I PICKED UP AN OLD BELGIAN GUILD 16 GA WITH ONE SPLIT BARREL. a) WHAT ARE THE ODDS OF FINDING A REPLACEMENT THAT COULD BE FIT?
b) CAN A SPLIT BARREL BE tIG WELDED AND SLEEVED? ITS A PRETTY GUN WITH WHAT APPEARS TO BE FINE FITTING AND WORKMANSHIP AND I'D LIKE TO GIVE IT A NEW LIFE.

hello, normally you cut the barrels off and make a mono block and put new tubes in the mono block i guess you could sleeve the bad barrel. but welding it and lining it wouldn't look very good and it would be a big job with poor results, unfortunately its not cheep to sleeve a barrel mc

"Sleeved" is a term in the gun world that is somewhat misleading to a machinist or shop person.

"Sleeved" means cut the barrel off at some point near the chamber and use the remaining portion that has the lower lump (hinge) and the breachface, then bore remaining chambers to accept turned down barrels. then they are soldered in

Chuck,

In reading your above post my mind was wandering concerning the sleeving process. Specifically, the boring of the chambers to accept the new tubes. I have no machinist background whatsoever, but the question of re-regulation arises in my mind. If the old barrels are cut off before the chambers are bored/reamed, then how does the machinist perfectly align the boring bit/tool with the old bore axis, or is that not important?

It would seem better to somehow pilot the drill/reamer in the old bores, if that is possible, and go ahead and drill out the chambers, then cut off the barrels.

I know there must be something about the process I do not understand. Just curious.

Stan

i have sleeved a few barrels and have used a chuck with 8 jaws. the mono block is put into a smaller steel "pipe"i used cerrosafe to hold the mono block i used a spud to get the mono block close then you indicate the back and front of the mono block (left of right side barrel )and use a boring bar to turn the inside diameter. i have heard of drilling and reaming in a mill and cutting the barrels off at 8 inches and using a spud to hold the mono block then turning the inside (i think chuck used the last method)mc

Stan,
The way I did it, without ever seeing how experienced "sleeving" gunsmiths do it, was to cut the barrels off at about 6". Then I turned a spud to fit the bore size, slid one barrel on it, tack welded it to it to drive it in the lathe, put the spud back in the lathe and indicated in the back of the chamber by bending the spud with a mallet, then bored the chamber out, repeat for the other chamber. That ensured the new oversized bores where the chambers were would be in line with the old bores, thus assureing the new barrels would align with the old barrels. It worked very well. I suspect the average gunsmith allows for alignment by leaving sufficient clearance between the new tube and the overbored chambers to allow a little wiggle room and room for solder. I TIG welded my 20-28g conversion, so I wanted a nice slip fit.

I would really be interested in seeing some photos of how the sleeving process is done. Seems like I saw a posting of this procedure a few years ago but I haven't been able to find it. Any one out there have any good suggestions on where to find more information on this process? Thanks

Thee's guy on here that's an expert on these things....I think his name is Sniffle'bean or something like that.

I'm sure he could help.

I as well would like to see photos of sleeving or relining barrels. A picture is worth a thousand words. Does any one know of books or articles on the processes?

http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/20580224 and http://www.pagunsmith.com/photos3.php?g2_itemId=533

I have a few pix that I took to illustrate a talk I gave to friends in the Carolina Vintagers, no awards for photography but I think they might help.

Here are the barrels being bored with a special boring tool. They are held in a jig to ensure that the new tubes are true to the original.

The monoblock has now been cut off to length and is ready to have its tubes inserted.

Another view.
Once the tubes have been inserted, they TIG welded at the breech face....

...and at the joint.
They are then tempered to avoid cracking, struck up, ribs relaid, chambered, extractors fitted, rim recess cut, choked, fine bored and lapped, polished, engraved and blacked.
Here are some fairly typical soft solder ones part way through the blacking process (sleeved by Westley Richards in the '70's).

Here are some TIG sleeved barrels that we had done at a similar stage of blacking. Note the band of welded material.

Interestingly, while soft solder joints often get more apparent with time, TIG welded joints tend to disappear over time.

When going to a smaller chamber like a rifle cal.you can thread them in.
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This is finished barrels after threading together. [img][/img]

very neat post. what is th cost these days?
Monty

Thanks for the great photos and links on sleeving. This is exactly what I was looking for and sure makes the process easier to understand.

Great pictures, thanks. TIG or solder, any advantage to either other than the cosmetics? Also, whats a good source of blanks for the barrels? Can any aftermarket tubes be used?

Monty, in the UK about £1000 allowing for a modicum of engraving, jointing etc. Turn round about 2-4 months.

Welder, can't think of many advantages either way other than the aesthetics.
Arguably there is a risk of cracking in TIG process if the barrels are not properly normalised after welding.
Also I have come across many soft solder sleeved guns that are loose in the joint. This should not be a safety issue but accelerates the appearance of the joint as a silver line. It is only really detectable at the breech face where under magnification one can see oil bubbles being blown when you flex the tubes, similar to the test for loose lumps.
As regards sourcing tubes, I think most come from Italy ready machined. No idea where the US ones come from

Toby,
I found the same to be true when I TIG welded my tubes in a LC Smith conversion sleeving job. There's enough carbon in the barrels to harden the heat affected zone of the weld and it self-quenches from the cooling because the barrrels were cool. I had to normalize before filing.