doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Blown Baker

The blown barrel does not explain the mangled hull. Rather, the explanation behind the blown barrel obviously lies WITH the mangled hull: possibly obstruction, possibly unintentional overload or other error in the reloading process. But at any rate, something caused the charge to blow out the sides of the hull as well as the end. (Great photos, BTW!)

As someone else suggested, whatever caused that gun to blow--given the obvious condition of the hull--might well have caused an 870 to blow. (Note the pictures of a blown-up M-1. Can't remember any of our weapons instructors in the Army warning us about that possibility, nor did I ever see it happen. But it quite obviously did in the case of the gun illustrated in the above post.) Thus, steel barrels also blow. As to asking for a guarantee from a modern manufacturer to produce a gun with Damascus barrels . . . seems I recall Greener was going to do just that. Others may remember more. The problem is not the inherent weakness of Damascus, but rather the expense of making Damascus barrels in comparison to fluid steel. But at any rate, the gun in the photos quite obviously did not blow just because the barrels were Damascus. That catastrophic failure had considerable assistance from some sort of problem that also impacted the shell itself. (Again, either an obstruction, like maybe a stuck base wad, or else an improper reload.) We don't know for certain whether the same conditions would've blown a modern steel barrel, but I feel pretty certain that even if it hadn't, the shell would've come out of the gun looking pretty much the way it does in the photos.

HOmelessJOe,
How do you know for a fact that the apprentices made the "cheap" damascus for low-mid-good quality guns and the masters only made the barrels for the "best" guns?

I somewhat agree in to what jOe is saying. In a shop that has apprentices, they work on the lower or easier jobs until qualified to go on, usually in stages. I'm also quite sure that barrels were all made in one part of the shop, where all the barrel makers were, and that apprentices worked with the craftsman in doing the barrels.
Also since most Damascus barrels were made overseas and since most were proofed there, even if the apprentices made the barrels by themselves they were still proofed. When they started making barrels in this country I'm not sure if Damascus was made here, but before proofs were stamped on the water tables of some manufactures, the were factory proofed for double loads.

The main point is are Damascus barrels safe? In my opinion they are only as safe as the person shooting them. Unfortunately, since most are 80-120 years old, we have not been the original owners and we do not know what went through them before us. Most try and use good judgement and shoot the type of shells they were made for, but who knows what previous owners did and now that we own them and put some of the "right type" of shells and they blow. Like stated before it could have been "their time to go", unfortunately.

Many of you here shoot Damascus regularly with the appropriate shells and no problems, I shoot mine infrequently and love to reload some 5500 psi hulls in them, for hunting.

It would be nice to know the real cause, and also to remember the everyone has an opinion and it is not to be ridiculed.
Just because you have some type of paper doesn't make you an expert.

There are no original source descriptions that specify who was involved in making a barrel.
Based purely on photographic evidence, we do know that....

In England it would appear there was a master barrel maker with 1 to 2 apprentices / journeyman. If there were separate stations is not clear based on photographic evidence.

In Belgium there was always a master and journeyman or apprentice working on a barrel. This work was divided into several stages each with a separate team. The 1st team would twist and weld the billets. These ribbons were then wrapped around a mandrel. The 2nd team would take the coiled barrel and weld every joint again, shaping the barrel. The 3rd station would grind the barrel. The 4th station would fit the barrel. The 5th station would finish, i.e. apply the acid used to show the pattern.

Traditionally the starting point for an apprentice in Belgium was no where near a forge. When they moved up to actual barrel making their job was to pump the bellows and tend the forge. Every stroke of the hammer was dictated by the master maker. If some one has original source that indicates differently, I would love to see it.

As to the blown Baker. I am not sure how much honing, reaming, enlarging you can do to any barrel in the area of the chamber before it becomes unsafe. In Europe such an action would require reproof. I have posted a diagram of a barrel showing what were considered minimum wall thicknesses. I measured the damascus barrels I own, which all except 1 complies with that diagram.

I would suggest the fact it was damascus has nothing to do with the end of it. The reaming or honing does contribute but was not the cause. It merely confirms in my mind, that before any gun of this age can be fired, it should be examined by a competent gunsmith.

Pete

After looking at the photos and reading everyone theories I'm voting for a squib load detonation.

I'm still trying to figure out why most Belgium SxS's made during this time period were clunkers....yet the same Damascus barrels when put on American guns become first rate ?

Pete is it safe to say that the Belgium made Damascus was made like an assembly line then possibly graded by an inspector?

I also noticed where one poster said they were "proofed"...I was under the impression that the raw Damascus tubes were not proofed for export ?

I do know American gun makers didn't proof their Damascus barreled guns like the English did.

