How good were long rifles of first half of 18th c.?

[Pete G.]

But I'm not sure about carburization explanation. Wrought iron on the surface of barrel takes up carbon and becomes more brittle? What makes modern rifles more resistant to that? Maybe simple mechanical explanation would suffice - simple wear and tear?

Modern barrels are steel, not iron.

[vashu1]

But I'm not sure about carburization explanation. Wrought iron on the surface of barrel takes up carbon and becomes more brittle? What makes modern rifles more resistant to that? Maybe simple mechanical explanation would suffice - simple wear and tear?

Modern barrels are steel, not iron.

Yes. And in furnace steel can take up some additional carbon and turn into pig-iron. What makes wrought iron different when we talk about barrel material? Porosity because of remaining slag or is it softer or some other reason? I don't understand, what property of steel blocks the same process?

[Hungry Horse]

 I believe that the freshening rod was employed most often when the riflings had lost their sharp edges, and peak accuracy, not when the barrel was shot almost smooth. For general meat making this wasn't a great problem, but most guns back in the day got used for some sort of target use as well. Target shooting was a standard form of entertainment for country folks, even in my lifetime. There are stories of shooters at early NMLRA matches, at Friendship, freshening barrels before the next days matches.
 I have shot agains old iron barrels, and it is hard to outshoot a good sharp iron barrel. I have been told they are less affected by barrel harmonics.

                Hungry Horse

[Dphariss]

But I'm not sure about carburization explanation. Wrought iron on the surface of barrel takes up carbon and becomes more brittle? What makes modern rifles more resistant to that? Maybe simple mechanical explanation would suffice - simple wear and tear?

Modern barrels are steel, not iron.

Yes. And in furnace steel can take up some additional carbon and turn into pig-iron. What makes wrought iron different when we talk about barrel material? Porosity because of remaining slag or is it softer or some other reason? I don't understand, what property of steel blocks the same process?

Cast iron with is very high carbon content was the result of iron ore smelted with coal or charcoal. REMOVING the excess required its being melted in another furnace where it was not exposed to the gases and the carbon was burnt off far enough to make wrought iron. This was then cast into "pigs" as well.
Cast steel of the early 19th c was also made in this way but it had a higher carbon content than iron but far less than cast iron. Today steel with less than 10 points of carbon is considered iron more than 10 points is steel.
Modern steel making does not have the techological problems much of it is made using electricity so there is no carbon added by the fuel. I will say this, steel unless carefully alloyed and controlled is not a really good barrel material. I think the weight of barrels in barrels from about the second quarter of the 19th c onward was the result of three things.
1. Much better powder.
2. The use of steel as a barrel material.
3. The possible use of Picket bullets from circa 1830 onward.
Poorly alloyed and inspected steel (this would be ALL of it prior to modern times and especially before about 1860-70) makes poor gun barrels. I suspect that this is why "best iron" was used in Rifle Musket barrels rather than steel.
Steel is stronger but can also be more brittle and some alloys have poor resistance to internal pressure. Since the alloy was largely unknown. About the only thing they controlled was the carbon content, to some extent.
Iron, as used in barrels of the 18th and 19th c is very ductile and even when riddled with flaws stands up fairly well it would seem. But back in the day barrel failures were common. Either due to poor welds or bad iron.
One of the reasons that Damascus was superior was that with the forging and welding and in the case of barrels made from horse shoe nail stubs, it well refined and much of the slag etc was burnt or beaten out of it. If welded properly the barrel was better than a common iron barrel. This is why fake damascus barrel finishes were common on cheap shotguns.
By the late 19th c there was machine made Damascus that was fully equal to Whitworth steel.
Still some barrels failed. In steel or Damascus  barrels this is generally a brittle type fracture.  Again unknown alloys. Still the pressures are so low and steel so strong that it should be impossible for a barrel to fail but they did. So it has to be workmanship or material related.
Improper loading should not do more than bulge a sound barrel made of proper materials and ML pressures. Even bulleted guns such as used in LR shooting with high pressure loadings (relative to RB or shotgun loads, only ring barrels when the bullet slides away from the powder. Or so I have been told and read. However, the bulleted MLs most often used for this are Italian copies of the Gibbs and these have modern barrel steel alloy barrels.

