doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com "Action Flats" or "Water Table" - which is it?

A bit testy today there, Piper? What you left out--and what neither I nor anyone else can "see", since it IS NOT THERE--is just who, in blue blazes, refers to the sleeving process as monoblocking? Far as I know, gunmakers who monoblock, whether British or otherwise, call it just that. And if no one gets the two processes confused . . . WHY WERE YOU EVEN BRINGING IT UP?? See, I can be testy too.

Larry, you have just totally confirmed my suspicions that while you may be a decent writer you can't read at all. Obviously if you believe your last statement you don't read many posts right here on the forum for it is becoming a far more common expression, to speak of "Monoblocking" an old set of bbls.
Also obvious, if one can read & understand what they read, I was not refering to newly made barrels. I am quire familiar with what momoblock construction is. It was first used by Henri Pieper, though he simply called it his "Solid Steel Breech Piece", Note the word Solid, it was made of one piece (Mono = 1). Inso far as I know Berreta possibly coined the term monoblock, but the meaning was still the same. It did not refer to the joint in the bbls, but to the construction of the breech portion itself. Chopping off a set of bbls does not in any way alter their breech construction. If they were not originally built as a monoblock or a chopper lump or whatever they do noy magically transform into some other method of construction, they have simply been re-tubed.
So "YES" Larry, I highly suspect virtually everyone who read my post knew exactly what I was speaking of except you.
Was there anyone else Who didn't???
Seems everyone else who responded did.

I recently "sleeved" a Beretta SO that had had an accident. Beretta's are built on a mono block ,so technicaly the gun was "mono blocked" as I was replacing tubes in the original mono block . I did this along with several other guns that were being "sleeved" ie. cutting off the original barrel from the back ends and lumps. As far as I am concerned I SLEEVED them all.
The only diference in the finished jobs , was that the Beretta was not stamped as sleeved by the proof house as the construction of the barrel was unaltered from original ,the others had been.
I hope this may clarify things.

Larry go back and read the title of this thread and the misspoken terms it refers to....piped again ol'chap.

The Beretta isn't stamped sleeved because it's not sleeved, Gunman.

As you point out, the barrels are soldered into the monoblock in the first place. The action is heated red hot, the barrel stubs are inerted, and when the assembly is cooled there is an interference fit.

To rebarrel, there is no 'cutting off' involved. Heat, pull, replace. No change in weight or dynamics because the thing was made that way to start.

I'd call your sleeve job on the Beretta a 're-tube'.

The term Hulls goes back a lot earlier the the 50's.

The term water table is never heard among British gun makers, it is a term I have only seen used by American writers. Nothing wrong with that, I learned it and now I understand it.

Turscrews are gunmakers screwdrivers, metal screws are pins, wood screws are screws.

Sleeving was the term used by the inventor of the procedure back in the 1950s and it has stuck when being used to refer to barrel repair by means of inserting new tubes into existing breech sections to restore the shootability of a gun with worn out barrels.

Monoblocking is a term used in manufacture of new guns my a number of modern makers.

I have noticed in recent years that some dealers refer to sleeved guns by describing them as having 'new barrels by monoblock'. To me this is just sales speak, akin to 'previously enjoyed' rather than 'used' etc.

The terminology of the gun trade is no different to any other specialist niche - all trades and closed communities have their own jargon and this varies from place to place. Sociolinguistically, it is covered by 'register'. It is in effect a regionless dialect linked to a trade, though the same trade in different geographical locations will vary this dialect. To give a medical example, two doctors may discuss your 'occlusion of the clavicle' but tell you you 'broke you collar bone'.

Human tend to fall into the speech patterns of the group in which they are operating in order not to feel, or appear as outsiders. Using the language of the group is inclusive, choosing to use outsider language is exclusive.

Nothing linguistically is 'right or wrong' when choosing from recognised standard and non-standard forms but each choice will have an effect on the listener and you choose your language according to the effect you desire.

Well spoken Small Bore!

Right, wrong, or indifferent, people are using the terms watertable and monoblock to describe the flats of barrels and action and to describe "sleeving".

A look at the Simmons Gun pricing list will reveal "watertable" in there when referring to engine turning (another term of contention? anyone? ) I have heard a number of older shooters refer to what Simmons did to make subgauge barrels for O/U guns in the past as "monoblocking". The group of other older shooters always seemed to understand the term. But there was no "gun terminology police" to tell them they were wrong.

Someone called my papered Lab a mutt. I have all kinds of pedigree documentation and a DNA registration on the dog saying it's a Lab. Is it still a mutt? Probably. All dog breeds are crossbred if you go back far enough to the wolf.

Joe old chap . . . the title of this thread, and the confusion related thereto, has nothing at all to do with barrels, but rather with the action of the gun. Piper was the one who brought forward the issue of monoblocking vs sleeving.

Piper, there's a difference between confusing water table and action flats--two terms that refer to the same part of the shotgun--vs monoblocking and sleeving. The latter terms refer to two different (although similar in some respects) operations. I know that you know the difference, just as I do. But no one IN THIS THREAD was confusing the two. Not everyone who comes here reads every thread, nor is everyone who comes here the expert that you are. Therefore, I chose to make the very simple and clear distinction between the two that you found in my post--but which you did not make in yours. You did a nice job of defining sleeving, but you didn't point out why it's not synonymous with monoblocking. I did. Clearer for the less initiated, wouldn't you agree? And might keep folks from confusing the two in the future, wouldn't you agree? Writers sometimes see the necessity of making points like that . . . because we don't start by assuming that everyone knows everything.