doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Braised ribs vs soft soldered ribs

Mike,

Actually, I did not want to mention the manufacturer but since the cat is out of the bag here is what I did and learned.

I called "every" Perazzi distributor, authorized dealer, salesman, and repair shop I could find. I then called Perazzi USA. After speaking to the "experts" --and I had to be very direct with some of them because they danced around the question or in some cases were very coy-- what I learned was that all Perazzi barrels are assembled using a low temperature solder made of tin, lead, and silver (similar to what Brownell's sells). However, many dealers, distributors, and salesmen will say that Perazzi barrels are "silver-soldered", thereby confusing customers and leading them to think that the barrels are brazed at high temperature. Some gunsmiths that repair Perazzis call this a "silver-solder" process, because they are "soldering" using a compound that contains "silver". However, the solder they are using does not require ovens or the high temperatures needed to braze. Most salesmen, distributors, or dealers really do not know much about the way guns are manufactured other than what they see in catalogues and learn from sales-reps. It wasn't until I actually spoke to one east coast Perazzi specialist who had worked for Perazzi and the smith over at Perazzi USA that I got the real scoop. When asked, "are your barrels soft-soldered," they will always reply "no they are silver-soldered." But when you ask how they "silver-solder" them and what temperature they are using, then they will tell you that they are using low temperatures and a lead, tin, silver solder similar to Brownell's Hi-Temp/Hi-Force 44 which flows at around 640-650 degrees (very different from the brazing temperatures).

If one thinks carefully, the low temperature process is what allows Perazzi to make some of the most finely, well laid, and beautifully constructed barrels in the world --just like other high-end shotgun manufacturers.

David I agree that soft soldering barrels and then regulating produces much better performance than aligning them as best you can and then brazing them.

I still think old 16GG ought to admit you pinned him on that point.

Best,

Mike

according to old ed the gunsmith, a technique that works quite well is to braze the ribs and barrels together, except for the last few inches at the muzzle ends, which are then soldered together after the barrels have been regulated. he recently sleeved a parker for me using this technique with fine success. the gun shoots both barrels to point of aim at 35 yard! quite an accomplishment for someone over the age of 80! i also understand one of the reasons ruger stopped making sxs shotguns, is because they could not work out a method to reliably and efficiently join the barrels and ribs. ed1

Unless I am misinterpreting, I believe that a couple of posters here are confusing silver soldering, sometimes called silver brazing, with the process of true brazing.

Silver solder is an alloy of silver in varying proportions, with copper, zinc, and rarely now, cadmium. Silver solder, depending upon the alloy, normally flows at between 1100F and 1250F.

True brazing is done with either bronze(normal), or brass, either in stick form, or sometimes ground into a powder and combined with the apropriate flux. The flow temperature of brazing metal is typically between 150F and 300F higher than that of silver solder.

If you take a gun that has been oven brazed, you cannot remove the ribs even with an oxy-acetylene torch. One advantage of oven brazing is that with a modern oven, the process is performed either in a vacuum or in an inert atmosphere, thereby avoiding any oxidation and the need for flux. Also, the temperature can be precisely controlled and heat-treating can even be done as a final step.

Ron typically what is the silver percentage in the silver soldering/silver brazing rod?

Best,

Mike

To sum up the thought process.

The big ambiguity to building a double barrel is to have a the same time a strong assembly along with an easy procedures to deal with the sticky stuff between the ribs that does not involve extravagant temperatures because the hotter we go in flame, the harder it is to handle expansion and warping and elongation of the tubes during the... ahem... hard solder brazing process... no wait... the brazing rod soldering process... ooohh... how about plain soft solder soldering? Yeah... that's must be it.

Can we have it both ways? No. Well, yes, but not really.

If we could do without much of any barrel alignment and regulation, we'd have a homerun. Machine everything to tight spec, spot it all together and bam, ready. But nooooo... we want the lightweight and svelte and sexy side by side guns with the complicated three dimension alignment.

Now, if we could live with keeping our good eye in the same plane alignment as the over and under barrel assembly, then the job would be a snap. Stack the tubes on top of each other, glue, done. Strong hot temperature stuff will do, it's a quickie. (Of course, to accept the over and under, we have to settle on other flabby points - but that's not the topic here)

Still, we don't really want side by sides that are as mushy as wet noodles, so, we make the joining of the barrels a long and sultry operation and the expertise of the skilled people who do this make it last with the use of the somewhat low temperature and at the same time somewhat hard solder that does contain the good silver. But it is not technically soft solder, nor hard solder nor brazing rods?

I am probably way oversimplifying the whole thing, and I don't really remember the initial question. Pound us to the ground with details, I like it.

***

Here it comes

***

Here's a thought to solve all the problems in the world.

Our side by sides come with two barrels sleeping next to each other while we gaze straight over them, aligning our peeping eye with the rib and the dot sight. Hence the complicated triangulated triple beams that are hard to spot all into one hole at, say, 35 yards from the head. Kinky.

The over and under keep it straight in that the two barrels along with our eye-line hold themselves strictly into one vertical invisible sheet. Leaving only one tilting angle to adjust and play with between each. It's just up or down.

So now... are you still thinking about your gun?

On our side by side - instead of gluing the sighting dot on the middle of the top rib, like, at twelve o'clock at the end of the gun, why not push it halfway down to the side of the left barrel, back to nine PM - it would be like shooting an over and under in gangsta-style. On top of the coolness factor, we'd eliminate the regulation problem of the sxs, and it only seems to be a slight change of habit to get the eyes to follow. It even seems more ergonomic since we mostly shoot with our right eye and right shoulder so there would be no more twisting of the neck over the cheek piece.



I have a feeling I am going to miss a lot of birds on my next adventure.

Heck, to think of it, if dogs had driving licenses, they'd go about cruising down the highway with their head sticking way out of the left hand driver window. I like dogs, they're cool. We're on to something here, something our dogs know about and we don't. I'll bet their tails will stop wagging when they see what we're up to next.

Woooo hoooo

I used the Hi-Force 44 with the 600F ish melt temp for assembling the spacers in a project. My thought was to use 60/40 for the ribs.

SixBears,

I can see that the 60s were good to you.

One more language correction: Rocketman, it's "breech" on a gun, unless you're using guns to "breach" the enemy lines.

So . . . we've determined that most Spanish doubles are brazed. My recollection is that Model 21's were also brazed, and I learned (the hard way!) that Parker Repros were brazed. (Were original Parkers brazed?) Most Brit doubles are soft soldered. How about the other American classics . . . Fox, Ithaca, Elsie? I've always heard you can't hot blue those guns, which would seem to indicate they were also soft soldered.

Good discussion!

Thanks, Larry. I "know" that, but must have slipped a cog - so much for all those gold stars!!!

I think M-21's are soldered (no idea if they have some silver content from the factory).

I once had a Liege SXS fail a small portion of the braze near the muzzle. I didn't, at the time realize I could solder it for a fix, and I was not about to try to remelt the braze. It sold before I really had to come up with a solution.