt if it was made of any sort of low-grade stuff.

Bob

Bob;
I certainly tand to agree with you that it is highly unlikely that WW used any mat'l as low grade as that which his father referred to as the Two-Penny. That was why I went back & added the PS. As I uinderstood him that was all iron with no steel in it at all. I do though have serious doubts that by the time your bbls were made if the "Real" stub twist was even still being produced. These were composed of pulled wrought iron horseshoe nail stubs & chopped up steel from coach springs. I think that by WW's time making bbls from "Scrap" was mostly a thing of the past.

It's my impression from reading W.W Greener's book that you are correct about the real horseshoe nail stub twist having faded away by the mid 1870s.

Drew, sorry 'bout that. I see now that your first picture was labeled as you said. Thanks for the additional one, it's beautiful.

When W. Greener died, W.W. Greener folded his father's company, machinery, stock and skilled workmen into his own. The present Greener in the company speculated that maybe 100 guns or barrels made by his father were labeled as W. W. Greener guns and sold by him over the next couple of years. I think those would be very interesting guns historically. My gun being made as early as 1871, W. Greener dying in 1869, that raised the possibility that my gun might be one of those, or at least that was the thought which popped into my head when I saw a stub twist barrel and diagram in an earlier discussion here, because it resembled my gun. W. W. never built muzzleloaders if he could talk the customer into a breechloader, and by 1871 he was building very few. None were built after 1875.

So, to make a long story even longer, I wondered if the type of barrel on my gun could be used to link it to W. Greener, in spite of its W.W Greener label. I should be so lucky.

Oh, well, it gives an old man something to do.

Bob