I think Angier reported that his information about the 1720's browning came by word of mouth from Greener who was not around anywhere near that time. I am still on the lookout for any documentation of the continuation of browning from the 1600's references to the references which establish later in the 18th century.
In context.
"The browning of barrels is in itself however much older, even in England, and according to information kindly
given [bold type by me] the author by Mr. C.E. Greener (the well known Birmingham gunmaker), was in common use for sporting arms about 1720."
The information was given him. Now we must ask was this some form of documentation or was it word of mouth? He does not say that Greener TOLD him. He states he was GIVEN the information.
Angier states that there are blued (temper-blued) and browned 17th century guns in ".. every larger public or private collection.." But notes that they are not as common as 18th century guns.
Then we must ask if the guns that were actually used were perhaps colored and the guns that were given to royalty or built as "see what I made" articles by gunmakers were not.
Guns with unprotected iron/steel surfaces get stained by BP fouling and need polishing. Those with an oxide coat simply wipe clean. An in the white barrel is a PITA in a gun that gets used much.
Just because the British military was not browning barrels in the early 18th century does not mean others did not.
Then we must ask on what grounds does anyone here have the authority to say Greener is wrong? We have no idea what he based this statement on. But since nobody here has found a smoking gun all early 18th century guns must be white.
What if nobody wrote it down? What if it was lost or destroyed? How much other gun stuff is written down in 1720?
I have a friend who was frostbitten after being wounded in Korea.
For YEARS (decades) the VA denied his claim for frostbite on his fingers since the hospital records indicated no frost bite.
THEN about 6-8 years ago they "discovered" that ALL casualties at that time had frostbite and treatment was SOP and it WAS NOT WRITTEN DOWN on the charts or anywhere else.
You really need to ask just how good does the documentation have to be.
If a note written by an American gunsmith dated to 1750 was found stating "I browned one gun barrel today" some here would say "Yes, but it was only ONE gun barrel".
I think Greener meets the reasonable test. If it were not so why would Greener bother to fabricate a date? Why would ANYONE in the British gun trade circa 1930 CARE enough to fabricate that they browned barrels in 1720? If it were not so where did the date come from?
If everyone KNEW it was the 1780s (as they seem to today) why did HE not say 1780??
This reminds me of a post on another site where a reenactor would not accept a haversack design actually printed in the Maryland Gazette circa 1775 as proper for the rev-war since it could not be proved they actually made any !!?? I assume he needed photographic evidence.
This sort of thing can be carried too far.
We KNOW they were "russetting" barrels on militia arms in London in the early to mid 1600s. It seems that at least SOME 17th century guns have colored steel/iron parts both blue and "brown". We KNOW they were browning barrels in 1780. But we cannot accept that they browned barrels in 1720.
Dan
