Now "Barrel steel" topic - split from "Proof Testing" topic

[Dphariss]

Hey fellows,

I am writing this without doing a search, so I bet if I do a search there are plenty of comments about it.

I do remember reading more than a couple of articles/posts/comments on 12L14 steel's lack of suitability for gun barrels. Coincidentally I've seen more than a few references by barrel makers that say they use 12L14.

Me, I seem to feel that erring on the side of caution is prudent...

Just saying.

Best regards,
Albert “El Matamoro” Rasch
The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles
Squirrel Hunting Tips and Techniques
ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!

People wonder why Green Mountain barrels (wonderfully uniform and accurate in my exeperience BTW) are in short supply.
Here is my take.
 
I suspect that Green Mountain, if they are doing gov't contract work as some say they are, has no 1137 in the shop to make ML barrels from. "Why?" You might ask?
Because (I am told by others in the industry) if they are doing contract work for the military and should the inspectors come around and find steel that is not specified for the Gov't work (one of the 4150s I believe) in the shop the contract is instantly VOID on the spot. The gov't takes the barrel steel thing seriously you see.
Below is a steel makers position on cold rolled free machining steels as material for gun barrels.
This is not supposition, its not an unfounded claims its what the people that make the stuff had to say during a rather heated on going discussion of barrel steels.

Dan

[camerl2009]

yea green mountian is doing a gov contract

i think ive heard enough about iraq and afghanistan brass,copper,lead price is way up and now barrel's are hard to come by

[AmBraCol]

This is a very interesting thread, I feel kind of like one of those proverbial blindmen looking at the elephant.  Each one "sees" a different aspect.  The following is purely anecdotal in nature but hopefully will be of interest to some of the folks who are following this subject. The information is for educational purposes only, any attempt to replicate our experiments will be done on your own with you taking full responsibility for your actions, etc, and so forth..

I was raised in Brazil as an MK/TCK (missionary kid/third culture kid) back when the Belém-Brasilia highway was still just a dirt track through the Amazon basin forest.  There was a wide variety of firearms around, not the least of which were the native built "por fora" muzzle loading smooth bores.  Smooth bore in this context refers to the lack of mechanically cut rifling, not to the pristine nature of the bore. 

These percussion fired weapons were built from what ever tubing the gunsmith/blacksmith could come up with.  Most of it was seemed tubing resembling in nature the old iron curtain rods.  Caliber was in the neighborhood of 38-45 caliber or so.  These were usually wound with soft iron wire for about 6 or eight inches from the breech, with the iron wire being brazed to the barrel.  The nipples were mostly hand made, I'm not sure how they did the bolster, but it usually looked to be forged in place.  Usual charge was a 38 spl case full of  FFFg, a jute fiber over powder wad, a few pieces of 3T lead shot and another jute fiber over shot wad.  Not the most evenly patterning load, but the usual procedure was to sneak up and pretty much stick the barrel in the critter's ear and cut loose. To make everything even more entertaining was the belief that a gun's power was actually from the poison that built up in the barrel over time.  As the shot rattled down the bore it would supposedly pick up this poison and THAT was what killed the critter.  This explains why a 22 LR shot into the bowels of a jaguar or deer does not quickly bring it down, it simply doesn't have enough "poison" on it... Please note that I'm merely reporting local beliefs, not personal ones.

One time we saw some kids who'd cut a tapered steel leg off a discarded dining room chair, hammered the narrow end flat, doubled it over and then used a nail to poke a vent hole into the top of the "barrel".  This was then lashed to a rough cut "pistol grip" with bicycle inner tube strips.  The load was either FFFg powder that one of the kids filched from his dad's hunting pouch or the contents of one of the abundant firecrackers us kids could purchase year round at the time (assuming that we had the available funds, of course).  We saw, analyzed and came to the conclusion that "those kids are gonna kill themselves".  But it looked like fun so we put our homeschooled brains together to come up with a better solution. 

