Author Topic: Douglas Barrels (Read 15140 times)

FRJ · « **on:** January 13, 2011, 01:05:36 AM »

I have a Doug that I bought aroung 1966 and I am finally getting around to building a Hawken rifle with it. Anything bad I need to know about these barrels? Frank

wvmtnman · « **Reply #1 on:** January 13, 2011, 03:23:17 AM »

Though I have never used a Douglas barrel, I have heard many of the older guys say that they wore out quick and needed to be freshened out after a 8,000 shots or so. However, these guys were out every weekend at a shoot.
I think a lot of the wear occurs during the cleaning process. I reccomend a range rod with a muzzle protector. The guys I talked to said they did everything with their ram rod.
Brian

A.Merrill · « **Reply #2 on:** January 13, 2011, 04:22:24 AM »

Back in the 70's, it was common practice to cut off 2 to 4in. of the muzzle, do to where they started the rifling. ( Douglas barrels that came in 44"). I only used 1 Douglas that came in 36" for a Hawken and I only cut off 1in. of it and it was a very accurate shooting gun. Good Luck AL

greybeard · « **Reply #3 on:** January 13, 2011, 05:20:37 AM »

I built a .45 + 15/16 + 36 back in the 70s. Was a tack driver.Bob

Buzzard · « **Reply #4 on:** January 13, 2011, 06:21:33 AM »

Mr Merrill X2

Dave Dolliver · « **Reply #5 on:** January 13, 2011, 06:40:41 AM »

Douglas barrels were made by piercing octagon stock from the muzzle end, As a result there was sometimes some imperfection at the muzzle end when starting the tool. Hence the reccommendation to cut off 2 inches,
Also there was often some run out during the piercing making the bore not concentric with the octagon at some points in the length. The bore was straightened but often the outside of the octagon was not. Looking at the breech end you could see any difference in wall thickness. I usually put the thicker wall on the bottom where I planned to cut the dovetails for the barrel lugs. They usually put their stampings on this side also.

Dave Dolliver

B Shipman · « **Reply #6 on:** January 13, 2011, 08:34:26 AM »

Dave and the others have it exactly right. Doug barrels were not even crowned. They were ment to shortened by about 2 in. for the above reasons. Can you get away without doing it. Sometimes. But I would not want to build a rifle based on luck. Dave is also describing what is called run out. Premium barrels today are made by drilling round stock and milling or grinding the exterior to the center. Douglas drilled a hole through an already formed octagon. And by the time you get to the other end, you're not exactly on center. This has nothing to do with accuracy.

FRJ · « **Reply #7 on:** January 13, 2011, 04:31:49 PM »

Thanks for the info guys. I think of shooting 8000 rounds thru this gun and kinda laugh. At my age if I get to shoot 2000 I'll be a happy man. Barrels been checked time and time again by myself and several good gunsmiths and the bore looks straight as an arrow.I've been waiting over 40 years to finish this Hawkens and am going for it. Wish me luck. Frank

frogwalking · « **Reply #8 on:** January 13, 2011, 04:51:13 PM »

I built a .32 caliber caplock rifle in 1973. The barrel is 42 inches long, so I must have cut a little off; but I do not remember the details. I just gave this rifle to my daughter. It shot well then, and still does, although probably less than 500 shots.

We used to think the "Douglas Supreme" was the top of the line.

Go ahead am make your rifle and it will be fine.

Don Getz · « **Reply #9 on:** January 13, 2011, 05:09:07 PM »

Frank.........that old Douglas barrel should be fine. I built my first gun using a Douglas. I did trim the muzzle end, but not much. I ended up with a 43" barrel, and it shot great. If I remember correctly, they had a calibre and twist stamped into
the muzzle end, which had to be trimmed off. I would check the breech end for run out, then place it either high or low,
which you can adjust for by the height of your sights.............Don

Longknife · « **Reply #10 on:** January 13, 2011, 06:47:39 PM »

All done on a machine with a deep hole bit. Cutting oil was forced down a hole in the bit that would keep the bit cool and force out the cuttings. Don't try it at home!!! I have a .32 cal. rifle built by Jim Turpin in '81 the douglas barrel was left 43 7/8 long, shoots great!!!...Ed

JCKelly · « **Reply #11 on:** January 13, 2011, 10:22:14 PM »

Douglas muzzle-loading barrels were made of AISI 12L14 steel, heavily cold drawn to the octagonal shape. They stopped advertising them about 1985, coincident with settling a case involving a (former) union pipefitter who lost most of a hand to one.

