Maxchinery's Handbook;
"Vanaddium Steel ordinarilly contains from 0.16 to 0.25% vanadium." I personally can see no reason to associate them with the success of the Parker Bolt Plate.
What 2-Piper "personally can see no reason" for is limited by his inquery into the subject. If 2-Piper would simply look at some Parker advertising he would "see" the gun works describing their use of Vanadium Steel for certain parts that took the most wear, including the breech bolt and wear plate. This is called case-on-point research.
I have been clipping Parker advertising for 20 years and have more than 300 ca.1868 thru late-1930s ads in my collection. These give some insight into what Parker thought was important at any given point of time. And what's surprising is that the breahthrough Vanadium Steel wear parts that started appearing in 1905 were not touted until the 1920s, pehaps a reflection on what customers preceived as being important. Starting in 1923 the gunworks started picturing "...certain less apparent features..." (
Hunter, Trader, Trapper Feb.1923). Thus began a series of ads showing the top lever, which cammed against the Vanadium Steel breech bolt and, of course, had to be of like hardness.
August 1923,
National Sportsman, pictures the barrel stop that encircles the hinge pin. April 1925, the breech bolt and wear slug are the topic(
Outdoor Recreation); and Sept. 1925,
Outdoor America, the "Super strong cocking hook...is of chrome vanadium steel..." These ads--some mentioning "tool steel" generically, others specifically identifying Vanadium Steel--are for all to see if they would only look. But it's not easy.
Sometimes highly motivated researchers like myself try to give others the benefit of our hard-earned information; we write magazine articles and books that have to be peer reviewed and get past editors who demand provenance and attribution. Of late some researchers add our 2-cents to Internet sites like this. Perhaps 2-Piper can give us the benefit of his source(s) for posting--as a counter-point--what he
personally can see no reason for, thus implying his gross lack of information somehow trumps well-thought research on the exact topic. Steven Colbert calls such personal-knowledge-based belief "truthiness"--knowledge gleaned from the gut and not from reading. EDM
