Author Topic: Barrels/barrel blanks from Blackley (Read 16051 times)

Rolf · « **on:** June 12, 2012, 06:57:16 PM »

I called Blackly(England) yesterday to ask a few question regarding the barrels and barrel blanks they sell.

http://www.blackleyandson.com/acatalog/Barrels.html

All the barrels/barrel blanks they have are made of CDS1 which is a seamless hydraulic tubing.
The steel used in this tubing is :

EN 10305-4 E355
Chemical composition
C Si Mn P S
0.22 0.55 1.60 0.025 0.015
Tensile RM strength min = 490, max = 630

This is what they have allways used for all their barrels, for more than 30 years.
They have had several barrels proofed by the Birmingham Gun Barrel Proof House, and never had a problem.
Here is a link to the Proof House: http://www.gunproof.com/Proofing/proofing.HTML

As far as I can see, these barrels should be safe. I would be interested in hearing other people views. I have the impression that most people on the ALR forum regard seamless hydraulic tubing as unsafe for barrels.

Best regards
Rolf

Acer Saccharum · « **Reply #1 on:** June 12, 2012, 07:07:41 PM »

Seamless tube, with my limited understanding, is welded tube, then drawn over mandrels to smooth the inside and outside. You can't see the seam, there fore it's seamless.

If the dog poops in the tall grass, it's still there, eve tho' you can't see it.

Did I say that? OMG, I should be ashamed of myself.

b bogart · « **Reply #2 on:** June 12, 2012, 07:16:56 PM »

At least you didn't step in it Tom

Rolf · « **Reply #3 on:** June 12, 2012, 07:33:02 PM »

Quote from: Acer Saccharum on June 12, 2012, 07:07:41 PM

Seamless tube, with my limited understanding, is welded tube, then drawn over mandrels to smooth the inside and outside. You can't see the seam, there fore it's seamless.

If the dog poops in the tall grass, it's still there, eve tho' you can't see it.

Did I say that? OMG, I should be ashamed of myself.

I understand your logic. But, that should also apply to all hand forged barrels. They are welded tubes. That was the way all the orignal barrels were made. Is there any reason to believe that old fashsion forge welding by hand is safer than modern welding technics and quality controll ?

Best regards
Rolf

Bob Roller · « **Reply #4 on:** June 12, 2012, 08:18:35 PM »

During the days of hand welded barrels and the dependence on them,there were not too many people around that dumped big powder charges into them like is done today. How many antique long rifles survive with original powder measures? The Modena Hawken in final form after rebarreling to 58 caliber had an adjustable spout flask with it and the maximum charge was 85 grains.
These new made "seamless"barrels are what,rifle or shotgun? IF they will stand sensible loads of black powder and show no leaks thru the weld seam,they might be OK.
My maternal grandfather hunted with a muzzle loader well into the 20th century and he always cautioned me about heavy powder charges and saw no need of them even for black bear.
If no measure was available,he laid a ball in the palm of his hand and poured powder over it until an inverted cone formed over it and that was his load. I have tried it and it worked well.
Getting all the powder into the muzzle was hard but a critter killing load was there using this method.
I almost forgot.I was at Friendship Friday and Saturday and it looked like a decent turn out was there. It was hot but not unbearable and when we left on Saturday afternoon,there was a good stream of traffic heading in on the old Friendship road from Route 50.

Bob Roller

Rolf · « **Reply #5 on:** June 12, 2012, 08:24:57 PM »

Quote from: Bob Roller on June 12, 2012, 08:18:35 PM

These new made "seamless"barrels are what,rifle or shotgun? IF they will stand sensible loads of black powder and show no leaks thru the weld seam,they might be OK.

Bob Roller

They are pistol barrels. Barrel blank of 1.1/8" / 28.6mm parallel diametre, length of 14" , bore size .625" . Smooth bore.

