doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Barrel pinhole repairable?

On the fluid steel blowout, I think a weak barrel would have only one "rip" in the tubes. This blowout is two sided [two rips] which makes me think only of an obstruction.

I guess I should have been More specific Drew. I was referring to a fluid steel barrel blow up due to an inherent structural failure either due to the materials used or the manufacturering process itself not an obvious obstruction. ANY barrel obstructed such as accidentially dropping a 20 ga shell into a 12 ga and then firing the gun will suffer this kind of failure as you pictured above and it don't matter what it's made from. I have also seen this happen before from what appeared to be cleaning material left in the barrel.
I personally don't care what anyone shoots including damascus barreled shotguns. It's still a free country and a personal choice and there's enough information available for them to make their own informed decision.
My point in this thread is a single "pinhole" may be just the tip of the iceberg so to speak and I would be more concerned about what can't be seen and this particularly applies to damascus barrels. Many barrel failures can be blamed on humar error but I don't accept this as the sole cause for failure.
Jim

Jim, didn't Remington settle a class action lawsuit about barrel failures on either the 870 or 1100 (can't remember which)? Seems those would fit your description of either failure in the material used or the manufacturing process. Unless you're referring only to doubles? But if the fluid steel barrel on a pump or auto can fail, why not on a double? And I believe there have also been reported failures of either Krieghoff or Perazzi barrels--OU and not sxs, but again, modern fluid steel.

20g Perazzi skeet gun - I do not know the ultimate diagnosis

A the owner of a firm* that was involved in several firearms lawsuits I can only remember that Winchester was sued over the trigger design with their 1300 and 1400 shotguns. Due to this design the trigger could be pulled while the shotgun was being carried in one hand horizontially thru upward pressure on the trigger alone. We were also involved in the Glock accidental discharge lawsuits which may be still ongoing. The only other major lawsuit I'm aware of involves the trigger/safety design with the Remington 700 rifle series. If there has been lawsuits involving the above models I'm not aware of them. If anyone has information regarding additional shotgun barrel failure lawsuits please post it.
Again; ANY barrel on any firearm can and will fail IMO if subjected to enough pressure as shown above and this also appears to be a case of obstruction.
Getting back to the point of this thread which addressed the repair of pinholes. To me; A pinhole is a sympton of perhaps a far greater problem. Due to the manufacturing process involved in crafting damascus barrel voids were unavoidable and 100+ years of continued stress and perhaps rusting hasn't improve their durability. I have participated in and personally seen thousands of rounds of trap and skeet shot over the years and have yet to see a barrel failure with a modern shotgun occur while I was present. Shooting original damascus shotguns is a relatively modern phenominnum and I don't remember seeing any in use when I was actively participating.
*I am NOT an attorney and my firm was involved in the videotaping of depositions.
Jim

2-piper, I'm glad you put the calculator to my numbers. In my haste I forgot to state that the cumulative grains were the total of both powder and shot (I have corrected the original post). Thanks for picking up on my mistake.

Here's a shortened table of the test protocol*:

1st proof 182 gr powder/729 gr shot=911 grains total
2nd proof 200 gr powder/802 gr shot=1002 "
3rd proof 220 gr powder/882 gr shot=1102 "
4th proof 242 gr powder/970 gr shot=1212 "
5th proof 256 gr powder/1018 gr shot=1274 "
6th proof 269 gr powder/1060 gr shot=1329 "
7th proof 282 gr powder/1122 gr shot=1404 "
8th proof 296 gr powder/1178 gr shot=1474 "
9th proof 310 gr powder/1236 gr shot=1546 "

All barrels were tapered the same but not chambered and were bored cylinder:

Breech .238
3 inches .150
6 inches .092
12 inches .048
21 inches .035
30 inches .048

The tests were later continued until either bursting or exhibiting a bulge equal to .01 of an inch, or an increase of from .729 to .739 diameters. The ranking changed considerably. The Whitworth steel dropped to third place with a cumulative average of 9,909 grains. The English machine forged laminated steel barrel in three rods dropped all the way to 32nd place, failing after an average of 6,738 grains. Only foreign barrels were lower. !