We commandeered a foot long piece of 1/2" galvanized water pipe, it was, after all, much thicker than the chair leg they had been using.  Using my uncle's dies we threaded it for a cap.  Even to our young, inexperienced eyes we could see how there was some thread exposed in front of the cap, obvious weak point. So we carved a tight fitting wooden plug which would fill up the rear section of the barrel up to a 1/4 inch or so past the threads.  We then used the drill press to drill a touch hole and a larger bit to counter sink it sightly.  This was then lashed to a piece of hardwood 2X2 and loaded with FFFg we bought from the friendly neighborhood general store owner.  About 1/2" inch of powder was poured into the barrel followed by a conical slug made from a salvaged battery (back when lead and acid were the only ingredients in said batteries) that we melted down and poured into a mold made from two hardwood planks we clamped together then drilled between with a 1/2" spade bit.  The nose was whittled out to make a nice conical.  We didn't know about sprue plates and square bases but that didn't matter because the "smooth" bore let them tumble anyway.

First load was fired by using a firecracker fuse.  We loaded it up, lit the fuse and ran like crazy to get behind a big tree.  BOOM! it went and we looked around to see the contraption several feet from where it had been sitting and a keyhole in the target.  WOHOO!  That was fun.  So we decided to see how much it could take.  We loaded it up hotter and hotter until we reached 2" of powder in that half inch barrel, using the tree as a shield each shot.  with the 2" powder column it finally let loose - breaking right at the thin spot in front of the cap.  Thus we tested that barrel to destruction and settled on a 1/4 of the destructive load as our max load for that type of barrel.

Next step was to build shoulder fired arms.  We acquired 75 centimeters of the same barrel material apiece.  since we began our tests the neighborhood kids had blown up their first piece with a huge load of firecracker powder (fired remotely by fuse, no kids were injured) and one of them got the idea of making a cartridge weapon.  He filched a full brass .410 shell from his dad's hunting bag, inserted it into the tapered barrel and used a rubber band powered "lock" to fire it.  The shell split and was lodged permanently in the chair leg, turning it into a muzzle loader with a percussion lock.  We did some investigating and found that a 28 gauge full brass shell would fit the 1/2" barrel fairly well.  so we got some two part epoxy glue and a full brass shell.  A wad of paper or rags (don't recall which) was shoved into the shell with a string running through the barrel.  The shell was liberally coated with glue and slid into the barrel.  The wad was carefully slid down the barrel to ensure there was no build up or ring of glue left inside and the barrel was stood carefully vertical for 24 hours.  After it cured we loaded it by the same method as a muzzle loader, only seating the berdan primer first with the flat of a knife.  The barrel was loaded so that the primer could could not contact anything and once more we fired it remotely. It was set in a mahogany stock and had a lock my cousin built The barrel was held on by rings cut from a bicycle tube that held the barrel firmly to the stock but allowed it to slide forward for cap replacement.  This served for some time, although the shell eventually split from repeated firings and my cousin replaced it by cutting it off and installing a new one.

All that merely relates the experience of some kids who used testing methods to determine at what point a barrel would let loose and then reducing the charge accordingly.  As for the merits of proofing each barrel, as mentioned, the practice comes from a time when barrels were forge welded together and the idea was to ensure that such forging would hold.  It is my intention to eventually build a smoothbore flintlock with available local seamless tubing.  A section of the barrel material will be tested with a heavy charge of powder and shot and a second section of the same material will be used for the actual build, the working load will be a reduced charge of the "proof" load.  It ain't perfect, but it worked back then.  After seeing the abuse the native smoothbores took and still functioned for years, I don't worry too much about the use of modern steels with normal charges properly loaded.  But that's just me.

[camerl2009]

lol AmBraCol your going to get some  replys about wanting to use seamless and there all going to say its not safe watch

[Daryl]

Dan - I am wondering if by saying 'gun barrel' that the LaSalle is referring to modern, smokeless gun barrels, not muzzleloading gun barrels, per se'.

