Another interesting find

antiqueguy said:
but i do it even more on a wound and or damascus barrel because there has been more then one case of one turning into a slinky lol.
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You must live in a unique area; in over 30 years of shooting antique guns, I have never seen one "unwind". The barrel that did burst on me, did so in a straight line because of both a very thin barrel and pitting completely through it into the void space between the barrels. While I have heard one or two stories of damascus guns bursting, such cases occurred many years ago when the person relating was a teenager and there was no way of telling how poor a condition the gun was in. While I would not recommend it, I even know of a couple of guns which had a perforated weld open to the outside (and not into the void space between the barrels) and which had been shot. The barrels on those guns were .020" or more thick, the gap was well down the barrel towards the muzzle and was only for about 1/3 of the circumference and into the open air

cheers mooncoon
 
I have seen two welded barrels that burst back in the day. One was the remains of a Collier flintlock revolving carbine (!) recovered from a grave. The barrel was burst, only short section remaining. It hadn't unwound like a slinky. I often wondered if the burst gun didn't have something to do with the grave. The other was the breech end of one barrel from a small bore double I fished out of Hudson's Bay tidewater. From the style of the breech, the gauge, and where I found it, I assume it was from a HBC double. It didn't do a slinky either. I do have a pair of genuinely horrible barrels from a decent quality British breechloader. You can see a nice Damascus pattern, but the barrels are badly pitted inside and out. I might just thread the chambers, screw in a couple of bolts and drill touch holes. See what it takes to burst them, see if they unwind.
 
Fr the pictures she looks in really good shape, i would not hesitate t shoot it once I had a quick peek down the barrel.

Saying that it will just blow up upon shooting is a little over the top and it must be te area you are in as mooncoon suggests! All those barrel fairies eating away at the barrels inbetween the outside and inside so unsuspecting blackpowder guys get blown up!

Cheers, McLean
 
Below is a photo of the barrel that did burst. What I would like people to notice is that the metal is literally paper thin. Ordinary writing paper is around .004" thick and these barrels were around .010" at the most. Also as you can see in the photo, they were rusted completely through. I had been too lazy to measure the outside diameter and calculate the wall thickness or I would have realized that they were unlikely to stand up to shooting. I will concede that the flap that lifted up, tore along a weld line but that tear did not translate into a spiral unwrapping. I am also suspicious that the problem in part was a result of a previous owner using acid core solder to resolder the upper rib. There are large gobs of solder in the void space under the rib

cheers mooncoon

 
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