doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com about twist/damascus steel barrelled guns

what I have seen and heard over the years...what I have heard: some doublegons, made wid twist steel type barrels were made using acid flux and lead/tin solder to join the barrels...in some cases the acid flux was not neutralized after the soldering process...ok, except that after a while, 100 years or so, as the acid continued to dissolve the soft iron and other impurities left during the twist steel making process....a result being that barrels rusted in the hidden areas between the top and bottom ribs...in some cases those barrels rusted to the point that pin hole gas leaks began to occur when the gun was fired...

what I have seen: have seen twist steel barrels with holes filled with solder like material...have also seen twist steel barrels with tight cracks in barrels close to top rib...

also, once had a 12 gauge parker, with Damascus barrels...bores were heavily pitted to the point that old Ed the gunsmith suggested it best to hang this one on the wall, as it was unsafe to shoot , even with black powder loads...or, he could sleeve it with fluid steel barrel blanks, as the breeches and rest of the gun were still usable...having never had a gun sleeved before, I said ok, lets do it...so old Ed cut off the barrels just ahead of the chambers and machined and soldered in the new barrels, reusing the original parker ribs...as for the old twist barrels, they were heavily rusted and pitted pretty much their full length, in the areas, that had been covered by the ribs...as I recall, this gun was made around 1890...the sleeving work was done about 20 years ago...do the math...this rusting process had been going on for over 100 years...

the point being, that the barrels may look fine inside and out...but, what we don't know is what has been going on in the hidden areas, between the ribs...

Ed: the short answer to this question is "maybe".

The potential for unstable chemistry within any form of steel shotgun tubes would reveal itself fairly quickly I should think. Within just a few years of their forging, this "instability ' would be tangible and dangerously obvious. In the case of the fair number of Damascus doubleguns that I have now owned (and then shot), this has never been a concern of mine. Mind you, nothing I've ever owned like this has been much younger than 100-years and any such "instability" would have long since revealed itself.

I'm more likely to suspect that this is just one-more of the many elaborate stories used (& very effectively I might add) to demean composite barrels in older firearms during the Great Depression. The only goal here was to help American gunmakers sell more of their "new" fluid steel guns.

The Brits never went down that road and still do not concern themselves with any "perceived problems" with composite gunbarrels. Unless you think that the British gun industry is anti-science or somehow technically inferior in some fashion then... the arguments for these type of issues are rather moot at this point in time.

Lloyd, as I understand it, twist type barrels were made by twisting iron and steel wires together at forging temps, while under hammering pressures...

the results were gun barrel products that were of varying metallurgical compositions, with varying levels of impurities left over from the heat/hammer forging process...

in other words, not all barrels were the same or similar and certainly, not all soldering compounds and fluxes were the same or similar...

so yes, maybe...

maybe some are better than others...

maybe some are safer than others...

but now, how do we really know what we are shooting...

after a hundred years or so...

we do know that these old guns were made to shoot cartridges loaded with black powder...

we also know, that by shooting them, we are slowly destroying them...

so, why not play it safe and preserve them by not shooting them a lot and if at all, use ammo loaded with black powder...

cause we can certainly agree, burning black powder smells wonderful in the morning, in the grouse woods...

Lloyd, see your pm's...

"Twist" steel is indeed the least complex of all of the composite options available (ie., twist, laminated steel, & true Damascus) and it was evidently also the least expensive to produce (as it required less human time & skilled effort). Twist was also the last example of a composite-barreled type of doublegun that I finally secured for my own use (as I presumed then that cheaper meant "less-safe" but I'm well-over all that now).

If a gunbarrel was competently made and then properly cared for (no corrosion is allowed to occur) it's useful lifespan is nearly endless...as long as it is not subjected to internal pressures that exceed its "elastic limit" (the point where deformation occurs).

My admittedly rudimentary understanding of the composite barrel options is that they mostly all fall into the 55,000 psi range for burst strength (some of the laminated steel versions might be a bit stronger. Early fluid steels were only in the 65k range btw). Compare that to the famous 1890s German Krupp fluid steel at 90k psi or even Winchester's Proof Steel at 120k psi and you'll perhaps better understand the initial concerns about their use with some of the hotter and longer "magnum" shells being produced in this country in the later 1930s.

I started out by loading black powder shells to use in my 1st composite barrelled gun (a damascus G-grade Lefever) but that quickly became a royal pain. At about that time, the "Finding Out for Myself " series of articles by Sherman Bell came out in the Doublegun Journal and I finally found the confidence I needed to use lighter but "modern" ammunition in these guns (the fact that these composite-barrelled guns pass Nitro proof regularly in Great Britain also figured heavily into my considerations). After several "Damascus" guns (both English and American) and almost 30-years of admittedly-sporadic use (I like fluid steel guns too) and I've yet to have had any issues.