Why do steel barrels last longer? They are harder and more wear resistant. The material is not changed so much by contact with the hot, carbon rich gases and today we have much better rust preventatives than in the 18th and 19th c. Also the powder is much better and less is far less  hygroscopic than powders made with saltpeter of questionably quality.
Then we have the frontier situation where until well into the 19th c even in some areas of the east firing a gun could bring someone around to KILL YOU. This was true in the west for far longer. So it was not a good idea to shoot then carefully wash out the barrel with water. Then dry the barrel carefully, then reload. Better wipe it a little with tallow and reload it. A pristine bore is of little use to a dead man.
So today with more wear resistant barrel material, better powder, better cleaning, barrels with lands and grooves that clean easier and better rust preventatives...... Barrels last longer.

For example: I can't see these barrels being easy to clean.


The second is from from a US "Common Rifle" the first from a Leman marked "Connestoga Rifle Works".

Dan

[jerrywh]

 lot of the durability depended on the owner of the gun.  How well he cleaned it had more to do with the life of the barrel than the maker did in my opinion.  Same as today. As now there were cheap guns and good ones  also.  Like Dan Says , your question as asked cannot be answered correctly.  If lewis or Clark needed thier barrel refreshed within a year or so I don't think they cleaned it very well.

[vashu1]

In the book "The gun and its development" by W.W. Greener at page 229 - author takes his time to note that iron is purified by puddling. And puddling came into widespread use in the middle of 18th c.

I've met some people saying that puddling was the key technology that allowed producing iron that was good enough for rifles. But I find it very dibuous cause I don't see why iron couldn't be refined by usual forgery. After all, iron wire was made hundreds of years befor invention of puddling and it's obvious that iron shoud be very uniform to allow making of wire.

Does anybody know anything about importance of puddling technology for barrels making? I wonder when they started to use it in America.

[Artificer]

Then we have the frontier situation where until well into the 19th c even in some areas of the east firing a gun could bring someone around to KILL YOU. This was true in the west for far longer. So it was not a good idea to shoot then carefully wash out the barrel with water. Then dry the barrel carefully, then reload. Better wipe it a little with tallow and reload it. A pristine bore is of little use to a dead man.
Dan

Great Point,

We tend to not think about the fact that Longhunters and Traders had to contend with threats from BOTH Native Americans AND even some other European Traders, who did not mind making a better profit by stealing deer hides or furs or even killing the original owners to obtain them.  The American Frontier, in both the 18th and 19th centuries, attracted low life murdering scum along with the good people.
Gus

[Artificer]

When talking about steel in general and even about steel rifle/gun barrels, we often talk about “soft” spots in the barrels, especially when chamber reaming them.  The problem with describing barrel steels as “hard” or “soft” is it gives the wrong impression about the metal itself.  IF Barrel steel was indeed “hard,” then it would crack or shatter when exposed to the pressure of even Black Powder pressures. 

Very early in my career, it was pointed out to me that Barrel Steel should be described as how “Tough” it is, rather than how “hard or soft” it is.  This is due to the nature of the alloys used and how uniformly the alloys are blended AND impurities that weaken barrel steel are kept out of the steel or at best to a minimum, where they don’t materially weaken the steel.

Prior to the use of Stainless Steel coming to the forefront for barrel steels in the 70’s and especially the 80’s, hardly anyone commented on what modern barrel steel is made from.  After SS became more common, THEN the description of “CM” or “Chrome Moly” began to be commonly used to describe modern barrel steels that can be “blued.”.  Chrome Moly steels are those which are strengthened (or made “tougher”) by adding chromium and molybdenum.  Barrel steels had been made of this kind of alloy for years, but it was not commonly described that way before that time. 

What is probably the primary danger in barrel steel comes from too many or too much inclusions or impurities in the base metal or alloy.  We found this out when we actually had one barrel “Blow UP” in a REAL USGI National Match M14 rifle on The Marine Corps Rifle Team in 1975.  The barrel opened up like a peeled banana on both ends and tore the top of the barrel ring out of the receiver and the receiver heel was torn off the back end of the receiver as well.  There was a LOT more damage to the receiver and other parts.  FORTUNATELY, the shooter was wearing GOOD safety glasses, so he was not blinded by the pieces of steel that stuck in the lenses.  He did get some lacerations in his face and supporting hand and arm, but nothing that was life threatening or permanent.  Thank God. 

Since the failure had caused personal injury and because it caused grave concerns about our other rifles, all the pieces of what had been a rifle and cartridge case were sent to H.P. White Laboratory for testing.  Needless to say, there were rumours of bad ammo, improper chamber reaming, something blocking the interior of the barrel, etc., etc. When the report came back, the catastrophic failure of the barrel was caused by the WRONG steel being used to manufacture the barrel and the steel had a high content of “sulphur stringers” in it that caused the barrel to fail.  As it turned out, the barrel maker had paid good money for the correct certified barrel steel, BUT the supplier had sent the WRONG steel that was far inferior.  Once we read the report, we pulled EVERY barrel that had been received from that barrel maker in the previous few months and we never again had the problem of catastrophic failure in a rifle barrel. 
 
