doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com New Barrels on Old Guns

With the new Lefever project in mind, what are the possible negative effects of shooting modern loads in new Lefever barrels on an original Lefever frame, excepting wood of course (wood can be replaced, albeit not cheaply, and possibly with one of the new pre-fitted blanks)?

Or, would it be wiser to just shoot an original Lefever as is, and pony up for a new one (in stages if necessary)?

I'm not aware of how this would apply to any other older gun, but if you can think of an example, have at it.

Yes you might get a set of barrels fit to an old frame by why bother? Most of the problems are more likely to be theoretical more than real. Hundred year old metal aside you can make loads that should be safe to shoot in orignal barrels. Hard to justify putting what may be $2,000.00 barrels onto a $500.00 gun.

I would pony up for new. And in fact intend to do just that.

I agree, I certainly do not find low pressure to be an issue other than I am reloading my own. I actually use the same low pressure loads in my modern non-semi-suto guns. I look forward to the day that they would be easily available over the counter. These soft loads work great for me on clay and game. They are also easy on any gun and my shoulder as well. I really have no need for most modern high pressure loads.

There are so many cocking, frame size, and ejection possibilities on Lefevers that it would be a very low possibility of a "new" set of barrels fitting your old gun.

...and even if you did fit them to an old frame, you still have a mild steel frame. Some have said that heavy loads break frames, but 2piper's recent quote from Burrard mentions pressure as a cause. This follows my belief that pressure exerts the force of recoil and high pressure exerts more force than low pressure on the breachface. 'Seems obvious to me. Also, it seems like a bad idea to beat the heck out of a 100 yr old mild steel frame, even it equipped with new barrels, just out of convenience of not reloading. The material Ken and Steve are planning to use, 8620, is a great choice for this application. It will core harden to some degree and take the casehardening. If I'm reading my references correctly, this should result in a very hard case surface and a core hardness similar to modern 4000 series steel used in most modern guns.

So, if you are asking if it's a good idea to put new barrels on an old gun for the specific purpose of shooting modern pressure loads, my opinion is NO.

I agree with Chuck. Modern barrels do not make an old gun modern.

Thank you all for your thoughts. I liked the idea of increasing the versatility of my gun with an extra barrel set, but I didn't realize the stresses on the breach face would be that high. Oh well, wishful thinking lets me down again.

In addition to producing a new Lefever, monoblocking old bbl's was another idea I had. This service might work for someone who wanted to shoot a rather nice Levefer with poor bbl's. My thought was to offer a seamless mono block set of new bbl's using the the original bbl's --- not a new mono block & bbl's. There is also the posibility that the bbl's we order can also be used on other makes of dbl's.

With the high min. purchases required for all the differernt ga. & bbl lengths, this would be a way of not having to set on the bbls for ever & get some of the nicer grades shooting. Of course, I would expect the owners of these guns to use common sence and not use the bunker buster loads. Ken

Same would apply to the Teague liners in old damascus tubes. Would rid you of the problem of thinned walls and stress risers such as deep pits but you'd want to restrain your enthusiasm for SAMMI ammo due to the original action bar. Incidentally, speaking of early 19th C. steels, plastic deformation and the like, does anyone see evidence that breech walls can be forced to splay away from such bifurcating features as rib extension slots and doll's head sockets? I mentioned one time that I thought a couple of NIDs of my acquaintance had done so and was told that this was obvious but I don't hear much about it. Strait-edge across the breech walls of couple of damascus Lefevers with considerably older steel than the NIDs doesn't rock and the the doll's heads look tight in the socket. Opinions?

jack

I Know, I Know; It's just one of my things, But, Original Lefever bbls were not built on Mono-Blocks. You can't, therefore, have a mono-blocked set of bbls unless you build the block from scratch. You can "Sleeve", "Line", "Re-tube" EtAl but to mono-block you have to have one to start with. This, by definition, means the breech section of the bbls, including lugs was machined from a single block of steel, then bored to accept a pair of tubes.