Questions about an interesting barrel I have.

[fix]

As some of you might remember, I inherited a bunch of gun stuff about five years ago. Well I still haven't gone through it all yet.

Today I found a neat barrel. It's octagon to round, 29 3/4 long, about 3/4 across the flats at the breech end, and unrifled.

There are some markings on it. On the left flat there is an oval with an E over LG over a star in it. The bottom flat has a B with a star over it right near the under lug. Near the breech on the bottom there is the number 110,  a star over a letter M, and some script letters that look like EL. Both the breech plug and the barrel have the number nine on them, so I assume they go together ( I didn't find them together and the breech has never been fitted).

This looks like a small caliber. Something in the order of a .410 shotgun size. It is also a percussion barrel, although the nipple hole has not been drilled into the pad on the right of the barrel.

I'll try to get some pictures, but I was wondering if there was a source I could go to to look up these markings.

I only picked up this barrel because I was thinking about building a squirrel rifle and remembered seeing it when moving the stuff. Since I want a rifle, this barrel doesn't do me any good, but now I'm just curious about it.

Is it a good barrel, and what kind of gun could I build around it?

Thanks for any info you can lend. I'll try to get some pictures of it.

 

[Acer Saccharum]

Those markings are probably Belgian.

[greybeard]

No doubt about it , Belgian

[Ky-Flinter]

Yup....  Google "barrel proof marks" and you'll get more than you need.  

-Ron

[fix]

Found it, thanks.

I can't find a date mark, but it must be from the 1980's as that's when my gramps was buying most of this stuff.

From what I've read it sounds like I should pass on this barrel, and look for something better to build a gun around.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of love for the Belgian barrels.


Thanks

[greybeard]

I would tend to use it for a nice wee .410 grouse getter.

[Levy]

I would almost bet you that your Gramps got it from Dixie Gun Works back when they were selling tons of similar items found in a Belgian warehouse.  I still have several barrels that I bought from them at the time.  The ones that I have are very similar to what you describe.

James Levy

[fix]

I took a minute and knocked off some of the light rust and dirt. It looks like someone has sanded deep gouges lengthways into the thing. Like I said, the barrel is new, never been mounted from what I can see. Are these factory marks?

The barrel doesn't appear to be damascus, does that make it any better, or worse?
I'm kind of thinking about building something around it, but don't want to waste a bunch of time.

I might clean it up the rest of the way and put some oil on it. It isn't rusty at all and looks like it might actually have cosmoline or something on it (which would explain the lack of rust).

It's also pretty thick. Seems to be nearly 1/16 th of an inch thick at the end.

I would bet he got it from Dixie, or from someone else that did.

[fix]

Sorry, 1/16th at the muzzle end.

It's much thicker at the breech end.

[frogwalking]

I bet this was one from Dixie.  Turner got a bunch of stock unused parts from Europe many of which used to be assembled into trade guns for the African trade in the early 1900s similar to what was done in the US in the 1700s.  I used to buy these little barrels for about $8 or $10 and a lock for $5.00 and made some very cheap guns.  They didn't last long due to the poor quality of the locks.  Never had a problem with the barrels though.

How do you think they proof test them without the bolster drilled?

[dannybb55]

My friend Dave Stone Bought a barrel and a Ketland lock for under 60 bucks Ttl and stocked him up a nice wee trade gun. I remember he won a turkey shoot with it. It was part of the 18 tons of Belgian Gun Parts Sale Turner was having then.

[T*O*F]

I built one for a crippled buddy about 12 years ago.  As I recall, I filed the nipple lump off in order to make a flint gun from it.  It weighed less than 4 lbs.  He passed away a couple of years ago and told his wife to give it back to me.

This link works in my browser, but yours may not recognize it because of the .old ending.

http://oldfoxtraders.com/rexgun/minigun.old

[JCKelly]

Back about 1962 a friend bought a kit from Dixie for a very small smoothbore gun with a barrel as you describe. I was a metalllurgy student at Lehigh, thought I knew more than I did, used a lab furnace to case harden the tumbler for him probably all the way through.

Steel beats Damascus and Belgian steel beats $#*! out of the rephosphorized, resulphurized, leaded screw stock commonlyl used in the US.

[fix]

This link works in my browser, but yours may not recognize it because of the .old ending.

http://oldfoxtraders.com/rexgun/minigun.old

You're right the link won't work, or rather it loads the html as text. I was able to snatch the image links from the html and look at the pictures though.

The gun is a beauty. But I can't tell if the barrel is the same or not. The one I have has an ugly square nipple lump on it. I hadn't considered just cutting it off, but that might be an option should I decide to build something with it.

I kind of had my mind set on a squirrel rifle, but I do have most of the hardware to build a gun with this barrel, and I don't currently have a rifle barrel laying around.

[Jerry V Lape]

The *B indicates the inspector at that time.  Could have been Charles Roland who worked from 1927 -1959.  His tenure would coordinate with the *M of Louis Couchart who worked from 1923 -1952.  The other possiblities are much later in the 1970s which with very narrow windows when both inspectors would have  working.  I would guess the barrel is just fine for use as a small smoothbore.  Belgium guns get a bad rap because they produced so much hardware store clunkers in the early 1900s in finished guns.  However, they also producedexcellent  barrels for the gun trade world wide to some of the finest makers.  Hard to say which with out testing.  The did proof barrels without fitted breechs by clamping them in a contraption which closed the breech on the initial proof.  The script EL is the preliminary proof mark meaning it has been proof tested to begin construction.  It is not the final proof which would only come after the gun was fully finished. 

If you want a good place to begin on proof marks buy a copy of " The Standard Directory of Proof Marks"  by Gerhard Wirnsberger translated by RA Steindler.

Blacksmith  is the publisher out of Chino Valley, AZ

[Levy]

Last year at the CLA Show I brought a miniature Brown Bess that was built by a friend of mine using one of my old Belgium barrels from Dixie Gun Works.  It is .45 cal. and uses the .45 cal. felt pistol wads perfectly.  It is an octagon to round barrel with an obvious choke at the muzzle.  He has taken several squirrels with it using 7 1/2 shot size and I believe only 1 dram of FFG.  I've shot it a couple of times and it's a hoot.  A .44 cal. swaged ball will just roll in and is fun to shoot at 25 yds.  Some of my barrels had coarse linear scratches in them too.  I assumed it came from draw filing with a coarse file, but could've been by something else.

James Levy