I realize no one cares about this, except for those who lost use of a hand.

Jim Kibler · « **Reply #12 on:** January 13, 2011, 11:30:06 PM »

Take a piece of cold rolled 12L14 notch it with a three cornered file and whack it a few times with a hammer. Your likely to be shocked. Very little plastic deformation (bend) before fracture. I experience this after making some parts from 12L14 and trying to bend them a touch afterwards. They bent very little, before they broke. Seeing material property data is one thing, but experiencing it first hand is another.

bgf · « **Reply #13 on:** January 13, 2011, 11:51:36 PM »

Quote from: Jim Kibler on January 13, 2011, 11:30:06 PM

Take a piece of cold rolled 12L14 notch it with a three cornered file and whack it a few times with a hammer. Your likely to be shocked. Very little plastic deformation (bend) before fracture. I experience this after making some parts from 12L14 and trying to bend them a touch afterwards. They bent very little, before they broke. Seeing material property data is one thing, but experiencing it first hand is another.

This is pretty much the same point many were making about using cold-rolled tubing for barrels. A soft iron or mild steel will bend and deform before it breaks, but hard steel will shatter "like glass" almost, with no warning of impending failure.

flintman-tx · « **Reply #14 on:** January 14, 2011, 01:28:15 AM »

I have owned a lot of Douglas barrels in calibers from .32 to.54. They all shot well. Good barrels in my opinion.

76 warlock · « **Reply #15 on:** January 14, 2011, 01:48:09 AM »

I remember back in the 80s then big discussions about the steel that barrels were made from, I don't think it was ever resolved. Buckskin Report I think and Muzzle blasts, the arguments went on for years. I have a 40 cal douglas barrel that I use alot, it is very accurate.

FRJ · « **Reply #16 on:** January 15, 2011, 02:13:31 AM »

Ron I like your idea!!! Just a subtle little comment like "gee I don't know what everyones complaining about, this Doug barrel hasn't blown up YET!!!!! Should get your competitors juices flowing. LOL Frank

Don Getz · « **Reply #17 on:** January 15, 2011, 05:52:18 AM »

Wow......since there are nearly 30,000 Getz barrels out there made of the same stuff, maybe I should get the word out
to as many owners as I can find to let people stand clear when we touch em' off...........what a bunch of bull____.....Don

Jim Kibler · « **Reply #18 on:** January 15, 2011, 05:57:31 AM »

Don,

Rember there is a big difference between hot rolled and cold rolled / drawn material. I assume barrel manufactures that use 12L14 today use hot rolled. Am I correct?

Jim

Don Getz · « **Reply #19 on:** January 15, 2011, 06:10:25 AM »

Jim......Nope, cold rolled. But, our manufacturing process is a lot different from what Douglas was doing. The thing that
got Douglas in trouble was the fact that when you cold form that piece of steel into an octagon blank, it can create cracks
in the outer shell. These were the problems that caused some of them to let go. Occassionally these cracks will appear
in a round blank also....rarely. But, in our process of making a barrel, they will show up when we turn the barrel on a
lathe to make the outside concentric with the bore. If there is a crack, which is really rare, you will hear it click....usually
would stop as we removed metal. If it did not, we would merely scrap it. Back to those Douglas barrels. They were
good shooting barrels in their time, and, I have a feeling that those bad incidents where some of them did come apart,
were operator error, just my opinion..............Don

Dphariss · « **Reply #20 on:** January 15, 2011, 09:44:48 AM »

Quote from: JCKelly on January 13, 2011, 10:22:14 PM

Douglas muzzle-loading barrels were made of AISI 12L14 steel, heavily cold drawn to the octagonal shape. They stopped advertising them about 1985, coincident with settling a case involving a (former) union pipefitter who lost most of a hand to one.