I did not see where they mentioned muzzleloading gun barrels, just not to use 12L14 for "gun barrels". From this re-print from LaSalle, I certainly can see it's use being restricted from BP ctg. or smokeless gun barrels, but what about muzzleloaders?  I also realize that any time someone screws up and causes a problem, they try to blame everything but themselves, attempting to shift the blame to the article, away from themselves.
 
There are a number of reasons for this, of course, from personal liability due to injuries or for simply to 'sue' the maker of the barrel to fund their retirement - it's the way people think these days, I'm sorry to say. One only has to look at the bloke who tried to say his gun went off twice due to the powder in the barrel that wasn't consumed the first time it was fired.  Some people will say anything that comes to mind.

[keweenaw]

By the LaSalle recommendations none of the aftermarket centerfire barrel makers are making suitable barrels as none of these manufacturers are doing either a full anneal or a quench and temper after all their machining work is done, only stress relief which is far different from full anneal.   This document was clearly meant as a "don't sue up piece",

Tom

[Acer Saccharum]

I have a bunch of barrels made of 12L14, and will probably die before using all of them. But if I do use them up, I will probably buy more.

My opinion offered for black powder only barrels: A barrel's performance and safety probably has a lot more to do with the person behind the trigger than the barrel itself. No machine is fool proof, including gun barrels.

[doug]

    I note that the recommendation was not to use cold drawn 12L10 as opposed to using 12L10.  Part of the question then becomes "to what extent are barrel manufacturers heat treating their steels to reduce the brittleness resulting from cold drawing

cheers Doug

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

As a scientist I keep looking for the empirical evidence  .......... Best I can tell ( And I don't have hard numbers..just estimates ) from the number of 12L14 barrels out there and the small number and human error nature of the few failures on record........It seems that 12L14 when used wisely is pretty safe as a muzzleloader barrel material.    I sure hope the barrel maker was very careful when he made my barrel....no matter what kind of steel it was made from..... and Lord please help me not make a stupid mistake! 

[Dphariss]

Dan - I am wondering if by saying 'gun barrel' that the LaSalle is referring to modern, smokeless gun barrels, not muzzleloading gun barrels, per se'.

I did not see where they mentioned muzzleloading gun barrels, just not to use 12L14 for "gun barrels". From this re-print from LaSalle, I certainly can see it's use being restricted from BP ctg. or smokeless gun barrels, but what about muzzleloaders?  I also realize that any time someone screws up and causes a problem, they try to blame everything but themselves, attempting to shift the blame to the article, away from themselves.
 
There are a number of reasons for this, of course, from personal liability due to injuries or for simply to 'sue' the maker of the barrel to fund their retirement - it's the way people think these days, I'm sorry to say. One only has to look at the bloke who tried to say his gun went off twice due to the powder in the barrel that wasn't consumed the first time it was fired.  Some people will say anything that comes to mind.

I think LaSalle meant any gun barrel.

The letter was to John Baird, then Editor of the Buckskin Report and as is noted is in response to Jim Kelly's article of Sept 81. The discussion, other than a related letter by the then ASSRA president in another issue was specifically about ML arms. Breechloaders were never mentioned unless just in passing or as reference in research.

The escape hatch in all ML accidents is that they are all handloaded. It gives the barrel maker an element of doubt that moderns don't have if the gun fails with factory ammo. Everyone immediately figures it was a loading error.

I removed the identification and date from the page when I cropped a cartoon off that was below the letter to save space.
Its from the November 1981 Buckskin Report page 11.
Anyone interested that can get all issues from Sept 81 (Mr Kelly's "Brittle and Tough" article that really started it off) to the end of 1982 there is a lot of material, pro and con on free machining steels and their suitability for gun barrels. The pro all from a barrel maker that used it. Too many issues for me to list them all here.
It the only discussion of this subject I have ever seen in a magazine.


