Here you go Destry



1869 Price List



I believe Parker sourced their Decarbonized barrels from Remington

From Fire-Arms Manufacture 1880. U.S. Department of Interior, Census Office

The earliest use of decarbonized steel or gun-barrels is generally credited to the Remingtons, who made steel barrels for North & Savage, of Middletown, Connecticut, and for the Ames Manufacturing company, of Chicopee, Massachusetts, as early as 1846. It is also stated that some time about 1848 Thomas Warner, a the Whitneyville works, incurred so much loss in the skelp-welding of iron barrels that he voluntarily substituted steel drilled barrels in his contract, making them of decarbonized steel, which was believed by him to be a a novel expedient. The use of soft cast-steel was begun at Harper's Ferry about 1849. After 1873, all small-arms barrels turned out at the national armory at Springfield were made of decarbonized steel (a barrel of which will endure twice as heavy a charge as a wrought-iron barrel), Bessemer steel being used until 1878, and afterward Siemens-Martin steel.

An E. Remington & Sons 1854 broadsheet listed the following MATCHED BARRELS FOR DOUBLE GUNS:

Plain Iron------------$4.50
Stubs twisted plain---$8.00
Stubs twisted fine---$10.00
Cast steel------------$8.00
Cast steel, solid or drilled from single bar-----$15.00

"Cast steel" usually refers to the Huntsman hot-rolled crucible steel process of 1742 used to make farm implements. A sheet is folded over a mandrel and the long edge hammer welded to form a barrel. A more modern use refers to the Bessemer process of 1856 for converting pig iron to "Decarbonized Steel" or "Bessemer process homogenous wrought iron".


Last edited by revdocdrew; 02/13/09 05:38 PM.