As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.........
No one pays any attention any longer to firearms in ever considering barrels bursting, and yet at the advent of firearm and cannon, barrels were often blowing apart and blowing off body parts or killing the users in hunting or war.
If you ever have looked as some barrels you will see the word PROOF on it or various markings, which means the barrel has had placed in it a powder charge immensely greater than what is considered a "normal" load.
The British in 1813 attempted to first regulate gun barrels, as there was a great slave trade market, as well as colonial market for unscrupulous gun manufacturers, as selling a trade gun to some American or Indian 5000 miles away in the wilderness and having it blow their head off, was not exactly going to ever have it show up in court or angry relatives swimming across an ocean to get at the criminals engaged in this.
The 1813 act of Parliament though had too many holes in it, so an 1815 act was the first real act to keep firearms safe for users.
Two proof houses were established, independent of gun manufacturers, the one in London and the other in Birmingham. By the 1850's it was established that both houses were co equal and there was not a difference between the two testing houses.
Testing was interesting in the barrels were lined up in a venetian blind type room where the blinds were all metal according to W. W. Greener, the great British gun maker of shotguns. The room was sealed, and an hot iron rode was inserted into the test room and the barrels touched off in a massive explosion.
Balls were sent into piles of sand at the muzzle and barrels would hurl back into sand in the breach to be burried there.
When the windows were opened and the smoke cleared, things were dug out, and barrels that burst were discarded, those that bulged were sent back to the maker to be "hammered out" and then resent to the proofing house to be tried again.
Even into the 1850's there was not any modern steel available on the British blast furnace method, but this was iron barrels and chiefly Damascus steel which is a beautiful method of working iron by layering it back onto itself numerous times like a veneer. It was the best method until the latter part of the 19th century when Carnegie steel made the days of iron and Damascus a thing of the past.
Firearms were numerous in a buyer could order a 1 to 50 bore which seems amazing in the modern standardized 10, 12, 20 and 410 gauge era.
The standard first proof, meaning a barrel of first grade for a 12 bore was a .729 inch barrel which held a .709 ball of lead. 12 gauge or bore simply meant that it took 12 of these balls to make 1 pound of lead, so that is what it was defined as.
The weight of the ball was 535 grains and the black powder charge was 16 drams or 437 grains. In regular hunting loads a 4 dram of powder was standard, so the proofing loads were 4 times the normal amount.
A third class 12 bore proofed barrel would use, 350 grains. This is why the American father of modern muzzle loading in America, V.M. Starr started "fooling" with the old muzzle loading shotguns and it was all he ever shot, as he stated his prized 11 gauge would be handed down when he died and continue on hunting, as these barrels could not wear out.
For those unfamiliar, black powder is a mixture of salt peter, sulfur and charcoal. It burned more slowly than modern smokeless powders which are created by nitric acid in contact with cellulose, so therefore the old powders did not operate under pressures of 45,000 per square inch. That is not to say that black powder will not blow a hole in a mine or your hands off, but it is a reality that this older steel when proofed worked effectively and would not deteriorate.
The majority of European guns which were shipped to America were from the British. Wm. Moore made a host of the plain guns for the American market which were sound firearms. The more common names of WC Scott & Sons, Purdy, Wm. Greener, Joe & Joe, The Manton Bros. and Wesley Richards were all proofed guns, and provided they were cleaned would be as serviceable today in the 21st century as the 19th century.
If one kept to the quality Belgium guns, they were good firearms also. The Germans made outstandingly lavish firearms which were very good, but price kept them from the American market, while the French firearms rarely appeared.
The Germans had interesting ideas in if 2 barrels were good, then 3 or 4 would be better in what are called Drillings.
Drillings were a combination of rife and shotgun and more in vogue in a cartridge era, like the Savage guns which were over and under in combing a shotgun and rifle, with common pairings being 12 gauge and 30.30 or 410 and 22 rimfire.
I digress.
The Americans did such a professional job afterwards with firearms that no one even considers any idea of blown barrels or casings. The same effect is in the Chinese, Russian, Slavic and Spanish firearms manufacturers in both barrels and steel are so professionally done now that mishaps are almost unheard of now.
There is an interesting story in this in the American, John Olin, who in the Great Depression purchased Winchester and the Western Cartridge Company, decided to make a double barrel cartridge shotgun called the 21.
Mr. Olin who the world owes a great deal of thanks to for his magnum loadings and powder creations with fine firearms for the masses, put on a display of his 21 with the best the English had. He used the proof loadings and then kept adding to them in this test, and in the end the 21 was still firing while the English guns had all burst.
Apparently there was no loading which could be made that would bust a 21's barrel and testing was stopped.
This is a fine achievement for the Americans, but it was also in comparing apples to oranges, as the British traditionally produced wispy paper thin barrels which hunters in field all day appreciated, as the British also loaded light loads in their light guns, which shooters appreciated.
The 21 was not a metal cannon, but it was the best steel in the world, but it also did not have the thin barrel walls the English tended to produce in the finer arms.
As the British made firearms safe in regulating them in proofing, the Americans would follow with wonderfully durable arms which were mass produced. At one time a 20,000 dollar double Purdy double gun could be compared to a single shot Stevens for 13 dollars. The reality being that at the end of 20 years hard use, the Purdy would be loose in the action and the Stevens would still be tight.
If one needs a firearm to eat or defend themselves, as much as a tank barrel, it is the proofing which one appreciates as your nation carries on hunting or warfare. There was a time when numbers of cannon would burst or barrels would bulge and that tended to demoralize men fighting in wars.
It is a lesson of history which must be revisited in the cheap Chinese wares flooding the world from faucets to bolts.
nuff said
agtG