Dan

[Dphariss]

As a scientist I keep looking for the empirical evidence  .......... Best I can tell ( And I don't have hard numbers..just estimates ) from the number of 12L14 barrels out there and the small number and human error nature of the few failures on record........It seems that 12L14 when used wisely is pretty safe as a muzzleloader barrel material.    I sure hope the barrel maker was very careful when he made my barrel....no matter what kind of steel it was made from..... and Lord please help me not make a stupid mistake! 

I KNOW a 1137 GM 50 barrel a 44" B swamp stood double load, powder-ball-powder-ball with no change in the bore dimensions.
The thing is given the pressures developed it should not be possible to burst a ML barrel.
BP simply will not generate enough pressure to cause a failure UNLESS THE MATERIAL IS AT FAULT. Shooter was using a metal loading rod at a match and the rod was several inches longer than the barrel and unmarked for the load.... Dumb but it still happened. Everyone who shoots a ML makes a loading mistake at some time or another.
Until recently I had an M1 Garand barrel that was shot with a dirt plug in the bore about 3" behind the front sight. It was only bulged. This was a WW-II era barrel.
So when someone tells me that their ML barrel split due to a bore obstruction, or with a blank as has occured TWICE now with cheap import "re-enactor" guns there is a problem. In this case its unsuitable material. Cheap heavy wall tubing if I am properly informed.
I know of a Douglas barrel that was fired with a short started ball 7/8" 45 and it did not burst. Though it should have given the material. This is part of the problem the material is so much stronger than what is required that is very difficult to burst barrel. How do you burst a 70000- 100000 psi steel with a load that simply will not produce 1/3 that? It should not be possible unless the steel is low quality, is brittle, has inclusions of lead or sulfur ect or maybe all three.
There are burst guns out there and injured people. At least one lost a hand that was reported to me on this site before the site was updated and I lost the message by not moving it off the site. The reported thought he knew the barrel maker but was not 100%. Bit it was not a GM being a 1/2 oct fowler barrel.

Then we have the people who, decades ago, tried to blow up a Springfield Rifle Musket. They finally loaded the entire bore with powder and still could not blow it up. This was a skelp welded iron barrel, they all were. Yet we have failures with the modern steels. How is this? For one thing, the iron barrel is adequate for BP. Its also very tough and will stretch before failing. Cold rolled steels seldom stretch when shock loaded. If they fail they break.
One big name maker had a string of failures of rifles they made. Some were loaded with smokeless and this was proven. Others were not but by chemical trickery the maker was able to "prove" these were shot with smokeless as well.
A man who posts here did their test with Goex  and got their "nitro powder" result with the BP fouling. People were hurt but they got off. The Plaintiff's lawyer did not have the right tests done it would seem.

Modern smokeless guns with proper 4140-4150 barrels will burst and fragment. BUT its invariably from shooting TOO LITTLE smokeless. Most modern steel guns will stand incredible overloads of even fast smokeless and only bulge. I have seen an GB quality 1137 barrel intentionally burst with a very significant smokeless overload, a heavy jacketed bullet AND an intentional .020+ constriction of the bore. But it only split it did not fragment.
I have however, seen a number of failures, of rifles and pistols thought the use of too little powder.
The things that are seen when working in the field can be petty amazing.

But if you try to convince people that underloads of smokeless are more dangerous than overloads they think you are nuts. I mention this smokeless data to show just how confusing things can get.

BP will not do this since it cannot detonate it burns the same regardless of the loading density. Very loose charges can flash over and burn faster than they should but the high velocity detonation in the realm of the nitro powders.
It takes a High Explosive to fragment a god ductile gun barrel.
Yet we see fragmented ML barrels shot with BP a low explosive that cannot "break" steel.
 Its a material problem.
The real question is not how many burst in use but why would anyone make gun barrels from material a steel maker specifically states is unsuitable?