Best regards
Rolf

Robby · « **Reply #6 on:** June 12, 2012, 08:47:24 PM »

Rolf, Forge welded barrels did fail on occasion. Washington's officer in charge of the artillery, General Knox was missing fingers on one hand as a result of a barrel bursting while waterfowl hunting. Second hand, but someone once told me that a modern Williamsburg, forge welded barrel would blow a puff of smoke at a bad seam in the barrel, true or not, I cannot say. Seamless tubing is used on a lot of the long guns and pistols imported from India, And even some builders here use them in guns for sale.
Robby

Acer Saccharum · « **Reply #7 on:** June 12, 2012, 08:55:24 PM »

I would use my own judgement whether to use a tube barrel or not. My decision would be based on how much pressure is going to be developed. Pistols generally aren't loaded up like a rifle or fowler.

mark esterly · « **Reply #8 on:** June 13, 2012, 12:48:22 AM »

i work in a facility that makes pipe and tubing, seam welded in-line at hundreds of feet a minute. i would rather trust one or two workmen concentrating on getting the weld right on "one" four foot piece of barrel.

kutter · « **Reply #9 on:** June 13, 2012, 02:38:55 AM »

I recall reading here about using chromium-molybdenum (sp?) seemless tubing as a smoothbore liner in older bbls.
Aircraft tubing? is that the common name of it.
Can't find the older posts.

Probably has greater strength than the material listed in the OP,,I don't know, but I assume it's mfg'rd in the same manner by welding and forming.

I'd keep the loads light in any case.

davec2 · « **Reply #10 on:** June 13, 2012, 03:25:51 AM »

I would note that truly seamless tubing is made routinely and it has no seam anywhere. What Acer is referring to is called DOM (drawn over mandrel) tubing and is sold as such (i.e. "DOM Tubing"). Both are made in tubing and pipe sizes and a wide range of wall thicknesses. In the aerospace world I use seamless tubing all the time for applications up to 150,000 psi. It is available. It is inspected to very high standards and, depending on the alloy, would be as good a material for a barrel as any.

I am not sure what Blackly has but it can certainly be very high quality, true seamless tubing.

By the way, the manufacturing process for seamless tubing is quite interesting from the piercing mill process to final drawing to size and wall thickness. Look it up.

Dave C

Eric Kettenburg · « **Reply #11 on:** June 13, 2012, 04:29:40 AM »

I'll second that above. I have a good friend who used to work in a mill that made seamless stainless tubing for Sandvik. It began as big billet blocks, was heated near white hot and extruded into very accurately formed *entirely seamless* heavy wall tubing, no welding involved. It was annealed, stress relieved and designed to withstand unbelievable pressures. He made me a 46" long 1st issue Bess barrel out of it once (seriously - a stainless Bess barrel).

Unfortunately I never was able to find a synthetic Bess stock to go along with it.

dakota1647819 · « **Reply #12 on:** June 13, 2012, 05:24:23 AM »

When I hear seamless, well that what it is, seamless. When seamless boiler tubing is made, a hot piece of round stock is pierced
by a mandrel forming a tube with an OD and wall thickness with no seam. Whether or not this hydraulic tubing is correct for muzzle loading barrels , needs be throughly investigated, in my humble opinion.

Acer Saccharum · « **Reply #13 on:** June 13, 2012, 05:51:37 AM »

I didn't know about seamless drawn from billet. Cool beans.

Bob Roller · « **Reply #14 on:** June 13, 2012, 03:15:15 PM »

Acer,
I didn't know seamlees tubing was made that way either. That ranks right up there with shoving a watermelon thru a keyhole IMHO.
If this tubing can withstand 150.000 PSI it should be good for most any muzzle loading barrel IF a straight hole is available as made.
Bob Roller

Hungry Horse · « **Reply #15 on:** June 13, 2012, 05:05:02 PM »

In Pryor Mt. Bill Newton's shop manual on building trade guns from scratch, he says he uses chrome content, heavy wall, extruded tubing, to make his barrels.
For those of you that like making it all yourself, this is the manual for you (if its still in print). At one point in my life I felt I just had to know how the old gunsmiths made all those parts by hand. This manual, and the Foxfire 5 chapter on gun building the old way, were most informative.

