doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Barrel Measurements, your thoughts ?

I suspect you mean 0.018 in.

the thing about this barrel wall thickness thing, is that it is a matter of opinion as to what is acceptable and what is not...

i like old eds 90 - 30 safety guidelines...they have kept me out of trouble for many years now...

what about you? what are your safety guide lines?

Not dealing with hucksters.....


Best,
Ted

Daryl, I feel your pain. Most dealers don't have the equipment, knowhow, or maybe the sense to measure bore dimensions. What I don't understand is a dealer that deals in very expensive shotguns, and has a large inventory of them, and can't or won't measure dimensions. He's either stupid or crooked. The Brits have got all their proof laws set up the correct way. If you sell an out of proof gun there, you pay a hefty fine or lose your license. A good percentage of our dealers wouldn't be in business two months if that law was equally applied.

90 is too thin imo.

tut, if .090 in front of chambers is too thin, then what is minimum wall thickness you like?

If I look at a gun in person, I bring my tools to measure the barrels, chokes, stock and trigger pulls. If I buy a gun at auction, I make sure I can return in three days, mostly it if the barrels are too thin but still three days right to return. If a dealer or seller refuses to have the gun measured, I happily walk away and count my blessings. I have stopped dealing with three dealers for just that reason. If they are afraid to have their guns properly evaluated then I will never deal with them. People are a lot more reasonable before they get your money, than they are after the get your money and then have to give it back.

I have a thousand plus dollars in measuring devices and they have saved me many times that much in bad purchases alone. Much more than that if I had bought a gun and had the barrels take off part of my favorite hand. Not everybody needs to spend that much money, but you do need to know how to get the information you truly need about gun condition and safety. Pay a gunsmith to closely inspect your purchase before you lose the option to send it back. Find a gunsmith to do this, even if you have to drive to his location. You could always have him accept delivery of the gun for you and have him check it out mechanically as a starting point.

Every single gun in my gun room has been completely evaluated and measured. I started out doing this years ago because my kids used my guns and I wanted to make certain every gun on the wall was 100% safe for them to shoot. Then it became an information thing in that I just like to know and make sure these old guns will be good for the next generation or two after me to be shot safely. I have a book which details all the measurements along with any note about things that I found or repaired. Those who are too far gone are deactivated, including a few family guns which have been used too long and are no longer safe to use anymore. Mostly those were typical farmer guns which got far more use than care.

Sandlapper , these dealers have a combined maybe 2000-3000 guns on the internet at the moment. I cannot believe that they don't have bore, chamber, and wall thickness tools, which might cost $2-3 hundred total, as they would surely drag them out if you were selling to them. I guess they are afraid to let the potential buyer know, or sadly, maybe just too lazy. Surely they understand that if they could report good measurements to the potential buyer, the guns might sell easier or bring more at auction.

for those of you anal about barrel wall thickness, perhaps if you first declare your minimum standards for specific measurements at specific locations, you would then save sellers time by disqualifing yourself as a potential buyer...

it's probably worth noting here that British proof rules don't automatically determine that a gun is out of proof based only on barrel wall thickness. Guns are out of proof if the bore diameter exceeds the standard for that particular gauge by more than .010 inches. While that does not tell you the minimum barrel wall thickness, it does tell you that the bores have likely been honed out significantly and makes it more critical that you should definitely measure barrel wall thickness. Christopher Austyn, who headed the sporting gun department of Christie's when they were still in the firearms auction business goes into some detail on the issue of barrel wall thickness in his book "Modern Sporting Guns" (1994). He points out: "There is no legal minimum thickness for a shotgun barrel, although the Britiish Gun Trade Association recommend 20 thousandths of an inch as a general minimum."