doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Crown Steel Tubes

Boy did the Herman H. Kiffe Company offer a selection of doubles in 1903:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Bjg9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA115&dq=royal+steel+barrels&cd=1#v=onepage&q=whitworth%2C%20crown%20and%20sieman's&f=false

Of particular interest is the L.C. Smith advert on page 115: "No. 1X - Royal Steel Barrels, made of carefully selected steel, toughened and hardened. In the point of construction, are similar to Whitworth, Crown and Sieman's Steel Barrels...." I wonder if they are referring to composition and are they implying that the tubes are imported?

Pre - 1893? Herman H. Kiffe Sporting Goods was located at 318 Fulton Street in Brooklyn, New York, then it moved to 473 Broadway and by 1896? it could be found at 523 Broadway, NYC, NY.


Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

lots of good info here.

The interesting thing about the Royal Steel barrels on L.C. Smiths, they were the cheapest barrel offered. On their F Grade hammer gun in 1906, it was offered with three barrels types, Royal Steel at $20.00, English Stub Twist at $23.00 and Good Damascus at $25.00. So even though they were steel, apparently they weren't as good as the others. (plus I'm sure it had to do with man hours to make and to import)

I wonder if any of the "C" stamps are for Chrome Steel: http://books.google.com/books?id=myYFAAA...lyn&f=false ????? Looks like it moved to NJ at some point.

Just a cross reference to Drew's composing: http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=203598#Post203598




Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

I guess were are still pretty much at the preponderance of evidence stage but data is quickly mounting on the side of Crucible Steel Company/C.H. Halcomb Steel Works, with L.C. Smith being listed as on the Board of Directors(as previously posted by Drew) as well as President of the L.C. Smith Typewriter Company and President of the National Bank of Syracuse in 1907, as being the source of the tube steel know as Crown & Nitro. From what I can glean most of the tubes with the name Crown & Nitro steel had/have the Hunter Arms logo/trademark. So what exactly is a trademark and what interest would an entity have to have in order to advertise a particular product with a trademark?

Anyway, it seems that by 1904 or 1905 that the C.H. Halcomb Steel Works in Syracuse was deep in thought of implementing the new fangled "electric arc furnace" in their facility, with L.C. Smith doing much of the digging as well as consulting with metal minds on the American continent. L.C. Smith had to be 1 step in front of the fellas at Ludlum Spring & Steel Company. I have to dig a bit more but it seems that Dr. Paul Heroult/Herouet of France had made the hurdle in furnace technology in bringing his theory/experiment of the electric arc furnace to a commerical application. Up until say 1904 a cheap raw material had to be exposed to several processes in order to remove the impurities to arrive at a high quality end product. Or one could purchase 1st class raw material from places like Gysinte, Sweden where the Kjellin process was being utilized. As always it comes down to economics and the Heroult/Herouet process allowed the removal of inferior raw materials to get a top shelf steel. For Hunter Arms, the tube steel is pretty much home grown or local via a canal and the profit margins are dependent on just how cheap one can obtain electricity, which I'm sure was really cheap during this time as the electric coops were trying to get everyone on the hook/line. It appears, and is conjecture for now, that L.C. Smith was looking deep into the steel making processes in order for the C.H. Halcomb Steel Works to produce steel more economically and then the H.A. Hunter company was acquiring steel probably thru the L.C. Smith connection and negating the import tariff on tubes in the rough from Europe, while attempting to carve out a portion of the gun trade from importers like S,D, & G by offering a quality product at a comprable or lower price. By 1909, after the 1906 installation of the 1st elecric arc furnace in the U.S. of A., alloys like nickel and chrome vanadium were being offered by the C.H. Halcomb Company. I've read that during the same period of 1906-1909 the Hunter Arms Company offered tubes with the stamp "London Steel" and if the stamp is coupled with the "SB&Co." stamp then the two just may point back to Sanderson Brothers Steel Works. London Steel tubes as well as Special Steel tubes must have an alloy composition. Are their any L.C. Smith longarms with the stamp Crown, Nitro, Armor, Royal, Special or London Steel that also wears a Belgian tube maker's mark? Are there enough blown Hunter Arms tubes of each variety out there to obtain an analysis?

The advertising phrase "Ride a Hunter, Shoot a Smith" from circa 1895, the Hunter Arms company was marketing their trademark steel in at least 2 directions, giving insight to the fact that they were trying to make a buck in any direction.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Raimey, Hope this can help you, I can't decipher the marks, but I'm sure you can. These are Crown Steel barrels from a circa 1914 16 ga. L.C. Smith Trap Grade.


This is the earliest I have, Crown Steel barrels Gr. 2 circa. April 1899. The only markings I can make out are a "C" on the right barrel.

David: Thanks for the effort and I wonder if this example was one of the earliest with the Hunter Arms logo/trademark stamped beside or over "LLH" or Laurent Lochet-Habran of Belgium. The overstamped "LLH" on the underside of the left tube looks as if the "H" has some additional spacing? Also on the tubes is a stamp of an encircled "ACM" or Acier Cockerill Manufacture Liegoise, noting Cockerill steel. It can't be both, unless the Hunter Arms Company had fellas in and around Liege making their tubes, but then what part would Halcomb steel play? Another wild guess would be that the "SB&Co." stamp pre-WWI would be that of Sanderson Brothers Steel Company and post WWI on scattergun tubes it would be that of Samuel Buckley & Company. If this is true, I wonder if it was coincidence or not that the 2 stamps were similar or that Samuel Buckley & Company was sought out as a source for tubes? If WWI cut the Belgium sourcing lines, the another source from Syracuse would have been found. But after WWI I wonder what the difference in cost would be between home-grown steel tubes from Syracuse and those sourced from Liege with the import tariff?

David: these too has the Hunter Arms trademark and somewhere on the tubes I would expect to see the "SB&Co." stamp but finding the stamp may require a glass. I'd say these were sourced from the C.H. Halcomb Steel company.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Here's a 1903 patent for "steel" held by Charles Herbert Holcomb:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=zalRAAA...p;q&f=false . I think The Crucible Steel Company or Sanderson Brothers has an archive. I wonder if any info on work orders could be obtained there?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

My 1903 vintage Ithaca Crass # 6 is marked Crown Steel on the Rib, but NO marks on the bottom of the bbls indicated where they came from.