doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Alternative(s) to Merrington and Damascus

I'm wondering why a gun that has been relined by Teague would show any change in its handling qualities. As I understand it, the barrels are bored out to accept a liner of a given thickness (i.e. if a liner of .030 is to be installed, then .030 is removed from breech to muzzle and the liner inserted). In other words, I believe they are removing a given amount of metal and replacing it with the same amount removed, and evenly distributed over the entire length just as it was removed. Now, if they put in a liner that is thicker than what was removed, there could be a net weight gain in the barrel. But if we stay with the same internal bore diameter after the lining, the only difference could come from the possible difference in density between the original barrel metal and the new liner. I can't see where this could be very much. Nor can I see how you could compare the handling qualites of a Teague-lined gun with one that hasn't been done. They were different guns to begin with. The only way to know this would be to measure the MOI of ONE gun, pre- and post-lining to see if there would be a change. Even if measureable, I have serious doubts that it would pass a blindfold test where the shooter is to determine which is which based soley on "feel" while blindfolded. I don't claim to "know" these things, I'm just presenting the ideas for discussion. As for me and the gun in question, I'd have to see about having the bulge fixed, then having the Teague liners done. This seems to be the most elegant solution to me, as it retains the original appearance and guarantees continued safety for shooting. When done, no one but the owner is likely to ever know it was done. I'm still scratching my head over the "shadetree" comment. The bulge repair will not affect the damascus pattern to any recognizeable degree, and the liners are self-sufficient as to containing the pressure so safety is insured (plus they are re-proofed afterwards, anyway). What else could you want? Sleeving, to me, is much more likely to affect the inherent handling qualities, and it will definitely do away with the damascus. I have to believe that the market value would be least affected by the Teague process as well.

There is weaken spot where the bulge happened. I could not fire a round through it again without some sort of protection. I just can not get used to the fact I have to line both tubes for a 1mm bulge or sleeve the barrels. But then again I will never shoot 20 and twelve bore in the same shooting fields ever, ever, ever again

VH2 The era of Damascus tube making was a high man hour intensive process and the tubes where not circular as the forged fluid steels that come forth although they did they job and I believe in many respect better and safe proof with specific load. Run a bore gauge down a well made Belgium or English Damascus tube and the variation is considerable in the .01 range. Whereas fluid steel is concentric.

http://www.mathopenref.com/concentric.html

with the outside diameter if well struck. So it may be that trying to make aconcentric Damascus fit a concentric tube (Teague) indeed affect the macro properties of the original Damascus hand drawn tubes. IMHO the balance and feel is different. Ask me to do a double blind on it and I'll give you odds I can tell the diff between a lined and unlined tubes

RM Thanks for the insight and bettering the use of "is". It was bastardized wityh Bill. As I understand, MOI is a quantitative measurement. LOP, weight, fulcrum point etc, are qualitative measurements.Combining I understand MOI better if you are saying that there is neither a good nor bad MOI or that "Best Guns" must have this MOI range where as a Beesley, Hollis or Midland have different MOI thus lower on the totem pole or a bad MOI feels bad then I am confused. If you desire a MOI and reverse enginee to weapon what are you creating. I am very interested in covariance and if I didn't have to go trout fishing this next couple of days I'd would jump in.

I will approach you again about the determinant value of MOI

Well, I own a bore gauge, and quite a few well-made damascus tubes, but I have never run into concentricity problems on the magnitude of 0.010" (ten one-thousandths). Have you checked yours to be sure it is out-of-round that much? I'm sure H&H would have required tighter tolerances than that. American makers such as Parker bought their raw damascus tubes from England and Belgium's best makers, just as I'm sure the London makers did. They were then bored to final internal bore and choke dimensions with the same machines used to bore the fluid steel tubes of the era, thus erasing any out-of-round bore problems that may have occured in the wrapping of the ribands around the mandrel.

Oops, I think I see we're talking about two different things. The comment with the bore gauge threw me off. If you are talking concentricity of the inside dia. with the outside, we won't find it with a bore gauge alone. We'll need a wall-thickness gauge to see it. However, concentric or not, as long as the bore is truly round and it is pre-bored for the liner in a truly round manner, I'm still not seeing the difference. If the internal bore was not truly round (as I originally thought you meant) then I could see a little difference, but I don't believe that is the situation that exists, right?

