doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Proof House in USA??

Strange Larry. I thought your proof proof house was protecting folks folks without the knowledge.

My example had nothing to do with criminal activity. What if the old neighbor widow or uncle bob just wants to give you a gun that's been in the closet for years and no one knows anything about. They say if you don't want it they're going to offer it to so and so down the street.

You can tell it's a Parker and that it just might clean up pretty well or it has sentimental value to you. You spot 3 1/4" chambers and offer the informed opinion that it should be proofed before it's transferred to anyone else. You offer to help.

You find out later that it was given away to someone else. Whew, now 'assuming proof is the law', is the answer still so simple to you. If you try to give a prized shotgun to an heir, should they take your word that it's safe and original. Do you have the right to pass it on to the next person, knowing it was not in your possession for the first sixty years of its existence.

I noticed a link by D. Hause in another thread that there is indeed at least one American proof house. Would you and others please send a few guns in each and pass along your experiences and show your sincerity.

Gentlemen,

An optioanl proof house in the USA might be a good thing if they didn't get sued for liability...

A lengthened chamber or long forcing cone if detremental to the gun and shooter would blow where pressure was highest. That is of course in and immediately after the chamber.

I ask all of you, who has seen a gun that burst within 5" of the breach? If so, please tell us about the circumstances.

Please do not bother passing on hearsay or family stories. If you were there or saw the gun afterward and talked to the shooter please relay the story. Otherwise it will be like the size of the fish I caught (although I do not fish).

I suspect that most barrels burst farther from the breach due to some form of obstruction.

Resepctfully requested,
Mark

Mark: Please refer to my post on page 8 of this thread. This gun's right barrel was filleted wide open starting at or near the forcing cone. This, what could have been a catastrophic event, was NOT due to any sort of obstruction!

buzz,

You wrote on page 8:
"What prompted me to create this thread was a recent visit to a gunsmith who had what appeared to be an almost new Ithaca NID 20b hanging off his wall. The gun looked very nice with the exception that the right barrel from just ahead the breech to about 25 cm was filleted wide open. The gun looked nice, but barrel wall thickness was less than .010". Obviously, some rogue redid the gun and then passed it off to an unsuspecting consumer. As the story goes, this gun was given to a kid, who shot the damn thing and was fortunately unharmed."

At or just befor the rupture how thick were the barrels? A thickness of ..10 at the muzzle is safe for pressure at that point. It would just dent far too easy. Only .010" at the forcing cone it is certainly not safe!

Is this the only rupture that you have seen? Why do I ask? Because there are many tales of ruptures and blown barrels but most people have never seen one. Certainly in the case you refer to at least one barrel was homed or reamed far too thin.

Most of use have never seen a breach rupture.

I contend that while this certainly could be a life threatening problem, ruptures are rare even on guns that have had chambers and forcing cones lenghtened.

Is a commercial proof house a good idea? Yes.
Do we need a government proof house? Certainly NOT!

Mark. I am 53 years old and have been shooting trap and skeet off and on all my life. I have been at trap shoots where barrel bursts have occurred on a couple of occasions. I remember a Perazzi in particular where the forearm was blown apart as a result. I do not know the particulars, such as altered barrels, obstructions, etc. I agree with you and others, barrel bursts are relatively rare events, but they do occur at times. And I think most guns out there are safe....some aren't.

buzz,

There lies the problem. Of the uncounted number of barrels (did you count them?) burst at trapshoots that you attended, no data was collected. Was the problem with those guns a poorly altered chamber, hot loads, reloading mistake, obstruction, or even a flaw in an unaltered barrel?

Tonight I measured a few unaltered Parkers barrels. The forcing cones of course added barrel thickness while it constricted the bore. Any constriction will raise pressure. The barrel tapers would have allowed me to lengthen the forcing cones to be parallel to the taper from 1 and 1/4" to 1 and 1 & 1/2" leaving the SAME barrel wall thickness as at the end of the chamber. Were I to lengthen the chambers by 1/4" I would not have reduced thickness by much because the tapers were not abrupt. Personally, I'd rather lengthen a forcing cone as that will allow a longer plastic cased shell to be fired while also reducing pressure within the pressure vessel (from the breach to the pressure seal on the wad). Lengthing a light British 12 ga 2 1/2" to a 3" magnum would be dangerous but more so just plain dumb! Aside from teh increased and unpleasent recoil of a 3" magnum fired in say a 6 lb "game gun", the 2 1/2" load has a lower mean working pressure than our good old USA 3" magnum at 11,500 PSI.