Now, bringing this back to ML Iron Barrels, IF there were too many inclusions in the Iron, then it would cause the barrel steel to bulge or even crack/split/burst when the gun was fired.  During the period, just like today, a barrel could have burst if snow or mud was allowed to clog the barrel after loading and before it was fired.  However, there is just enough documentation about poor quality barrels “bursting” that it probably came from Iron that wasn’t refined enough and had too many slag inclusions in it.

Gus

[Dphariss]

First Vashu1 might read "The Gun" by W. Greener (W.W. Greener's father) about how barrels were made and what was thought to make the best iron for this.

Gus
Be careful about mentioning brittle steels or inclusions in gun barrels. Its something of a third rail with many here for reasons decorum prevents me from mentioning, again.

Dan

[sloe bear]

 as you all know the powder back when may not have been as good as we have today, just different brands give different results, and also require different depths of cleaning. It is entirely possible that the "freshening of the rifle was just scrapping out the fouling and running a stiff brass brush through it and scrubbing out the bore. we have all experienced a dirty rifle that won't load anymore and we have to stop and give it a darn good cleaning. It's my thought that was what was done in this freshening in the field. just my thoughts.

[Canute Rex]

I remember reading about an incident at Mt. Independence during the Rev War. The commander of a company lined up 100 men to fire off their pieces with ball to make sure that all of them were working properly. Three had their barrels blow up.

These were probably not the highest quality or best maintained firearms of the time, but still, it's a worrying rate of failure.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

"we have all experienced a dirty rifle that won't load anymore and we have to stop and give it a darn good cleaning."

I don't know what you're talking about...never experienced this in 45 years of shooting black powder.

[Dan'l 1946]

Ditto what Taylor said.
                               Dan

[D. Bowman]

30 plus years of shooting and X3 what Taylor and Dan said

[Artificer]

I remember reading about an incident at Mt. Independence during the Rev War. The commander of a company lined up 100 men to fire off their pieces with ball to make sure that all of them were working properly. Three had their barrels blow up.

These were probably not the highest quality or best maintained firearms of the time, but still, it's a worrying rate of failure.

Rex,

I have been wondering if this was an American Company or a British Company?  I may be incorrectly assuming it was an American Company?  Also, do you remember if the account states what Company it was, where they were from and/or whose Command they belonged to? 

If it was an American Company and could be identified, we might be able to find out if their guns were issued to them out of Colonial Stores, issued from a purchase from a civilian source or if they were privately owned guns. 
If the guns had been issued from old colonial stores, is it possible someone screwed up and issued guns that were damaged and not yet repaired?

You are correct three barrel failures out of 100 is a worrying rate of failure.  What I am wondering about is even though Full Company Strength at the time was supposed to be 100 soldiers, in the British and American Armies of the day, they often only numbered around 70 to 85 soldiers in Peace Time and sometimes less than that.   So maybe the Company Strength was less than 100 soldiers and that would be a higher rate of barrel failure.

I am also wondering if these were Americans and were inexperienced Militia, that they MAY have put their Tompions back in the muzzles before they fired or somehow blocked the muzzles with mud or something else?   

Gus

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

In response to the question raised by vashu1 about puddled iron.  Prior to the advent of puddled iron, the product was charcoal iron (both forms of wrought iron).  The charcoal iron was made directly from the iron ore and was highly dependent upon the skill of the worker to obtain good quality.  By good quality I mean nearly zero carbon content.  Sometimes a poorly done batch of charcoal iron would have a significant carbon content, making it unsuitable for a gun barrel.  In contrast, puddled iron was made in a two step process; 1. iron ore to pig iron, then 2. pig iron to wrought iron.  This process was not as much operator dependent for the low carbon content, you only very rarely would find puddled iron with any significant remaining carbon.  A drawback to puddled iron is that it tended to have a higher slag content than charcoal iron, about 3% by weight.  Refining the puddled iron did not reduce this percentage of slag, but it did make the slag threads much thinner and more numerous.

I surmise this: If the puddle furnace operator is highly skilled, he could carefully make a very good, pure batch of wrought iron with good control of impurities and slag.  However, such work would sharply decrease the pounds per hour production rate, so the foreman is not pleased.  Really, things have not changed much: a good job and a fast job don't have a lot in common with each other.

Jim

[hanshi]

30 plus years of shooting and X3 what Taylor and Dan said

Make it x4.