Dan

[KNeilson]

Great thread!!Just the type of discussion I want to hear about this important subject. thx to all who posted. Like Dr tim B I like empirical evidence, it makes the decision process much easier. Paul - in Pereira, welcome, very interesting story. I can relate a few similar circumstances. I also have a hard time wondering why these barrels break once in a while, assuming that they are being used/charged  properly. Also constructed properly. As has been stated, I believe liability is why we have so many problems in the modern world. Too many people are not being responsible for their actions. Like one of my likeable teachers told me years ago..." remember he says, when you point your finger at someone, there are three others pointing back at you"..........    Kerry

[mbokie5]

Oh geeze, now I have a headache.

I have a new rice barrel with 1080 stamped near the breech. Is that the steel manufacturers steel type number?

Ok, another greenhorn question that may already be answered.

I believe it's the dimension at the breech?

[dannybb55]

Here's my small bit: Where is the steel made? Not in PA I'm certain.
 Second, Why don;t we go back to wrought iron www.realwroughtiron,com ?

[Dphariss]

Here's my small bit: Where is the steel made? Not in PA I'm certain.
 Second, Why don;t we go back to wrought iron www.realwroughtiron,com ?

Why not just use a suitable grade of steel?
While a good iron is better than  brittle modern steel this does not make it the most logical choice.
Also iron, today is defined as steel with less than .05 carbon, so 1010 is steel, 1004 is iron. Then there is quality control.
Here is a factor. High quality steel is almost impossible to get in small quantities. Like a semi-load for example.
So while its possible to buy small quantities of almost any mill run steel getting the higher quality stuff is a lot more difficult. I can order individual bars of 4140 for example from MSC etc. but its MILL RUN steel and not only is the alloy not as closely controlled the quality control is just not there.
The high quality steels are sold in large lots, IE a furnace load at a time since the quality control starts before the material is even melted. Since the material is CERTIFIED to be what it is supposed to be.
Ruger, I have read, buys 100 tons at a time. The steel is MADE to their spec not only for alloy but for quality as well. And they check it in their lab before its even taken off the truck it arrives on. I have read.
Smaller makers such as Krieger have to pool orders to get steel.
So even smaller makers have to go to someone who has the steel and hope they can buy a supply or get in on and order being placed.
Someone mentioned the quench and anneal.
It is common to have the steel heat treated before its delivered. While its possible to heat treat barrels after then are machined and rifled and its important when button rifling is done its not really needed if the steel is right in the first place for the application. Stress relief is needed after buttoning to maintain the bore dimensions when the exterior is shaped.
While Krieger, for example, single point cuts their barrels the M1 Garand barrel has a rather complex contour and they claim they drill the barrels, then contour then ream and rifle to maintain uniformity of the bore. They do not mention any stress relief after contouring.

Machining a swamped barrel puts a lot of stress in the steel. It would be interesting to air gauge or otherwise closely examine the interior of a swamped barrel vs a straight barrel by the same maker.
What has all this to do with ML barrels. Rifle barrels are rifle barrels and the things that will stress a Garand barrel will stress a ML barrel as well. They are both "pressure vessels" one operates at less than 20000 psi the other over 40000 psi. But in efffect they both perform identical functions.
I know that 1137 will stand 50000 psi in a 45-70 chambering with not signs of strain, from lab tests, yet its widely considered unsuitable for even low pressure breech loader use by most and SFAIK has been abandoned for such use.
Even large firms with engineers and metallurgists screw up. I cite the 1140M Remington shotgun barrel fiasco. They could have used 4140 or 4150 but they went cheap. The material is subject to work hardening and some barrels shattered and people were disfigured.
So we have to ask why? Some corporate bean counter perhaps?
12L14 is designed for automatic screw machines. Its not designed for gun barrels. But like Remington some people know they can "get by" using it. Largely because they have the ever present "loading error" defense.
And then "everybody knows you can't blow up a ML barrel" this was "proven" when they tried to blow up that Springfield barrel way back in the 1950s or 60s or when ever it was.
But still there are failures. But since the failure rate for high quality  4140-4150 steels is extremely low even in military service with operating pressures often in the 60000+ range I find it unlikely that even a loading error using black powder, short started balls etc is going to produce the failures we see with low cost free machining steels.
So the only excuse is 1. Its easy for small quantity makers to get. 2. Its much easier to get a nice finish on. 3. They can be sold cheaper to people who put price over security.

