Barrel special request

[smallpatch]

OK,

I've got a customer that is looking for a special barrel.

Don Getz, hope you read this as well.

Customer is trying to lighten up an existing gun.

Wants a 7/8" x 42", .54 cal barrel with round bottom rifling.

What do you think???  Do we know who can supply this??

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

A 7/8" barrel is .875 AF.  Minus a bore of .54 cal with .0125" rifling leaves barrel walls of .155 - just short of 5/32".  That would make me uncomfortable.  How'bout chu?

[Ezra]

I don't go below .200 wall thickness as a rule.  That could be overly conservative at the waist on a swamped barrel, but it has worked for me.


Ez

[B Shipman]

I wouln't sleep at night with that one.

[don getz]

Bill.....I would feel safer with this barrel than riding with you in that little BMW at 80 MPH........   As I stated many times before, you guys are all paranoid.  We have done barrels like this before, no problem, you just have to be careful when
cutting dovetails into it.  Do you remember telling about the 13/16" barrels in 50 cal.......they only had walls of about
.140.......300 grains of FFF, double balled didn't blow them up.   A 7/8" straight barrel in 54 cal. will have walls about
.155 thick......should be no problem, as long as you use a little discretion when building it and shooting it.  Many years ago
we made a copy of that Nicholas Hawk swivel breech.....we inherited all of the moulds and tooling to do them from Paris.
I made about a dozen of those units, complete with barrels.   The barrels on them were straight tapered.....800-.700.
Many of them were done in 50 cal.  There was a fellow out in Oklahoma,  his name is no longer in memory, but in talking
to him, he told me he shot 150 grains of FF out of it....I used to tell him he was crazy, but he insisted it was OK.  Never
heard anything about it blowing up.  Now, before you go asking about that swivel breech gun....many years ago we loaned all of that tooling to a "friend" out near Meadville, Pa., who had a small machine shop and was going to put the
units together, we would add the barrels to them, and eventually sell them.   Guess what....we never to one unit from him
and the tooling is, god knows where...never got it back...sorry.   Even if I had it, I would never do another one anyway...
Don

[Z. Buck]

granted, its just the muzzle on a barrel but look at the link to the gun in the "ziiffy" thread it looks pretty thin and although ive not handled many originals i have seen some that are almost paper thin, even rifled barrels, although i know the paper thin barrels on smoothies are more common, i dont doubt dons word on this, i wouldnt have a problem usin one, but i some people who would try to blow it up (and be able to) just because someone said they couldnt

[Dphariss]

A 7/8" barrel is .875 AF.  Minus a bore of .54 cal with .0125" rifling leaves barrel walls of .155 - just short of 5/32".  That would make me uncomfortable.  How'bout chu?

I would not do it. I have a GM barreled  7/8 x 50 cal and its nearly too thin at the breech for things like vent liners and such.
Rifle makers need to know when to tell people no.

Dan

[don getz]

While I disagree with Dan above, these barrels can be made, and they are safe to use, I can't really figure out why you
would want to use one.   While they might be lighter in weight, they are still straight, and therefore muzzle heavy...
maybe that's what you want, or maybe you want it that way because it is easier to inlet.  A barrel of this type is proper
for a late period gun, however, most late period guns are rather thin thru the butt, and would probably be uncomfortable
to shoot in a big calibre.  I still much prefer to build a gun with a swamped barrel...........Don

[Acer Saccharum]

Maybe they are safe when new, and properly built, but I like having wall thickness at the breech where I lay my punkin head. Thin walls will not hold a drum very well after time goes by, from the repeated impact of the hammer, to the removal(What?) for cleaning, over tightening, teflon tape kind of fits I have seen. Gives me the creeps on the firing line with one of these guns around.

You see all kinds of stuff out there, and I feel if I know a better way, it's my responsibility to build safely, and instruct others about safety. The last thing I want to to get the call that someone had a drum hit them in the head, a drum from one of my guns.

Thin walls aren't necessarily the culprit, but they can be a part of the problem. Poor machining, poor fitup of the lock to the drum; operator issues of overtightening the drum, etc, all contribute.

So if I want light, I go swamp.

[Daryl]

I can see a patent breech in a .50 on a 7/8", but even with a patent breech, not a .54.  I had a .45, with .028" rifling, that came out at .504" on the groove.  It had 3 threads holding the drum in. While it didn't 'go' I always worried about it & kept the breech portion of that barrel as a reminder.   A .50, with .016" round bottomed rifling, would be .53 at the bottom, giving .180" metal per side. A 1/16" dovertail drops that to .12" on the bottom of the dovetail.  A round bottomed .54, would have only .160" wall, and with a dovetail, .098" at the bottom of the dovetail.  No - I wouldn't do it, guess I'm paranoid too. I've always felt a .50 on a 7/8" as being the lower limit and then with moderate loads only.

