doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Antique Double Guns & Safety

How many antique double shotguns and rifles can be shot safely with the appropriate load they were designed to shoot on a regular basis? Any idea how far into future these guns can remain safely in service with proper care?

Also - is pitting inevitable on antique guns, or are there some antique double rifles and shotguns designed for black powder that have been successfully prevented from pitting and rust?

I would say more or less indefinitely if properly cared for, cleaned and serviced. Certainly Eley, the cartridge makers, had a Boss double gun that was reputed to have fired over 1 million rounds until it was retired still in good order. It would have had regular servicing.

Not all old guns got badly pitted up the bores. Black Powder is no where near as destructive as the old type primers. Failing to clean properly before the introduction of non-corrosive primers was the death of many guns. Lagopus.....

Smokeshot, your first question has no answer.

Many can be shot, many can't be.....it all depends on the current condition and the use of proper loads of appropriate shot type and amount along with maintaining peak pressure at safe levels, those levels being equivalent for what the firearm was originally designed for.

Given that many of us here have guns that we shoot with some regularity that are still in excellent condition and are 120 - 150 years old, your second question again really depends on the quality of care and maintanence along with future availability of appropriate ammo.

As far as inevitability of pitting and rust......Care and maintenence is the key. I don't shoot BP although I know it's more corrosive and harder to clean. Maybe a metallurgist will step in but it seems to me that if the tubes get properly cleaned every time, the bores will stay pit and rust free for the foreseeable future.

Lagopus hit the nail on the head regarding pitting. It seems that as long as black powder was the norm most everyone understood the need for a through cleaning & did so.
With the switch to smokeless due to the small amount of residue left in the barrel many felt this need for cleaning had been eliminated & did so. The old primers did their job on the bores.
The common methods of cleaning the black powder residue has also taken care of the priming, which had always been the primary source of corrosion, though was not recognized until some time after the advent of smokeless.
Julian Hatcher has a very good write up on this in his "Notebook".

black powder gets the blame for pitting

but you will see pitting in fluid steel barrels made long after smokeless was the norm

as 2-piper says
much of the pitting you see was the result of corrosive primers - used in some loads until shortly after WWII

Generally speaking, what makes an antique double unshootable? Does the metal naturally deteriorate in all guns to the point where there is not enough metal to contain the pressures, or does that only happen when a gun is not cared for and corrosion builds up?

I began shooting/collecting muzzleloading rifles and shotguns before replicas were available so originals were all we had. I noticed the bores on flintlocks were usually in much better condition than those on percussion guns. So, I am convinced it was the priming compound that was most corrosive.

I cannot answer scientifically, only from experience. I have a Joseph Lang non-rebounding hammer gun completed March 6, 1866 and rebarreled about 1872 in Damascus by James Woodward. I have fired about 6,000 low-pressure nitro cartridges (about 500 RST and 5,500 of my equivalent reloads) in this gun without a single malfunction or misfire.

The barrels were honed and Birmingham reproofed in 1990. I don't think that older barrels wear out from use but suffer from pitting caused primarily by corrosive primers.

So - am I getting this right - ?

Improper cleaning leads to rust and pitting, but barrels of well taken care of firearms do not simply "lose their strength" due to age?

Are there examples of old flintlocks that can still be used today?

Steel that has no corrosion or damage does not lose strength due to age. Lots of vintage guns are in regular use by the folks on this forum. My oldest regular shooter was made in 1879. And there are people who shoot original flintlocks.