Old Douglas Barrel is it safe?

[Martin S.]

I was thinking moose and elk.

Perhaps a Brant Selb rifle, but I am open to suggestions.

Not planning on Africa, so I'll keep the front sight.

[JCKelly]

Douglas heavily cold drew their 12L14 bar stock to get the octagonal shape. It was full of residual stresses, although if anything they were in a good direction.
One problem is that 12L14 has a tendency to crack when cold drawn. This is a problem with the nice, round bar stock currently available in that grade. Some of it will have surface cracks. The problem was greater with Douglas because their cold draw was much heavier.
The shooter who finally put Douglas out of this business was a left-handed union pipe fitter. I shook hands, sort of, with him. He was missing thumb, index & middle fingers, along with all the associated palm.Last I knew he was taking classes to be a welder, as he could not handle a wrench with those two remaining fingers.
I and a professor from Illinois looked at the pieces. He found small cracks by metallography, we both were deposed.
There was a lovely photo of a Douglas barrel proof-tested by Pa Keeler, in December 1972 Muzzle Blasts.
One conversation at Friendship, with a shooter who regarded me as the Enemy, left me mildly curious if Douglas actually stopped making such barrels in the 1980's. They stopped advertising them.
Personally, what shooting I do is Green Mountain 1137MOD barrels. I would have more faith in the toughness of a Rayl barrel.

Thank you for permitting me to comment here.

[Martin S.]

Thank you for your post.  I did not purchase the rifle, and it is still for sale on Track's site.

Happy Veteran's Day from a fellow vet.

[ole one shot]

Been using Douglas for over 30 years also and no problems....some of the best shooters........just bought another from Dixons a few weeks ago.

[Dean2]

Only have one in 32 calibre but it is straight, shoots great and has many thousand rounds through it over 35 years with no issues at all. I would definitely buy more if they came around.

[Dphariss]

Where Douglas got into trouble was cold drawing the barrels to octagon shape.  That process potentially caused micro cracks in the barrel that can grow over time and result in failure.
Mr. Kelly (if memory serves me) wrote a very erudite article on the dangers of using 12L14 in muzzleloader barrels and I am certain that his views on the subject were valid.  There really is no reason to use a 12L14 barrel when a similar unit made from better steel is available.  That being said, I own a number of old Douglas barrels and shoot them regularly without breaking out in a cold sweat.  I treat them with respect, and if one of them ever lets go, I'll bet that it will be because of operator error.  One way or the other, I will consider it my fault and no one else's.  I wish Douglas would get back into the ML barrel business using better steel, but I'm sure they won't.  What amazes me is that we don't read more contemporary accounts of blown barrels from the 1700-1800s when hand forged iron barrels were the technology of the day.  That brings up the question of which is really dangerous; 12L14 or skelp welded iron?
Roger B.

How its drawn is totally irrelevant, unless someone is looking for something they can say is a problem.  The stuff is not safe and the steel makers will tell the same thing. Brittle steels are not suitable for shock loading and gun barrels are shock loaded.



Dan

[nosrettap1958]

Been shooting Douglas for 40 years.  No problems and are shooters.  If you still have doubts PM me I'll give it a good home.

The testing previous as I heard the story was a guy and his attorney trying to litigate vs the Douglas people  and a third party evidently blew the whistle ending the suit.  Douglas decided it was not worth the hassle and closed the operation. 

I take it that there is more to this story of this lawsuit?

[Dave R]

I heard years ago from shooters that seemed to be in the know the guy used smokeless when it blew!! I have a 40 and a 32 Douglas that I have used since back in the 80's and never had any problem!! The 40 has been shot a LOT!!

[Bob Roller]

I heard years ago from shooters that seemed to be in the know the guy used smokeless when it blew!! I have a 40 and a 32 Douglas that I have used since back in the 80's and never had any problem!! The 40 has been shot a LOT!!