I'll stay out of the fluid-steel-is-more-concentric topic other than to say that I have measured quality fluid steel barrels with wall thicknesses that varied as much as any damascus barrels, especially close to the rib vs. the outside wall.

Failure is failure, either a flawed gun, or shooter's misuse.
...but good luck to you sir - and tell us how she swings with different barrels.

Lowell,
I'm too dense between the ears to understand what you mean. Are you saying that you don't believe they can be repaired, or that you wouldn't trust the safety if repaired with a lining process? If not, I'm wondering why? Their liners are self-sufficient for pressure (right?), and they are proofed afterwards - what gives? Failure is failure, but not always a death sentence. Details (please!). Thanks.

Mr. B,

I failed to mention that IF a long Briley chamber liner can be done (hopefully), then I'd prefer that over anything else. I didn't mention it because I'm not sure how long they are (long enough for your purposes?) and also I've read several stories about them here where they accepted a gun from a customer to do "x", then called back after they got the gun and told the customer that they couldn't do "x", and would have to do "y" instead. (And the whole reason the customer sent them the gun was to avoid doing "y" in the first place.) I have no idea if any of these stories are true, and mention it not to soil the Briley name, but rather to encourage you to check them out carefully and question everything thoroughly. My belief is that you are going to find a solution you will trust, be happy with, and still salvage the original barrels (even if only the outside of them). The worst part will be having them ripped apart, bulge repaired, and ribs re-layed and refinished (I've done all that before myself, except for the bulge part, but there are folks out there who can do it). After that, whether Briley or Teague, you shouldn't have to worry about safety. Fortunately, you own an H&H, which is worth the money required for a proper repair. Most of us would be looking at replacing our entire gun for that repair cost. Good luck, and keep us posted.

A man gets a keen feel for his finely struck barrels, and will not stand for something so non-original as liners.
A lively gamegun must have that certain "it" from snout to butt, anything new throws the whole mix outta wack.

OK Lowell, thanks for the clarification. I respect one's right to a different opinion, but must admit I am still having a hard time understanding that he will be able to tell a difference in handling if liners are installed, but he's considering having them SLEEVED with all-new tubes from the chambers up, and they'll handle the same as before? I'd think that sleeved barrels would "throw the whole mix outta whack" worse than lined ones, and now they don't have any pattern, and if you look close you can see the joint. The possibility of a donor damascus tube from another gun sleeved to this one helps retain the pattern and even helps hide the sleeve joint, but it's still gonna be a lot different than the Holland tube it replaces (plus it screws-up an innocent donor gun). Oh, well. I'm very sympathetic to the plight, having experienced finding a (thought to be) fatal, un-fixable flaw in a barrel of a favorite damascus gun. Fortunately, I wound up being able to fix it with some help, and I'm sure he will come up with a workable solution, too. This discussion is valuable in that all the options are weighed on their merits, and different experiences are shared.

Well I just can't stand it any more... Lowell, as you once told me you are the prince of the etherial or something like that.

This is much, much simpler than all that complex stuff you normally delve into which I could never do with the style you have. This is just about simple metal. The stuff stretches like clay to a high degree, especially damascus, but also that old steel your Beeze tubes are made from. I can't tell from the discussion how bad the damage is but suspect its relatively low in the scheme of technically defined "elongation" limits.

As for being able to "feel" the difference between a Teague lined gun and one that wasn't, it all depends on whether or not the total amount of steel is increased or lessened during the lining process. I can tell you with certainty that the specific gravity (weight per specified volume) is so close no matter the alloy of steel or even the 17-4 PH (precipitation hardening stainless steel that Teague uses in his chokes and maybe his liners), that no difference in "feel" could be possible if the same amount of metal was in the lined barrels.

There should be no reason to add metal during the Teague lining UNLESS the original wall thickness was unsafe due to honing out over the years or re-striking of the outside. Teague will bore/hone the inside bore until the walls are extremely thin, then insert a liner of adequate wallthickness to restore proper bore diameter. I'm guessing his liners are in the area of .015 to .020 wallthickness themselves, maybe even custom matched wallthickness and diameters for the job at hand.

But, frankly, I'm not convinced the bulge has caused weakening of the barrel. Someone like Teague will be able to assess it better than I or most of us here.

You guys are being tooled around with cryptic vagaries. Your arguments are well stated and make plenty of sense, stop reproving the obvious because of a sadistic "farmer".

You see Chuck, its more about tone than tubes with me!