doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Pressure vs recoil in old guns

Now Mr. Brown lets talk a minute about the all time best seller of the Fox line, The Sterlingworth model. I hope that you will agree that they were made with all four barrel weights. How many of those do you suppose were ordered to a set of specific specification? We could ask Resercher but I think that we would find that they were primarily ordered as a "stock" gun for sale at retail Sporting Goods stores and Hardware stores of the day and that relatively few were ordered to a set of specifications.
Now compare the number of Sterlingworths to the number of graded guns and I think that you will find that following my logic most Foxes were not ordered with a specific barrel weight and if you consider the variance in wood even if a gun was ordered to a specific weight the density of the wood will have more influence the the variance in barrel weight. By the way my Sterlingworth with #2 wieght 32 inch barrels weights 8 1/2 lbs on he nose. So is the differnece in weight between your 8 pound gun due to the weight of the barrels before striking or is it due to the density of the wood.

They may not have been ORDERED with a specific barrel/gun weight but they were most assuredly MADE to a specific weight.

Mike that is quite possible but I have never seen such a listing of minimum and maximum specifications.

Yes, I totally agree if we pluged the bore & made the chamber strong enough not to burst but the breech was sealed by the cartridge & it did not rupture then it would be correct to say that the pressure & area it acted upon would be the total consideration, recoil would not enter as it was correctly stated there would be none. This however is not the manner in which our shotguns function. This would in efect be dealing with a static pressure load, but in firing we don't have a constant static pressure. "IF" the full pressure a normal powder charge is capable of generating was applied to the gun there is likely not a gun in existance which could stand the strain, either the chambers or the breech, it would just be a matter of which let go first. However as soon as the charge starts down the bbl pressure begins to fall away & we generate the "Curve". To go back to basics as you say R'Man I think you would find if you placed a hydraulic piston hooked to the hinge pin with its ram pushing against the standing breech, centered on the firing pin hole & having same bore as the internals of the case & pumped up the pressure equal to that developed by firing a standard shell with proper gauges hooked up to measure deflection of breech, hinge pin or any other critical part, you would find the deflection greater than firing the shell which produced identical "Peak" pressure. Now this will be because the peak falls away before its full effect can act upon the breech. Now I am not sure I can word this in a technically correct manner, but I am throughly convinced that;
#1 recoil is of course brought about by the presure acting inside the gun. As noted it requires movement in opposite directions of different parts to occur.
#2 the same force which is creating this recoil is also acting upon the parts of the gun under axial load.
#3 I am in total agrement that under your scenario of plugging the bbl while recoil would be stopped the thrust against the gun would not only not be stopped, but rather increased.
#4 I am still convinced that as long as the gun is operating as intended with the charge rushing down the bore the amount of strain put upon the parts of the gun for all the above mentioned reasons will be more in proportion to the recoil than the "Peak Pressure".
#5 I am totally convinced that a 1oz 1200 fps load @ 10k psi will not load the gun as much as a 1¼oz 1330fps load @ 9k psi.
#6 "IF" someone has the resources & equipment & knowledge to set up a test & can show that the higher pressure load will indeed load the gun more than the lower pressure load producing heavier ballistics I will offer my most humble appologies. Until then we will just have to agree to disagree.

Larry; I think if you do a little more research you will find that indeed several American Co's had "STANDARDSIZED" the 2 3/4" 12ga shell in their guns well prior to the "SuperX" load. All 12 ga guns prior to the SX with 2 3/4" chambers were "NOT" custom guns nor was the shells "Special Order".


PS; I might well add that under the conditions of the plugged bbl scenario the 1oz load with the fast powder which under ordinary conditions produced the higher pressure would in this case produce the lower. Reason; under this condition the heavier load will contain a considerably heavier charge of a slower burning powder & will have suffcient time to fully burn & deliver its total potential. Of course it should be understood that even under normal conditions it is doing more work, thus a higher total "Average Pressure" just a lower peak. I do believe R'Man you are delving just a little too deep in total theory & ignoring a few actual occurances.

