doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Barrel lumps

L C Smith Plans & Specifications show their bbl steel having "40 points carbon". Exact alloy is not stated, but even assuming a plain carbon (1040) steel this "Can Be" heat-treated. Not sure they were, but if so this would be "Tempered out" by the brazing. Even so a 1040 steel has higher strength than a low carbon (1018 or less) steel. No doubt many early bbls, such as Decarbonized Steel ones, were a very low carbon steel. I don't have hard facts for support but I think that a higher carbon content & even mild alloys such as manganese or what we know as a 13xx steel came into use very quickly giving a higher strength bbl. I think though it was not common practise to actually heat-treat these bbls but they were just used in their basic form, thus brazing would seem to have little affect upon their strength.

For information:..."chopper lump" also applies to the lower barrel of some Over/Under guns. My Browning 325 Grade 2 (glorified Citori) is an example. See link: http://www.trulockandharris.com/reviews/browning%20B3252.htm

GMCS,

Just to cite an easy way to recall the technology of chopper lump barrels: They got the name "chopper" because the integral forging of the lump with the barrel makes the barrel look like a handle, and the lump look like the axe head, hence the description chopperlump...

Regards, Tim

I would dispute that either the Superposed or B325 Browning are of chopper lump construction. By definition, a chopper lump barrel has half of the lump forged as part of each barrel. This obviously cannot be the case on an O/U, and the lug is a part of the lower barrel only, with the upper barrel attached to the lower by some means, probably brazing. Just because someone calls an apple an orange doesn't make it so.