I think people in this country are coming to the conclusion that "Damascus barrels and shooting them" is not witchcraft or any other kind of black magic. A poster on this forum in the last week told about his Scott Damascus ten gauge that was nitro proofed at 4 1/2 tons and for 3 1/2" shells. I have seen a Purdey Damascus ten with the same nitro proofs. My Greener Royal Damascus eight is nitro proofed for 3 3/4" shells and 2 1/2 ounces of shot. These guys over there have been shooting Damascus like it was steel for decades. Now we're doing it.

I have known several of those Belgian JABC "Clunkers" in pretty sad condition with pitted bores & loose & off face as well which digested High Brass shells without a belch. They were not shot a lot, but when they were they weren't babied. No I don't espouse to this practise, just know it took place. The main difference in a twist bbl'd H Lefever & a twist bbl'd W Richards, JABC, may not be so much in actual strength of the bbl as just in general fit & finish & attention paid to detail. 100 years later the H Lefever still fits up nice & tight while the W Richards is apt to rattle like a tin can full of rocks, & have other p[roblemd as well. With a little common sense as to loads, either will not likely "Blow Up". I believe it was law that the exported tubes had to be given the provisional proof, though the mark was most often obliterated in finishing up the bbls. At least some of the American makers did indeed proof their bbls, very similar to the "Official" British proof houses.

There is the whole question of volume regarding production. The Belgians were contracted for the barrels they produced. They did not churn out barrels, load them on boats and dump them off at the 1st American port. If they produced cheap barrels, it was because the buyers wanted them at that price. Buyers like Sears, SD&G, etc. Smaller makers like Baker, Lefever, etc would have been handling these barrels directly. I know they had blacksmiths and barrel makers employed who would have complained if cheap barrels showed up in their inventory.

From circa 1880, the English gun trade was in a slow decline. Does any one really believe that proof house test was done just because they were worried their guns might not pass? It was done to show that English barrels were the best. Good for them! A government agency that actually was concerned about jobs for their citizens. The foreign barrels are never identified even as to the country of origin. So the message is clear, buy English. I am told the Belgians responded with their own proof house test, which I am still attempting to find a copy of.

McKinley in an 1890 attempt to protect the American farmer drafted tariff legislation. It helped to nail the coffin on the English gun trade's exports to America. Within a little over 10 years they shrank to nothing. The other negative impact in England was many makers went out of business.

There was a negative impact in Belgium. The demand for greater and greater production lead to unsafe work conditions. The guild itself called for a strike. Conditions were so bad during one strike that neighbors often took in the children of guild members so the children would not starve.

The was no production line for damascus barrels as we understand the term. There was increased pressure by the owners to increase production and cut costs. One documented method of cutting the cost was to improperly bore the barrel. This left fragments of the chemise in the tube. These fragments would cause obstructions later in the hands of sportsman. The fact that we do not see this type of blow up happening today, leads me to believe those barrels were tossed or blown long ago. It certainly explains some of the bad press of the period.

We simply do not have enough records from Belgium during these years to understand every step properly. We do know that all tubes should have been proofed under Belgian law. The proof house kept some records private as they knew the British and other consulates were attempting to understand their export business. Later through flood and war, these records were destroyed. I have seen the pictures of long rows of barrels sitting on sand bags with strings running through a hole in the wall. Was there a way to side step this and remain within the law?

I have seen some Francotte's, Wilmart's, Lebeau, etc guns produced during this same time period that would give any maker a run for the money.

We have to remember we are talking about several different categories of Belgian production. The top of the line guns by top makers. The large Belgian houses who would put their name on the gun. The large Belgian houses who were sourcing barrels to American gun makers. Finally the Belgian makers who were making a quick buck, didn't mark anything and did not care about quality or safety. The last is normally referred to as a guild gun, but in the worst sense of the phrase.

Pete

Anyone with access to my book, Parker Guns: Shooting Flying can see a dead-ringer picture of a blown Remington twist gun (albeit right chamber with red mangled plastic shell protruding). The chamber failed about one inch forward of the breech as a result of an estimated 30,000 psi overcharge. In this instance the known overcharge explains the mangled hull, and I see no reason, nor have I read any plausible explanation of the blown Baker that would lead a person to a better conclusion than, quite simply, a similar overcharge.

Damascus-type barrels went the way of the passenger pigeon because they, too, became obsolete with modern technology. An important part of the barrel forging process was the pounding of the plastic-state metal to drive out impurities; the more pounding, the more labor involved; the fewer inclusions, the better the barrel tubes; the more expensive the process, the more costly the better sort of raw tubes.

Sir Joseph Whitworth observed the labor-intensive forging process and devised a hydraulic "compressed steel" method of removing the debris from the molten steel by squeezing the crucible as the metal solidified from the outside toward the center. Given the physics of metal going from liquid to solid, the impurities migrated toward the liquid state in the middle, but instead of forming a core of impurities at the center (last part to solidify), the extreme hydraulic pressure forced the impurities up and out, like squeezing the goo out of a Twinkie.