Hungry Horse

bob in the woods · « **Reply #16 on:** June 13, 2012, 05:25:36 PM »

I'm not trying to cause a fuss here, but I recall reading somewhere that there is a difference in pressure in itself, and pressure curves etc ie shock etc. Stress cracking etc etc. I do know that static pressure is different from what one gets in a gun barrel.

Hungry Horse · « **Reply #17 on:** June 13, 2012, 05:45:43 PM »

Woody Bob;

You are so right. Pressure spikes can do some pretty bazaar things. I own an H&R trapdoor Springfield replica, that blew its trap open with a load of smokeless that was so mild you could see a new cast bullet going down range. The load was 11grns. of Unique behind a 405 grn. bullet. I couldn't figure it out, but an old reloader told me the problem was the that I didn't have any filler in the case to keep the powder back against the primer, where it could burn at its proper rate. That big old primer lit that itty bitty amount of powder off all at once creating a "Pressure Spike" which blew the trap open. Thank goodness it didn't have enough power left after popping the trap to kick the shell out of the trap.

Hungry Horse

Rolf · « **Reply #18 on:** June 13, 2012, 06:33:19 PM »

I got an email from Blackley today on how the CDS1 tubing is made. He told me I could quote him:

"The CDS is NOT a welded tube. Seamless is quite literally as it states, there is no seam/weld or otherwise.It is formed from a solid billet, heated then pierced and drawn cold. It is solid from start to finish.
You can certainly quote that as a post with confidence.
I may even join the loop if time permits!

My regards

Kevin"

bob in the woods · « **Reply #19 on:** June 13, 2012, 06:53:25 PM »

I forgot to mention- I'm not, and never was a fan of stainless steel barrels. I worked with industrial/process valves for many years, and what with pressure/temp / corrosion/embrittlement/etc etc all considered, I am much happier with normal steel barrels. I know that is contrary to most these days, but then......I prefer flintlock arms anyway

Blackley · « **Reply #20 on:** June 13, 2012, 07:20:39 PM »

Just out of interest, what material is used by the barrel manufacturers in the US?
I am sure the ref # is different but I guess the spec is of a similar composition.

Kevin

Ezra · « **Reply #21 on:** June 13, 2012, 07:59:32 PM »

Quote from: Blackley on June 13, 2012, 07:20:39 PM

Just out of interest, what material is used by the barrel manufacturers in the US?
I am sure the ref # is different but I guess the spec is of a similar composition.

Kevin

Kevin,

Welcome to our forum. Perhaps this thread will answer some of your questions.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=21944.0

Ez

Eric Smith · « **Reply #22 on:** June 13, 2012, 08:03:48 PM »

Welcome, Blackley!

davec2 · « **Reply #23 on:** June 13, 2012, 08:21:33 PM »

Hungry Horse,

What you experienced was a "detonation" of the small charge of Unique. Unique is a double base powder that contains both nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin and it can truly detonate, rather than burn, if the case conditions are not correct (i.e. small charge in a large case with no case fill. Normal burning rates for powders are measured in hundreds of feet per second. Detonation rates are on the order of 25,000 feet per second. This is the diference between a "propellant" and a "high explosive". You experienced an anomaly which cannot occur with black powder. Black powder cannot be made to detonate under any circumstances but double base smokeless powders can and do detonate. In a detonation, all bets are off as far as the pressures generated and the resulting effects on a barrel.

Blackley · « **Reply #24 on:** June 13, 2012, 08:23:33 PM »

Ez,
Thank you for the link, i will read with interest.
Incidentally I do not know if I have replied to you, or the topic?

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Author Topic: Barrels/barrel blanks from Blackley (Read 16051 times)

dakota1647819

Blackley

Blackley