PPS; I have to the best of my knowledge & Ability been talking about the "WHYS" for this entire thread.

Rabbit, to answer your post, I think that most guns of quality are designed to flex as little as possible with any load likely to be used in it. Yes, some flex is inevitable, but so little as to be negligible in causing wear. Yup, Rocketman, we don't know how many times these tight old bird guns have been fired, but we do know how many times, within a few tens of thousands, some of these old single trap guns have been fired. Virtually all of them made by Parker and those by Ithaca above serial number 400,000 are still tight with little or no maintenence. The flex factor must be very small in those guns.

You need to look harder, TB. I find them in my 1940 Shooter's Bible. In fact, I find them right under the description of the "Sterlingworth Grade". Weight ranges for each of the 3 gauges, depending on barrel length. And for the most part, what's going to determine the weight of the gun you end up with is the weight of the barrels--given the fact Fox used those 4 different weights.

Miller, you seem to be specializing in straw men of late. Where did I ever suggest that all 2 3/4" 12's built prior to the advent of the Super-X were custom guns, and the shells special order? I'm going to try one more time, so in the future you can use MY words rather than YOUR interpretation of them. The Super-X is generally regarded as the FIRST MODERN 2 3/4" load. It developed higher pressure, and its combination of payload and velocity also produced recoil greater than that produced by MOST 12ga loads then on the market (and certainly more than any of the 2 5/8" 12ga loads). Shortly after its introduction, American gunmakers began to switch to the 2 3/4" chambered 12ga as "standard". That being said, even quite some time AFTER the Super-X appeared (1940, referring again to my Shooter's Bible), there were still far more factory 2 5/8" loads on the market than 2 3/4". Remington, for example, offered only one 2 3/4" 12ga load in its Nitro Express line, while there were 5 different 2 5/8" loads to choose from in its Kleanbore line. (You had your choice of either chilled or soft shot!) Pretty much the same deal with the company that started it all: Two 2 3/4" Super-X loads, one with standard lead, the other with the copper-coated Lubaloy shot. Meanwhile, 5 different 2 5/8" loads in the Xpert line. Same story with Peters: one 2 3/4" load; 5 different 2 5/8" loads in the Victor line.

So even though I believe every American shotgun manufacturer had stopped making 2 5/8" chambered 12's several years previously, you could not state that 2 3/4" SHOTSHELLS were "standard", by any means, even as late as 1940.

I'd add here, re the condition of vintage doubles: one reason some of them rattle is quite likely the fact that the chambers have been punched out to 2 3/4", and since that happened--at one time pretty much common practice with American gunsmiths (I have Ralph Walker's article on the subject, courtesy of Brownell, dated 1974)--those guns have digested a diet of shells they were not designed to handle. Higher pressure, heavier shot charges, increased velocity--often a combination of all of the above. And, as John Brindle points out in his DGJ article, how can removing metal from a chamber--right where pressure is the greatest--render a gun more suitable for hotter, heavier loads? Unfortunately, it is not at all unusual to find vintage American doubles, not factory marked as 2 3/4" but with chambers measuring that length. Chances are excellent such a gun came from the factory with a 2 5/8" chamber.

Perhaps the 1940 shooters bible did publish an average or target weight most probably based on input from Savage's marketing peopel and we all know how accurate/honest they can be now don't we. But Mr. Brown you are dead wrong in your statement that the barrel weight stamped on the barrels will determine the final finished weight it is an indicator but nothing more.

My NID 4E #457465, from 1927, I seem to remember, is a heavy trap model, 8# 11oz. It has likely been shot somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 rounds of trap loads. Probably never shot with heavy water fowl loads. Outside condition indicates very good maintenance. It is just about time for it to be put back on-face. They will shoot a long time under proper conditions, but not forever, even under optimal use. Open and close one without firing enough times and it will have to be put back on-face. My Parker "D" #2 frame, #107406, 7# 15 oz with 28" cut damascus bbls, has a seriously beat-on exterior, but shows little signs of being shot. It is tight on-face.