If you're talking about the barrel that badly injured the shooters hand, analysis showed NO
trace of smokeless powder. The metallurgist that testified in this case against the use of uncertified
steels for any kind of gun barrels is part of this forum.
Another thing that made Douglas decide to get out of muzzle loading was the persistent attitude that
anything made for a muzzle loader had to be dirt cheap no matter how fine it was.That same attitude
was what convinced me to export most of my locks and triggers to Germany where the bench craftsman
was and is appreciated.. I got the info about the barrels from a long time employee at Douglas.He also
told me that if he charged $10 to fit a breech plug there was all kinds of griping about that small charge.

Bob Roller





Bob Roller

[nosrettap1958]

Well we sure have a lot of opinions going back and forth on this court case. Being a court case there shouldn't be all of these opinions as all we have to do is look it up. I've tried to search for it on the internet but cannot find anything. Possibly a lawyer with a paid subscription to a law library website or would know how to navigate through public records could find it then we would know what happened with this specific barrel made by Douglas.

[Redbeard]

I grew up with a man that ran the crack tank at Douglas. He was my step fathers best friend. I saw a rack of octagon barrels and asked about them. He said they were left overs and described the incident. The owner had double loaded the gun and this caused the accident. Nothing wrong with the barrels but they stopped making and selling them.

[oldtravler61]

  Curious has anyone that is concerned used magniflux to check for cracks. The stuff comes in spray cans with the degreasser. It's a two part pocess. You spray the flux on an use the cleaner to remove. Most metal processing plants use it. If there is any stress cracks it will show. It will show any cracks in the steel no matter how fine. Just a thought we used it for years in our shop. Do believe it is not sold to the public. But could be mistaken. Do use it in a well ventilated place. Anyway a thought.

[Mike Brooks]

I grew up with a man that ran the crack tank at Douglas. He was my step fathers best friend. I saw a rack of octagon barrels and asked about them. He said they were left overs and described the incident. The owner had double loaded the gun and this caused the accident. Nothing wrong with the barrels but they stopped making and selling them.

What the heck is a crack tank? I think the closest one to me is probably down on 3rd street in Davenport.....

[TMerkley]

My guess the "Proof" room

[oldtravler61]

 Mike it is a tank filled with the liquid. You submerge the part in the tank. Remove clean an check with a backlight. There's more to it. But if there's any stress cracks in that metal it will show up. Nothing like the crack in your area....lol.   When I was in Q.A we used it a lot. Nasty stuff the fumes can kill yeah over time if your not careful.

[ClaudeH]

oldtraveler61,  I used to do that process at work and have long wished I could find where to obtain the materials for my own use.

If I remember the process correctly, we would spray the fittings we made with the red penetrant dye (it was very thin, tenacious and very red) then wash it off in a tank of lacquer thinner and spray it with a coating of some very fine white stuff in a rapidly evaporating carrier.  The part would look well painted in a soft matte white finish when it dried.  If there was any crack or etc. in the metal it would very quickly show itself as a brilliantly red blemish in that matte white coating.  If I have the process a little out of order, maybe the lacquer thinner was for washing off the white coating and we just wiped the red off with a rag?  One way or the other.

Working over that bathtub sized tub full of lacquer thinner was quite an experience!  I hated the job because I was absolutely certain it would kill me in short order.  We used no masks and little to nothing in the way of positive ventilation.  We had rubber gloves to keep the lacquer thinner off our skin but we would use a die grinder to grind out the surface cracks and the cuttings would shred the gloves so our hands were soaked in lacquer thinner every night.  God, I hated that job!  But I'd like to know where to buy the aerosol cans of dye and coating.

[Smoketown]

Most welding supply stores carry the aerosol dye penetrant kits.

Type II, Method C, Visible Solvent Removable Penetrant.

Keep in mind that only discontinuities that are open to the surface will show as an indication.

Sub-surface discontinuities are typically found with mag-particle, radiography or ultrasonic testing.


