Question about my shotgun barrels

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vega

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Hi Smokers.

I'm busy putting an old muzzle loading percussion shotgun back into service. It has been a lot of work and more to come.

But something I noticed a while back has me scratching my head.

The gun is obviously antique, English, barrels marked "Perkins London Fine Twist"

While worn, the twist pattern is visible in the top rib, but for the life of me, and no matter how hard I look with a magnifying glass, the barrels look like fluid steel.

So questions. Any chance that this shotgun could have been made after the advent of fluid steel barrels? Or that it could have been rebarreled back in the day with the original top rib used? The barrels are marked 13 gauge and well marked with Victorian proofs.

Have any of you seen barrels that you KNOW to be stub twist or good Damascus in which no trace of said manufacturing technique is visible?

Thanks eh?
 
Couple things pop to mind.

First is the possibility that the barrels were sold as more or less 'fake' Damascus, as at one time, the welded steel barrels were thought to be better than the solid ones.

The other is that, based on my limited experience with pattern welding steel for knife blades, if you weld the steel into a billet, fold it, and weld it again, you can effectively remove all traces of what would have become the layers that show when etched. It becomes a homogeneous mass. This seems to fit with the 'fine twist' marking. Maybe.

Pure hypothesis on my part, so don't take it as gospel. Remember too, that there were lots of "London" guns that were made elsewhere and sold, riding on the reputation of the London trade. May or may not apply here, but it is a part of the history of the gun trade, so, worth taking into consideration while researching.

Cheers
Trev
 
It is very unlikely that the barrels are fluid steel. This came rather late in the 19th century as far a shotgun barrels were concerned.
Any trace of welding pattern on the bottom of the barrels, where they are normally hidden by the stock?
Sometimes a false welded pattern was applied to plain barrels, damascus barrels being preferred at the time. But even then the basic barrels were made with a welded seam, longitudinal, not twist.
The twist pattern was brought out in the finishing. If the finish is gone, the pattern may no longer be visible.
Best to asssume that the barrels are welded.
 
Thanks guys. A falsely marked Belgian gun is one of the first things I suspected, but all proofs and marks are English. These could all be fake, but my gut tells me no. I also had some work done on the locks by a knowledgeable shooter on here who considered the locks to be nicely made.

And, as I said, I've gone over the barrels with a fine toothed comb and no seems or patterns are visible any where at all. The only visible pattern is in the top rib. I also thought it unlikely that fluid steel was used vis a vis the "late" intro date for them, that was just a guess given what I can see. It seems so weird to me that the pattern is visible in the rib but not the barrels.

I guess for now I'll have to go with your suggestion that the damascus was so frequently and finely folded that it became homogenized; that's something I've never heard of but nothing else really makes sense other than a late period re-barrel. Also of note, to me at least, is that the barrels are very heavy.

I'm whacking it down to a short canoe gun so the xtra weight will be welcome and I also don't mind the margin of safety this might provide.

Thing about antiques is you'll eventually see every thing under the sun, I guess.
 
It seems a shame to chop a set of good barrels short. If you sand a portion of the barrels bright and clean, under the stock where it does not show, and wipe on some copper sulphate, you may see the pattern.
I have one shotgun, a Tolley cartridge gun from the 1870s if my memory serves, which does have non welded barrels but that is the only one I have seen out of many antique shotguns. The phony ones normally had "damascus pattern" on the upper rib.
I also see nothing wrong with belgian barrels; I think they are just as good as english ones with the perhaps advantage of being brazed together rather than soft soldered together. It is the locks on belgian guns that tend to be fairly rough and poorly finished.

cheers mooncoon
 
I agree that it is a shame to butcher a functional muzzleloading gun. It would be another one irreversibly altered.

The Belgians tended to be pretty thorough in stamping finished guns with their proof marks. Both the Belgians and the Brits were serious about proof testing.
There were unfinished Belgian guns exported to England and finished there.

I doubt that any welded barrels would be so worked that any pattern would disappear. There were sound economic reasons for making plain welded barrels, either simple twist or longitudinal seamed, as well as premium pattern welded ones.
 
tiriaq said:
I doubt that any welded barrels would be so worked that any pattern would disappear. There were sound economic reasons for making plain welded barrels, either simple twist or longitudinal seamed, as well as premium pattern welded ones.
Click to expand...

I think it was Greener who said that it took 18 lbs of raw iron to make a 4 lb set of damascus barrels

cheers mooncoon
 
Thanks much for all the good stuff. I hear you on wanting to keep good old timers in original livery, but this one is beat up enough that it is no real travesty. Also, the tubes are deeply pitted at the front more than at the rear, so I console myself with that as a reasonable reason to cut them, together with the simple fact that I want a canoe gun a lot more than another long double. There really are a lot of problems with this gun, so it is no great loss; instead I end up with a gun that fits the aesthetics and practicalities that I've been looking for. Cheers.
 
If the barrels have been polished chances are you will see no pattern. To bring back the pattern you will need to etch the barrels with an acid, usually dilute hydrochloric (muriatic) acid. It's quite a process but what happens is the iron is removed quicker than steel, so the iron is "lowered" leaving the steel high. When carefully polished the rusted iron remains and only the steel is shiny again - this may need to be repeated until the desired effect (depth of etch) is reached. If a brown & white pattern is wanted leave it alone and oil if black & white is wanted you will need to boil the barrels. A lot of info. on the process is available on the <doublegunshop> site. FWIW --- John S.
 
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