Gotta run have a Marine to meet at the airport today.
Dan

[mattdog]

Excuse me for taking a rational counter point to this discussion.  

Read this:
"And, by the way, we have made nearly 30,000 barrels using this type of steel.    ..........Don"

Curly Gostomski started using 12L14 about 30 years ago and I still use it to this day.  That's several thousand more barrels, among how many other makers turning them out.  Where are all the dead bodies?  By the account of some contributing to this thread the shooting ranges and rendezvous trail walks should be littered with corpses and body parts.   How many years of use and thousands and thousands of shots through 12L steel barrels will it take to convince you that they work and are safe?  20 years from now we will still be having this same arguement regardless of the evidence to the contrary.

I set out with an accomplice one day to purposely blow one of my barrels.  I'll shorten the story and just say that after several hours working up to 240 gr. and two patched balls we had to call it a bad job.  I couldn't even get a bulge.  My accomplice wanted to put an obstruction in the barrel and fire it off one more time but I thought, "what would that prove?" so we didn't do it.  ( I was doing a controlled experiment, he just wanted to see that sucker blow)  I don't doubt that with an obstructed barrel and large charge of powder that you could blow a 12L14 barrel or ANY barrel made of ANY alloy, tempered or not.

IMO 12L has properties besides just turning pretty on a lathe that make it a good steel for muzzleloading barrels.  Forgiveness and shootability for starters but that should be discussed in a different thread.  

[bgf]

Respectfully, the frequency of failure is not the issue, but rather the mode of failure.  Given the choice, a bulge or rip is preferable to fragmentation ("behaves in a brittle manner").  I can think of much worse ways for us as consumers to make choices of barrel materials than the advice of steel manufacturers, and I appreciate this kind of information and the research that went into it. 

[Leatherbelly]

   What Mattdog says.  If a malfunction should happen,I'd want the softer steel. Hey, getz and rice barrels use it(12L14).So I use it...the end 

[Don Getz]

bfg........have you ever blown up a barrel made from 12L14 steel?     We have taken12" long pieces of barrel, threaded
and breeched both ends, drilling a hole in it for a fuse, and blew it up.   From what has been said on this subject, one
would think this would act like  grenade, blowing shrapnel all over the place.  Not so, it merely opened up like a banana
peel.    We also did the same thing to a piece of barrel that was made in a foreign country, I won't say which one.  Now,
this one did act like a grenade, we found only about 1/3 of the barrel, the rest was blow to god knows where.   We also
did a lot of proofing real thin barrels with huge loads, could not get them to blow.    Also shot barrels with short started
balls, could not get them to bulge or blow.   The only way we could get a bulge in the barrel was to load the barrel with
powder and a patched ball pushed all the way down onto the powder, then short starting a ball on top of all this......
bulged the barrel but did not blow it off.   As a result of all of this playing around, I kind of thought to myself that it's
sort of foolish to proof a barrel, at least one of ours which I know how it is breeched.  There have been a lot of comments
by people who have never made a barrel, nor did any experimental blow-ups.  Unless you know what you're talking about
you are doing a great disservice to the muzzleloading game...............Don

[tallbear]

Thanks for posting Don.This issue comes up every six months with the same info on both sides.I am locking it as there is really nothing new to come out of this disscusion.On one side we two thirty year old articles about 12L14 being unsuitable for barrels.On the other side we have tens of thousands of 12L14 barrels in use with no failures that we know of that were not user error.If anyone has any NEW documented proof of this "brittle failure" please post it on a new thread.Please don't rehash what has already hashed out here numerous times.

Thank You
Mitch Yates