You ether live in fear or you educate yourself and then move forward into the world.

Ed, a lot of Double guns, both Damascus and Fluid Steel, had their barrels joined with corrosive flux. It was mostly used for the initial step of tinning the barrels and ribs prior to actually soldering them. That's because corrosive flux is generally more forgiving and easier to get good results. Usually, the corrosive flux residue was removed prior to joining with soft solder and a rosin o,r other non-corrosive flux. Flux does not mix in with the solder, so any residue lies on the surface or flows to the edges. It does not get trapped under the solder. You've apparently seen what lies between the ribs of at least one old Parker, but a lot of others are pretty cruddy in there. It isn't normally any problem unless there is enough active corrosive residue left to eat through the tinning and then work on the barrel tubes.

In addition, many gun makers tested and advertised their Damascus and Twist barreled guns as being safe with smokeless powder, after it was introduced. Proof houses certified that many Damascus and Twist guns were Nitro Proof safe, and they were safely and successfully used with factory smokeless loads for a long time before attempts were made to render them obsolete and unsafe. Remember, the Damascus blow-up tests done by Sherman Bell, Buck Hamlin, and others used barrels that were sacrificed because they were already quite pitted and damaged... but they still held up under rather extreme pressures.

A barrel does not know if the pressure produced by any load came from Black or Smokeless powder. As long as the barrel is strong enough to withstand the the pressure produced at a given point in the pressure curve, it will be fine. Use a heavy enough load of black powder, and that too can bulge or blow up a barrel. As I recall, the English Proof Houses continued to do Proof Testing with Black Powder Proof Loads for quite a while after the introduction of Smokeless Powder. So any that failed proof did so due to the use of Black Powder.

You may recall the one Blow-Up Thread posted by the Preacher that involved a fluid steel barrel on an L.C. Smith. There was a pretty obvious inclusion in the barrel at one of the thinner points under the chambers. Modern steel is very good stuff in most cases, but defects like slag inclusions and rolled-in scale still happen, and mostly go unnoticed until a failure occurs.

Many shooters will continue to shoot 100 year old Damascus and Twist shotguns. And many people will continue to drive 100 year old vehicles that lack seat belts, airbags, or any crash protection in their design. We just have to understand and respect their limitations. Every shot we fire from any gun unleashes thousands of pounds of pressure only inches from our eyes, so it's all a leap of faith.

Lloyd: "You either live in fear or you educate yourself and then move forward into the world."

yes, of course, but with caution and armed with the knowledge gained by listening to the experiences of others and after a while, your own personal experiences...

fortunately, I was lucky enough to get to know a general gunsmith, with about 70 years of experience working on small arms of most any type...

I listened a lot...

he taught me a lot...

the phrase "keep it simple and keep it safe"...

was posted over the opening to old ed's basement workshop...

Keith: "so, why not play it safe and preserve them by not shooting them a lot and if at all, use ammo loaded with black powder..."

plus, its hard to over load a black powder shot shell...

sorta like, built in idiot control...

an watt bout dim pin hole leaks an tiny cracks up by top ribs...

Ed, I went too many years not buying Damascus barreled guns because I fell for the erroneous information that said they were all unsafe to shoot. Many people thought, and still think they are all unsafe, even with black powder.

Would you turn down the chance to drive a 1936 Deusenberg, just because it doesn't have seat belts? My Damascus guns were built to be shot, and I won't hurt them or myself by shooting them. When you shoot Damascus, you are enjoying a lost art that would be largely unaffordable if it was still produced today.

If a gun is safe to shoot with an 8000 psi black powder load, it is also safe with a smokeless load producing the same pressure. As far as black pwder loads providing a sort of idiot control by making overloads less possible, I'm a lot more concerned about the possibility of a mistake with some fast burning powders like Red Dot in handgun cartridges, where double, triple, or even quadruple loads are possible. I do shoot more than my share of black powder, love the aroma, and don't find it terribly inconvenient to do the cleaning afterwards.

I'm also not losing any sleep knowing that some of my shotguns may have less than 100% perfect rib solder joints. A set of 30" barrels has about 10 linear feet of top and bottom rib solder joints, and it isn't realistic to expect absolute perfection. Do some rust bluing, and it won't be long before you see bubbles in the boiling tank or have a problem with crap leaking out and causing streaking during a rusting cycle.

Shoot Damascus Ed. Live a little.