As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter......
Firearms have for only God's reasons delighted me as much as knives. There is a mystery to me in the beauty of metal and wood all working as an engine in the skills of the person holding them. Beautiful wood and fine steel all form for me a resonancy which just appeals to me.
I place here something which is an inborn fear of most people in knives breaking or guns blowing up on them. I can still hear my brother sneeringly refering to Damascus steel, which is a form of welding steel and carbon to form pretty patterns which one time one of the strongest metals formed, but it is no longer the case with modern methods.
What I desire to discuss is the phobia which most people rightly have in picking up an old gun and thinking immediately it will explode. Those words come out of the mouth by conditioning, but the source of that conditioning is based upon fact.
I have in my meager collection a scrap shotgun I restored which was built upon the old John Browning pump design of humpback firearms. It has no model nor maker. It simply is stamped Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts.
I tracked this down to around the period of 1914, so it is now 100 years old. I call it Chic and she delights me when it goes off, as it kills upland birds well enough and makes it all a more difficult thing to accomplish compared to the 870 Winchester I purchased with my graduation money.
I wondered about this gun of the black powder era, but have shot enough hot loads through it to prove it worthy of use. It is though something American, and the Americans built things of metals which did not blow up in ones face.
Other nations were not so astute in upholding the laws. I place here a quote from William Greener, the noted British inventor and gunmaker as a revelation of how many dangerous guns were shipped to America and the colonies from the slave trade to Indian trade era.
"“Sham damn skelp” is made from the most inferior scrap. I should not have mentioned this description of iron had I not seen hundreds of barrels made of it, all which are utterly unfitted for the use of any person who cares at all for his safety. I have met with them frequently under the dignified name of twisted barrels.
Guns that are fitted up at from ten to twelve shillings each are not of course patent breeched, but are made to appear so by staining them generally blue, and by having a couple of bands to imitate platina, across the squares. A projecting part is welded on to the side, into which the nipple is inserted, and the lock joints neatly under it. Many of them are good imitations; but only take the barrel out of the stock and the deception is instantly apparent, as it is rarely carried further than the outside.
The beautiful way in which the barrels are painted to imitate fine twist, catches the eye of the simple countryman, who is generally the dupe of this artifice; and the persuasive eloquence of the itinerant hardwareman, seldom fails to extract from the pocket of his unsuspecting purchaser sometimes thirty or forty shillings of his earnings for what the modest trader rarely pays above fifteen shillings. Many are the anathemas vented, when the deception is found out by some one more knowing than the dupe, who not unfrequently purchases his experience at the expense of a finger or a hand. It is astonishing what a quantity of this rubbish is disposed of by hawkers who infest market towns and villages with guns for sale. But the English peasant is not the only dupe of this species of knavery.
Thousands of these guns are sent monthly to the United States, to the Brazils, and South America; where they are disposed of, among the poor Indians, in exchange for skins and furs."
William Greener. Gunnery in 1858 / Being a Treatise on Rifles, Cannon, and Sporting Arms
There was actually a term for this in Birmingham in "doing the natives". The natives being the colonials and the wogs. The metals for this was scrap sheet metals, which was wire twisted and absolutely a hazard. Other barrels were rejects or blow outs, which were patched and hammered down. The British were blowing up their peasants at home and abroad, and the excuse was the Germans and Dutch were making the same type of cheap arms, so it was just England keeping up.
Most of these guns were aged and counterfiet proofed, and like boilers were put into production and killing people. The natives upon being maimed and killed were soon stating that there was no difference between English, German or Beligian guns as they were all dangerous. For a weapons manufacturer like Mr. Greener that was a most unpleasant for business.
The Americans received the brunt of the long rifles and the fowling pieces were appearing in other locations.
That is the reason people have a phobia over these "guns", because the Europeans knowingly shipped them to the natives and they were mixed in having proofs and appearing to be safe like industry standards. It is the reason one needs to take old firearms to competent gunsmiths to ascertain what they have before attempting to fire them.
Standard makers of course would be deemed safe with older black powder loadings, yet Mr. Greener found that even the name brand makers had been duped at times by the Birmingham welders. In contrast, the reality is the American firearms trade was one of the few across the board which produced safe firearms for the masses at a cheap price.
It seems impossible to me that someone would knowingly produce a firearm which would eventually blow up hurting or killing someone just for a nice living in England. Yet that is the case, and the reality of the 21st century in the black market trade of weapons, humans, gems, dope and money laundering is how the elite still make their fortunes in "doing the natives".
It would be the assumption that most of these guns blew up killing people or maiming them in ending their existence, but the new products coming on market out of Asia and now even western industry all points to a corruption of materials from sink faucets to electrical lights.
The reasons standards have lowered is lobbyists and financiers are making money off of inferior products the manufacturers knowingly are making to degrade from Chinese tires to the Fords of the 1990's. It was criminal and they got away with it and are still getting away with it like sham damn guns.
"I have met with plated barrels in guns which cost the purchaser thirty-five guineas , and I have detected them in some of the first makers’ guns; for the perfection with which the fraud is accomplished is wonderful, and few can detect it who are not strictly up to “the dodge.” The application of a portion of sulphuric acid into the tube at the breech end of the barrel, is the best way of showing the fraud; for, in most cases, it is all bored out at the thin portion of the muzzle."
William Greener. Gunnery in 1858 / Being a Treatise on Rifles, Cannon, and Sporting Arms
agtG