The point of the above paragraph is that properly done, lengthening chambers and forcing cones can be with the safety margin of a shotgun. I will concede that improperly done, a dangerous gun may be created. When in doubt, measure. It seems that far too many barrel failures were never measured to determine the problem. Heck, mandating a proof house for a few dangerous guns would be something similar to taking away drivers licenses from everyone over 70 years old! Most 71 year olds are pretty safe drivers.

I shoot many Damascus barreled guns. If one believed the stories about the weakness of Damascus their fingers would fall off if they even picked up a Damascus barreled gun! Some of us know that is far from the truth. Some of my heavier barreled Parkers and LC Smiths will occasionally fire modern factory hunting loads.

I also have a Parker Damascus 10 gauge with British 3 and 1/2 Ton proof marks. If affordable I'd send a few other Damascus guns for proof just for the fun of proving to the naysayers that good quality Damascus in good condition can be as strong as fluid steel. But then, that would be another story...

PS: I've been close to munitions from .17 caliber to those field pieces and rockets measured in inches for as long as you in both my personal and professional life. A friend did mistake blackpowder for PB and on his 4th shot blew a hole in a LAMINATED barreled early Remington double. He had those loads tested and they were at 24,000 PSI. That was a lot of pressure for any gun and it took 4 shots to burst the barrel a few inches ahead of the chamber. Other than than I can reall never being on hand when a chamber burst. A photo of my friend's blown barrel is in Murdelak's book SHOOTING FLYING.

Mark

You start off right on target in the above post, Craig. One purpose of proof is indeed to protect those who "don't know". So I inform the individual with the altered gun that it's possibly dangerous, and while he can keep it and shoot it if he wants to, I'd strongly advise against it. And, most importantly, he can't give it, sell it, whatever, to anyone else. Why, after all, would any honest, upright individual want to give or sell such a gun to someone else? The individual to whom he gives or sells the gun may well not be aware of the potential danger unless he tells them. That gun is essentially a wall-hanger unless or until it passes proof.

As far as "American proofhouses" go . . . one more time: American gunmakers already proof their guns. Have done so for a very long time. And we also have a cooperative professional organization (SAAMI) to which all American arms and ammo makers belong. But they do not proof guns. As for individual gunsmiths . . . yes, they could fire proof loads in a gun (assuming they could either get their hands on or make those loads, as did Bell and Armbrust in some of their destruction tests). But even a knowledgeable gunsmith lacks the equipment and the experience to do what a proofhouse does.

As for "sending guns in", some Americans do indeed send their guns to England for proofing. I don't know whether anyone here has done so, but I have correspondence dating back a few years from someone who then participated here. He reported that he sent an Elsie with Damascus barrels to England for proof. (The powers that be at his gun club wouldn't let him shoot it otherwise.) Maybe others here have done the same thing. But if you don't have a gun that's been altered significantly, it's unnecessary. If you have one of those, Craig, then maybe you should consider doing it.

Hi Larry, couldn't help but wonder about the nonanswers.

If I started off on the right track, why is it a wall hanger. The old family heirloom is completely original. Must have been proofed when made, right. You imposed your ideology and opinion on your uncle bob, and now he has some splain'in to do to the atf. Also, you never mentioned why your judgement should be consider sound if you desire to pass a gun on to an heir, while others need consumer protecting.

There was an earlier comment about leading a horse to water. I didn't mention bubba and a tire. If your comments mean anything to you, I led you to a scientific ballistic lab that supposedly will properly proof a firearm. I figure there're a couple dozen 'I'd do it if it were here' comments in this thread. Let's step up and give 'em some business so they'll expand the operation and we can suggest teaming up with saami for additional credibility.

Craig, I believe there were some 3" Parkers (assuming you're referring to the 20ga guns previously discussed), but not 3 1/4". Maybe I'm wrong on that. However, there still remains a serious issue: You give someone a gun with 3" chambers and tell them "Yessir, them's factory 3" chambers!" So then, what does the recipient of the gun think when he hears that--unless he happens to be fairly heavily into gun esoterica, like many of us here? Why, he thinks--logically enough--that that gun is good to go with modern, 3" 20ga ammo. Which it most decidedly is NOT. Once more, that gun would indeed need reproof, should someone decide that he wants to shoot modern 3" shells in it rather than the hottest ammo available back when that gun was made.

So Craig . . . if you own one of those, by all means--send it in, wherever you wish, for proofing appropriate to modern 3" 20ga ammo and let us know how it goes. That would be a proof at about 18-19,000 psi. I don't have any specific data for Parker 20ga proof, but 2 3/4" 12ga proof back then was at 16,000 psi. And I also kinda wonder what a steady diet of current 3" 20ga loads would do to the wood on one of those old 20ga Parker beauties.

You ever tried arguing with a rock ?