old firearms warnning

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jbunny

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i have a very interesting article writen by #### Trenk
of Pederselli arms and i have his permission to post it here.
problem #1, i don,t know how to do this. any one care to help????
thanks
 
whammy said:
copy >>>> Paste?
Or post the link?
Click to expand...

Greg, listen to Bob Roller and consider the following as well...........

While an engineer for Pratt and Whitney aircraft engine plant we had
advanced metalurgical people and a great lab.

I brought in a ruined 1860 Remongton revolver barrel and also a ruined
and rusted barrel from a Trapdoor.
The experts cut and sectioned both barrels, polished the surfaces and
made 1000X photos of the grain structure.
The original steel was about the best available in that era and holds
up well enough with black powder when it is not more than 50 years old.
Beyond that age the impurities start breaking up the grain structure
and it is like internal rusting and corrosion. The photos revealed
uniform deteriorations throughout the barrel metal. No portion was
found to be "solid" or free of weakness from the internal changes.

The chief metalugist told me that in his opinion these barrels (in the
1970s) had lost about 40-50% of their original "hoop strength" and
would be prone to bursting if more than approx. 9,000 to 12,000 psi
chamber pressure were regularly fired through them.

Regardless of external beauty and bluing...etc., this molecular
deterioration is going on and cannot be seen by X-ray or magnaflux
testing because the problem is not actually cracks. It is the overall
weakening of the steel itself.

Use of almost any kind of smokeless loading and stiff BP loading is
without question taking a huge risk of death or injury, aside from
ruining an old gun.

Get a replica made with modern steel which is almost 98% free of
impurities and should be safe 100 years from now.
People who are getting away with using smo'''less powder are just
rolling the dice each time. One of those times the old gun will let go
and a price will have to be paid at that time.

We have a similar but not as severe situation with old car parts and
engine components from cars built prior to about 1935. Alloys were
much superior by that time and vandium and chrome alloys were well
understood parts of steel in high stress parts. Yet parts made prior
to that period are not capable of enduring original stress loads with
reliability because just like old gun steel, the car parts have
suffered internal changes. For such reasons, these precious old cars
are not reved up as high and made to perform as they once did unless
key parts have been replaced with modern pieces.
#### T.

i recomend that you read slowly and twice.
 
The odd thing is, older firearms are not blowing up, right , left and centre. If the information in this article is accurate, and the circumstances reported are universal, burst old guns should be commonplace. They're not.
It is hard to accept sweeping generalizations like this when there is no body of empirical evidence to corroborate it.
Of course, Pedersoli would certainly like everyone to be shooting reproduction firearms.
The black powder vs smokeless recommendation is simplistic. There are all sorts of smokeless powders. No mention is made of actual pressure levels and pressure curves, or actual powders. It is possible to produce rather high pressures with black powder - higher than that generated by many smokeless loads.
Does anyone think that a .45-70-405 blackpowder load produces significantly less pressure than a .45-405 factory smokeless load intended for use in trapdoor Springfields?
 
tiriaq said:
Of course, Pedersoli would certainly like everyone to be shooting reproduction firearms.
Click to expand...
A gunmaker actually spreading mis-information about other products so he could convince you to buy his? Say it isn't so.

In the UK, old guns including damascus are frequently reprooved. If there was any foundation to this "hoop strength" degradation it would have been well established by now.
 
I've owned, and do own a number of firearms made very early in the last century, and have fired a number made in the 1800's without incident. It's possible that my guns will eventually blow up, but it's also possible that they had bad examples.
 
I think I am going to side with Tiriaq on this one. An 1860 vintage gun would be a recent one for me at times and I have shot at least 3 that were made around 1800 and a pistol that I am guessing goes back to 1750 - 1780. Admittedly the metalurgical analysis only says that the steel has lost 50% of its strength but that suggests that perhaps the required strength was overestimated. I also wonder if the steel was flawed at the time of construction and there has been no deterioration.

cheers mooncoon
 
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