During my second tour in Germany, I spent an awful lot of time in Walter Grass' gun shop and observed him and his friend Alfred Schalgelmilch(?) sleeve several guns barrels, and assisted in sleeving one of my own drillings. This procedure was well known for many years before I arrived in 1976, in fact, it may go back to the 20s or before, even though I don't have documentation of this. With regard to the old barrel breech section not being a mono block, that is certainly technically true as the old barrel sets had been made by bundling the barrels locking lugs and top rib/ doll's head together and hard solder/silver soldering them together. The ribs were soft soldered on later. I also observed then making actual mono blocks for Merkels, since barrel sets were not available from behind the "Iron Curtain" at that time. They didn't make any difference in terminology between the two. They referred to both as "hakenstuck"( hook piece/or part). As far as proof was concerned, if the old barrels were used a crown R ( repair) proof would be applied. If an actual mono block were used, the barrel set would be proofed as new. Since my drilling was being exported to the US, it wasn't sent to the proof house, so I can't post the marks. I don't know if this answered the question or created new ones.
Mike
Last edited by Der Ami; 04/29/21 11:37 AM.