Thus the patented "Whitworth Compressed Fluid Steel" became the state-of-the-art metal source for shotgun barrels in the 1880s in Great Britain and eventually in America in about 1894, when Parker Brothers attached a set of Whitworth tubes to an AH grade, thus creating the AAH Pigeon Gun priced at $400 ($100 over Finest Damascus AH grade). The original Whitworth process was expensive and the barrel tubes were in short supply at first (some say "rationed" to the best English makers).

The one thing compressed fluid steel barrels had that the Damascus-type (Damascus, Laminated, Twist) didn't have was consistency. The destructive proof tests of 1891 showed English Laminated first and Whitworth second, but the Whitworth tubes were all the same, while the Laminated tubes had a quantum variation, albeit all tubes passed the non-destructive part of the test with flying colors.

English Laminated barrels had always been highly regarded...Greener said that they "shot best," while Damascus "looked best." In other words, the favoring of Damascus over Laminated (or Twist) had to do with fashion and looks, not function.But the fluid steel barrels won out for reducing the skilled-labor component of cost when the process was refined and perfected. And there was a residual, time-sensitive element of quality...

The forging process endemic to Damascus-type barrels could never cleanse the metal like the compressed fluid steel process. Thus there were always inclusions--or "grays"--that were like time bombs waiting to do their destructive work. The better more expensive barrels minimized the problem by having had more labor expended in forging out the impurities, but they still had some; the cheaper barrels had less labor and likely more grays. Black powder and the fulminate and chlorate percussion caps and primers were extremely corrosive. Over time the grays corroded and weakened the barrels, maybe not so much in a well-cared for gun, but it happened. Every man-made object from its inception is on its way to the junk yard, some faster than others: It's called "depreciation" by the accountants and the Tax Code.

So it only follows that fluid steel displaced Damascus and Laminated and Twist as the automobile replaced the horse. The Whitworth process was so expensive in 1894-95-96-97 that Parker Pigeon Guns cost $400 ($100 over Finest Damascus in essentially the same quality grade). But industrial know-how duplicated the fluid steel process at a cheaper and and more democratic level and in 1898 Parker introduced Titanic Steel barrels on their $100 gun, and a year later the VH grade at $50 with Vulcan Steel barrels. Thus the forging of iron and steel barrel tubes as shown on PeteM's DVD became a lost art. Which still begs the question; Are Damascus-type barrels safe? And the answer is:

Slip a loaded shell in the chamber, sand-bag the gun, tie a long string to the trigger, step back around the corner of a sturdy building (all the standard precautions taken by Sherman Bell)...and yank the string. The thing I have noticed on this double-gun gig is the seemingly excessive interest of anglophile gun cranks in obscure proof marks on their foreign guns...yet where is the movement toward proofing all those old American wall-hangers? These homemade guns are the subject of endless speculations about suitability for purpose, and this thread is a glaring example of speculations to the 3rd power.

Methinks we will never know whether a spurious primer got in the powder, or the loader gave a double dose, or somehow there was a residual obstruction, or maybe a gray just finally compromised the strength of the chamber wall (in connection of extending the chamber for modern 2 3/4-inch star crimp shells?). What we do know, however, is that these things seem to happen to people who load their own shells and fire old wall-hangers that have not been proofed with anything approaching a modern proof load of, say, 18,500 psi.

I personally have no interest in shooting Damascus-type guns, but don't see this problem as strictly endemic to wall-hangers. Some of the fluid steel guns sold by Jim Julia with stated barrel thickness measurements have had caveats about safety. Maybe we all ought to send our guns to Tom Ambrust for some proof testing...or maybe more likely, we will just continue feeding our old doubles what we believe to be "light loads" and hope for the best. EDM

The book, Experts on Guns and Shooting,by G.T. Teasdale-Bucklell,Contains a great deal of information on the comparative strength and cost of both damascus and steel gun barrels.[pages 540-541].These tests were carried out at the Birmingham Proof house in 1891 under the supervision of leading gunmakers of the day.In total 39 types of Damascus and Steel barrels of both British and Belgian origin were tested. These test would be relevant to the era when the Baker barrels were produced. You may be surprised By some results for example;it is recorded that English Laminated Steel out performed Whitworth fluid compressed steel in terms of endurance [ie; resistance to bulging].
This book also provides extensive technical analysis of barrel design,allowable stress levels recommended barrel wall thickness etc. It also contains interesting reviews of the several leading London and Birmingham gunmakers.
A reprint of this book was recently available at Gunnerman Books.[ Tel;248-608-2856]