[Artificer]

I surmise this: If the puddle furnace operator is highly skilled, he could carefully make a very good, pure batch of wrought iron with good control of impurities and slag.  However, such work would sharply decrease the pounds per hour production rate, so the foreman is not pleased.  Really, things have not changed much: a good job and a fast job don't have a lot in common with each other.

Jim

James,

So is it proper to say that puddled iron wound up giving better gun barrels AS LONG AS the barrel skelps were correctly welded?  I have often wondered if the quality of the barrel welding, either straight seam or wound skelp method, was more important than which type of Iron was used?  IOW, even the best iron could allow a burst barrel if not properly welded.  I don't know for sure, but I  get the idea that many or most barrel bursting failures was caused by improper welding, when not caused by an obstruction in the barrel or other improper loading or lack of maintenance?

Gus

[Canute Rex]

Artificer, I remember it being an American group. I would imagine that the firearms were catch as catch can; some issued from stores, some brought from home, and some new made. The level of both quality and maintenance probably varied widely.

Wrought iron, being a manufactured product (whether charcoal or puddled) relied not only on skill, but perseverance. Some iron was single refined and some was double or triple refined. The process was one of folding and welding. The more cycles of fold and weld the smaller the silicate fibers, the lower the silicate (slag) content, and the stronger the material. The reason that barrel makers liked nails as a source of iron was a result of nail diameter. A small diameter object like a nail needed highly refined iron to hold together. In contrast, something like a 2" square bridge part could be single refined and hold together. Refining involved labor, charcoal, and material loss, so there was always temptation to make do with the lesser material.

Every weld is a possible flaw, but.... Every piece of wrought iron is like a piece of straight grained wood, with the grain running down its length. The spiral wrapped twisted skelp method of barrel making put the fibers in wrought iron more in tension along their length and less in tension across the fiber/iron boundaries. Wrought iron likes to split down its length, so this was an improvement over a single piece of iron wrapped around a mandrel lengthwise with a single weld seam. It was a question of either trusting the material or one's own welding skill.

[jerrywh]

 Let me refrase the question like this.  How long does it take to rub .010 off of a piece of wrought iron with a greasy rag?

[Dphariss]

Let me refrase the question like this.  How long does it take to rub .010 off of a piece of wrought iron with a greasy rag?

Its not the greasy rag that does the wear. Its the high temp, high carbon, high pressure gas. Plus the fact that the ball does not seal the bore.
Then there is corrosion from use. As I pointed out guns used on the frontier did not always get cleaned as they should for security reasons.
We have no idea how long Clarks "Small rifle" was used before it required work

April 7, 1806 ..."The day has been fair and weather exceedingly pleasent.    we made our men exersise themselves in Shooting and regulateing their guns, found Several of them that had their Sights moved by accident, and others that wanted Some little alterations all which were compleated rectified in the Course of the day except my Small rifle, which I found wanted Cutting out. "...
April 8, 1806 ..."John Shields Cut out my Small rifle & brought hir to Shoot very well.    the party ows much to the injenuity of this man, by whome their guns are repared when they get out of order which is very often."...

So Shields cut it out sometime between probably mid-day on the 7th to a time on the 8th that still left time to test fire the rifle.
This was probably facilitated by their not traveling due to very high winds.

Dan

[Dphariss]

"Cutting out" for those here who might not understand the process requires a rod, some lead, a file or two and a piece of steel that can be hardened to make a cutter. Some paper for shims is also nice.
The rod is put in the bore with some notches etc and lead poured in to give a long cast of the rifling. The lead is then removed and a cutter installed in the lead to match the grooves it is then shimmed with paper to bring it to a level that will allow it to cut. When the grooves are cut to a uniform depth end to end a cutter is then put in the lands part of the lead and these are cut to a uniform them. Lard makes a good lubricant for the cutter.
This makes the bore uniform again so its not over sized at the breech. Being excessively oversized at the breech will cause accuracy problems, blown patches etc.
Some rifles might become so corroded or damaged at the breech that barrel might be cut off several inches and rebreeched. Of if the breech thread diameter is near the bore size a new breechplug may be needed.

Dan

[jerrywh]

 Dan.
  Do we know how worn lewis's gun was when he left on the expidition?
 A couple of the guns on the expidition blew up. According to the journals they failed at or near the muzzle indicating that they might have had an obstruction. They were sawed off and continued to be used.
 There are a lot of three hundred year old guns existing today with very good original bores also. I suspect care has more to do with it than anything else. Were there any other guns on the expo that needed such repairs? I never heard of them. One example doesn't make a good case.