doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com BARRELS OR SLEEVE?

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.