I realize no one cares about this, except for those who lost use of a hand.

The later production appeared to be annealed since they had a hard blue/black scale on them that was heck to get off.
Douglas should have known better.
I have a piece of 12L14 I have been thinking of doing the "punch test" on. Cutting a 1/2" section off the muzzle then driving a tapered punch into the bore then doing the same with one of the 4150 cut offs I have.

The pipe fitter was not alone.
I had a photo of a guy at a rendezvous who lost an entire hand to a fowler barrel that blew off at the wedding bands. But I did not pull it off the PM and it was lost when they changed the web site.

Dan

Don Getz · « **Reply #21 on:** January 15, 2011, 05:43:23 PM »

Jim Kibler......you mentioned notching and breaking some 12L14. Many years ago we did some blow-up testing of barrels.
We took a piece of a 12L14 barrel about a foot long, put a breech plug in each end.....created a bomb if you will, then
added a hole for fuse. Filled it with black powder and blew it. Guess what, it opened up just like a banana, but all of the
steel was there, no fragmenting. We did the same thing with a piece of barrel, foreign made.......blew it up and only found about 1/3 of it. It was truly a grenade, fragmented and flew everywhere. Crude form of testing but it was enought to satisfy my curiousity. Another thing we did. We occassionally make a 13/16" straight barrel in 50 calibre.
As you can tell, it had rather thin walls. Once again we did some crude testing. Made a breech plug with a hole for a
fuse, put 300 grains of FFF powder behind two patched balls and fired it.....several times. We had marks on the barrel
to measure with a mic, could find no difference in measurements, so I guess there was no "bulging". The only warning
we gave with these barrels was to be careful in cutting dovetails. After doing all of this, why would we want to change
barrel steels..............Don

Jim Kibler · « **Reply #22 on:** January 15, 2011, 06:02:29 PM »

I really don't have any strong feelings about the use of 12L14 in barrels. The reason I mentioned my experience with cold rolled 12L14 is that I was a little shocked at how it acted. I had machined and filed out some underlugs for a round barrel and needed to bend the area that contacts the barrel a touch to tighten up the radius for a tight fit. Well, I tried this on two and instead of bending, they just broke at the corner. I then played a little with the chunk of bar they came from by notching and hitting with a hammer etc. This is just an experience which I thought was interesting. To be clear, I've used a number of barrels made of 12L14 and will likely use more in the future. All the barells made of this material and the lack of problems cant be overlooked.

Roger B · « **Reply #23 on:** January 15, 2011, 06:41:01 PM »

I have shot Douglas barrels most of my life & have found them to generally be very accurate. Douglas did suggest that you remove about 2" from the muzzle end for best results, but I have a .54 that we left full length, & if it got any more accurate without that 2" I don't know how you could tell it. Mr Kelly has a good point. They were cold drawn & that did stress the steel. The lesson I take from that is to be nice to the barrel & don't ask it to do things it wasn't designed to do. No conical bullets, immense powder charges, etc. No really thin walled barrels in that design. You can make a mistake & rupture any barrel, though the ones of 21st century manufacture may be more forgiving. Then again, sometimes stuff just seems to happen. Its the cover charge you pay to play in any shooting game. The XX barrels were advertised as having no (read minimum) run out. That was the only difference betwen them & the other production barrels. We used to put the run out on bottom which built a little elevation into the rifle. Just don't put it anywhere but top or bottom.
Roger B.

Jack Hubbard · « **Reply #24 on:** January 15, 2011, 06:44:49 PM »

Jerry Cunningham did a few articles on barrels a few years back in Muzzleblasts......He did all sorts of things to barrels....I don't have them but I think it would answer alot of questions....I tend to agree with Don....

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Author Topic: Douglas Barrels (Read 15140 times)

FRJ

greybeard

Buzzard

Dave Dolliver

FRJ

flintman-tx

76 warlock

FRJ

Jack Hubbard