 The English pistol pictoral book sold by Track is most interesting in that it gives the barrel dimensions of all or most of the pistols in the book.  It is well worth the modest price. Just be away, you may need to re-bind the book.  I put mine in a small 3 ring binder. There are a few that have swamped brass (bronze?) barrels that run only .013" to .016" at the waist.  It is interesting what you can get away with, if the loads are light enough. I suspect pistols such as these 'lighter' ones weren't used for heavy loads when 'buffalo' running with horses.

[Blackpowder Barbie]

While I disagree with Dan above, these barrels can be made, and they are safe to use, I can't really figure out why you would want to use one.  While they might be lighter in weight, they are still straight, and therefore muzzle heavy...Don

Okay guys, I've got to chime in here for a minute.  You've got a barrel maker such as Don who has been in the business for over 40 years.  Who not only puts his reputation on the line with each barrel, but his total financial well being to boot, as popular as law suits are these days.  And you guys are going to continue to argue the safety of it???  The barrel makers of today really have their necks stuck out there to begin with just making the barrels you guys use.  We should all be grateful that Don posts on this page with responses to safety questions and other things barrel related.  Personally if any of the known barrel makers out there today who mass produce them tells me they are okay with the barrels size's safety, then I'm going to take them at their word.  It is their ASS on the line here.  Not to say that I'm not concerned with my own safety, but the number of actual traditional muzzleloading accidents caused by equipment manfunction is extremely low.  Now if I pull a bone head maneuver and blow the thing up myself I only have myself to blame.  If we try to build guns that eliminate any possibility of someone doing something stupid on their own accord then we might as well buy those little wooden pop guns with the corks and strings attached and get rid of black powder all together.  If the barrel makers says it's safe I have to take his word, then educate my customer on their responsibilities as the owner. 
Now, all that being said, I have to also agree with Don in that he could build it, but why would you want it.  It will be muzzle heavy and not that fun to shoot, better to go with a swamped to eliminate so weight. 

[Acer Saccharum]

Barbie, it's not the BARREL burst issue at all. This is not a reflection on Don nor his barrel, nor anyone else's.




It is about the thread engagement of the drum to the barrel.



I have seen many drums which are poorly fitted, guys take them out for cleaning, screw them back in, take em back out after the next shoot, and the threads wear, get stretched, the drum goes past where it should. So you shim it, then tighten it up again, stretching those poor threads ever farther. Maybe just once, when you least expect it.......the drum goes like a bullet sideways.

If you're all by yourself you'll just thank your lucky stars that you weren't on the line with twenty other shooters.

Steel is plastic under load, and can be stretched quite a ways before failure. I have taken 'problem drums' out of guns to discover what was once a precise 60 degree thread is now 90 degrees on one side and 40 on the other. There is no way this thread will ever be strong again. It going to fail. As you deform the threads away from their 60 degree form, they also lose engagement diameter. It's simply a matter of time before the drum blows out.

The thinner the barrel wall, the sooner the threads will elongate and fail, because there are fewer of them to take the stress. This happens with the set screw type flint vent liners, where shooters take the vent out every time to clean the gun. Again, it's a combination of wear and deformation that lead to failure of the vent to stay in the barrel.

This is why the bolster style of perc is so much better, because the drum won't ever blow out of the barrel.

Acer

[smallpatch]

OK Guys,

I didn't mean to stir up a hornet's nest.

This is an existing gun, with a 45cal barrel.  The owner wants to lighten it up, without doing a lot of damage to the existing gun.

It is a flinter, (no drum problems).

I can go with a .50, but it only gains him about 7oz.

That's why I put the question out there.

This guy is a target shooter.  He doesn't like the way that straight barrel hangs.

Not my preference..... His.

If I had built the gun, it would have a swamped barrel.  Not a straight one.

I didn't.  But I'm trying to help him out.

I guess I just may have to say no.  Sell the gun, and I'll build you a proper one with a swamped barrel.

Don,  I love ya, I believe ya.  Sorry for all the flack.

[flehto]

My very accurate squirrel LR has a bbl  w/ the same dims. and cal. and lays in there nicely w/o undue effort. Perhaps a set of barbells would solve the problem?.....Fred

[don getz]

Now you guys have added another possible problem to the mix......I totally agree that the wall on either one of the examples I stated IS NOT thick enough to support a drum.  I can't recall anyone talking about making a percussion gun
with a barrel like this, and if anyone is stupid enough to do that and the drum should blow out from that barrel, I can't
see where that is a problem of the barrel.  One always thinks that common sense will prevail, however, maybe I was
wrong.  Might even be a lot of people out there that shouldn't even play with sharp sticks...........Don