For those of us who love to shoot damascus guns here is a very important piece of information:

The Whitworth barrels withstood proportional stress of 10.88 times the standard Birmingham definitive proof. And the English laminated barrels held up 7.40 times the same definitive proof!!!! The very worst barrels tested were foreign twist and they withstood at least 5.74 times the Birmingham definitive proof before bursting or bulging!


*Data from Field Magazine, March 7, 1891, Vol 77, p.325

I am personally aware of a barrel failure on a modern Spanish double, from a very reputable maker. I'm not at liberty to say any more than that, except that it was not the result of an obstruction. I did not see the gun, but I did see the damage it did to the gun's owner. So they do happen. And depending on how one classifies "modern", those of us who have participated here for some time are well aware of failures in Ithaca Flues doubles (with fluid steel barrels)--usually very light 20's. Both cracked frames and barrel failures were involved, the usual culprit being diagnosed as ammunition producing a pressure inappropriate to the gun in question.

Anyone else remember the Remington case, or am I misremembering badly??

Yep, there was a settlement. I doubt that Remington would have settled if there had not been some issue related to their barrels. If I recall correctly they changed the type steel they used after this class action suit.

Here's a link to the settlement statement http://www.gunsmoke.com/guns/rem_shotgun_lawsuit.html

I'm still comfortable shooting my old damascus guns with appropriate low-pressure loads.

I was an electrician at an integrated steel mill until 1991 when it closed in bankruptcy Ch.7. The entire steel industry had been enduring tough times for over a decade before we closed. Because of this turmoil, I was bounced around to every department from Blast Furnace to where it was shipped out the door. A few times, I was "bumped" from the Electric Dept. and worked for short periods in various production jobs. I viewed this as an opportunity to learn and see every aspect of the operation and felt lucky in a way that I was not like the older guys who spent 30 or 40 years in one department. Steel making is fascinating, but hot, dirty, and dangerous. I got to see it all.

I am here to tell you that thanks to inspection, quality control, and metallurgical testing, a percentage of product was scrapped at every stage of the game. Typically, in the Melt Shops, i.e. the Blast Furnace, Electric Furnace, or Basic Oxygen Furnace, testing was done and samples sent to the Met. Lab during the heat and the "recipe" could be adjusted until the alloy met customer specifications.

Once it was poured into ingot molds and subsequently hot rolled into slabs and strip, little could be done except to scrap and remelt what was bad. A very common problem was "rolled-in scale". Sometimes this was detected in slabs which were scarfed. Scarfers, wearing wooden soles on their boots and long underwear even in the summer, inspected hot slabs and scarfed out cracks and visible inclusions with a large torch and filled them with scarfing rod which was all the same, no matter what alloy slab was thusly fixed. Sometimes inclusions would be visible on the surface of finished product after rolling and pickling, and this would be rejected if it was caught. X-ray inspection would sometimes break down and human inspectors are not perfect either as we all know.

Long story short: sometimes bad steel made it to the customer. Sometimes the customer would catch it during their manufacturing process and they would reject it and return it. If it happened too often, you'd lose a customer. We lost a few customers over the years even though we had a reputation for high quality steel. Sometimes things get past them as well, and make it to the consumer. With flat rolled steel, this could show up as a pick-up truck frame, roller chain, chain saw bar, shovel, or any of a thousand other products That prematurely crack or fail.

Scale or slag gets into steel whether it is flat rolled or the bar stock that gun barrels are made of. Scale will form on red hot steel as long as we insist on making it in the presence of oxygen. Contaminants get into scrap that is melted to make steel. My company was seeing a larger than normal amount of slag formed during Electric Furnace melting and found that one supplier was cheating by filling automobiles with dirt and construction debris before baling them into little cubes. We have no proof house in this country, just a long chain of testing and inspection that can and does fail.

Sorry to be so long winded. I could go on for hours telling you about things that can and do go wrong during steel making, and I sure don't know it all. Just because fluid steel seems so pure and homogenous compared to Damascus, it would be a huge mistake to think it will always be flawless. Your gun hasn't blown up in your face yet. Does that mean it's good... or are you just lucky so far?

Keith, my father made John Deere tractors for about 30 years. Mostly a heat treat furnace operator. But for a time, he also ran a machine called a Magna-Flux, checking for flaws in parts. He liked the job but could not continue, because he was allergic--if I recall correctly--to a liquid involved in the process. He also took some flak for rejecting parts the foreman thought should have passed.

Thanks for the comments.