doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Chrome lined barrels

Tamid posted

Tamid, new barrels are plated on a dedicated line with all the jigs and fixtures ready made up, and with the control gear calibrated and pre-set. The steel will be a known factor as will the lubricants used in the construction which have to removed chemically. It's essentially a mass production process that can be computer controlled or looked after by a reasonably well trained monkey.

Plating an older gun is going to be a one off requiring a lot of experience and hand skills both in the plating stage and the pre-treatment. Simply getting it into a suitable fixture will be a work of art. After plating it's almost certain the exterior of the tubes will need to be re-blacked, and someone's going to have to pay the gunsmith for his mechanical work too. All of that obviously has cost implications which is why some of us doubt the cost / benefit ratio.

You might think of the analogy of buying a couple of bolts from a hardware store as against buying a bit of steel and getting them made up by a craftsman with a lathe. All will be excellent and workmanlike products but one set will cost twenty times t'otherun and be no better.

On a damascus set there are some potential metallurgical problems which may or may not be present, so the best any honest craftsman could say is "Look Guvnor, I'll do the best job I possibly can, but there are no guarantees I can give you." So it can be done, and for the right money I'd be happy to do it on someone else's gun. Nae warrantee though!

This is a link to a pic of the Beretta hard chrome facility. One thing to note is the tubes for semi autos on the left side of the carousel going into the machine are all singletons. I'm not sure what the procedure is on doubles.There are internal anodes inside the barrel (the rod like arrangement sticking out of the bottom of the jig) made either of lead or more likely platinised titanium. A hand job on a one off has to replicate all that, only on a two tube set.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/guns-for-sale/6147754942/in/photostream/lightbox/

Eug

ClappeZapper,

Yes the intention is to prevent pitting and corrosion.

Well done Eugene.


FWIW, when I know I am going to hunt salt water (hence my moniker), I purposely plan for fresh water wash and rinse post hunt.

I oil up well with spray before going, never case anything without a wipe down, and then WD-40 and a hair dryer at the hotel/casino.

Salt water just eats vintage guns.

I use vintage guns nearly all the time, over nearly 70 years in the toughest salt water hunting environment imaginable. They get no better care than when I'm around fresh water or in the woods. I don't use Water Dispersant-40 days. A wipe with any gun oil or SAE 30 on a lightly saturated rag will do it. Rust on a gun is carelessness.

King, you must have less salinity up there than we do. I've had'em rust red in the boat while marsh hen hunting on the Georgia coast...Geo

Geo, I can't vouch for more or less salinity. We come home with salt water down the barrels, sometimes on water table, soaked, drenched, sodden, seemingly saturated. I'm not finicky, obsessive about cleaning, just disassemble forearm, barrels, swab, lightly oil and put away dry.

The thought just struck me: could it be your marsh-water has greater salinity? Marshes are backwaters often extending from salt water inlets and bays. Tides or storms inundate them. If it's mostly from storms, the water without replenishment would evaporate to the point of making salt like Turks and Caicos.

Seeing red, that's got to be it. No one around here talks about rust.

As a matter of interest, I had two of my Muzzleloading competition rifles hard chromed. One in 1964 and another in 1974. Neither have had any rust or corrosive problems, easy loading etc they were done by Marker Machine tool in Ill., who i cannot find anymore. I would love to have one of Muzzleloading shotguns chromed , if anyone has a suggestion whomwould di it.

Thanks Eugene. Real guns eh