Cheers,
Smoketown

[oldtravler61]

Smoketown thanks for your input. I have used it on a couple rusty rifle barrels. Sprayed down the bores an outside with it. After the rust was removed. Then used a bore scope to check. Still nasty stuff.  Mineral sports is what we used to clean. Better than laquer thinner imo....oldtravler

[Eddie Southgate]

Have shot Douglas barrels for 50 years and never had any problems with them .  I still own several and intend to continue to do so . I don't know of anything you can't break .

  Eddie

[JCKelly]

One problem with 12L14 is when you cold draw it, occasionally you get cracks. Back in the 1980's I called Bethlehem Steel's research lab looking for toughness data on 12L14. This was shortly after I learned the rifles which I had made mostly used 12L14 barrels. Knew it was bad stuff but not how bad. Told the metallurgist at Bethlehem WHY I wanted this data, so as not to blind side him with his own information. Told him people made rifle barrels of 12L14. All I heard then from his end was laughter.
Oh.
He gave me the data, then told me the reason Bethlehem had this data. When the grade is cold drawn it can crack, which renders that bar scrap. Quite unprofitable. All machining bar is cold drawn to get that bar round enough to fit in the collet of an automatic screw machine.
Douglas barrels, or so I understand, were further cold drawn into the octagonal shape, so the flats needn't be machined from round bar.   
The law firm involved in the suit coincident with Douglas going out of that business was Kassly Bone & Whoever, Belleville, Illinois. I might have some paperwork on this in the basement. The lawsuit was settled, at least metallurgically I think, because the Professor (not me) involved found many small cracks in the barrel. I saw one piece of that barrel which someone found later, clearly there was  a long seam/crack in the barrel where it blew.

If the steel bar is not cracked, one can load the Devil out of a 12L14 barrel without it bursting. But those few barrels with cracks are likely to one day, and completely unpredictably, do something you don't want.

Y'all wanna send me an in-house email, with your real email, & I can send a pdf of the three-part article on this Muzzle Blasts was kind enough to publish in 1985. Or, just a short piece by the late Roy Keeler, December 1972, showing results of first shot with a particular barrel (no blood shed).

Oh, yeah, them there good ol' hand forged barrels. At Harpers Ferry up to 40% of them failed proof. See Harper’s Ferry and the New Technology, Merritt Roe Smith. This little .26 caliber, 15/16" barrel had a seam or crack near the breech, which someone years ago brazed together. Brass turns into green stuff when around sulfur long enough. No one was hurt. Maxine Moss lent me this one.

[Dphariss]

Where Douglas got into trouble was cold drawing the barrels to octagon shape.  That process potentially caused micro cracks in the barrel that can grow over time and result in failure.
Mr. Kelly (if memory serves me) wrote a very erudite article on the dangers of using 12L14 in muzzleloader barrels and I am certain that his views on the subject were valid.  There really is no reason to use a 12L14 barrel when a similar unit made from better steel is available.  That being said, I own a number of old Douglas barrels and shoot them regularly without breaking out in a cold sweat.  I treat them with respect, and if one of them ever lets go, I'll bet that it will be because of operator error.  One way or the other, I will consider it my fault and no one else's.  I wish Douglas would get back into the ML barrel business using better steel, but I'm sure they won't.  What amazes me is that we don't read more contemporary accounts of blown barrels from the 1700-1800s when hand forged iron barrels were the technology of the day.  That brings up the question of which is really dangerous; 12L14 or skelp welded iron?
Roger B.

A well welded iron barrel of quality iron is less likely to fail with injury than one of 12L14. Its being ductile its difficult to impossible to have a barrel shatter and send out chunks of frag and brittle steel barrels often do when the burst. All modern steels are specifically designed for their purpose. 12L14 is designed to be made into cheap hardware store quality screws on automatic screw machines. Not for barrels. The proper grade of 1010-1018 is superior to 12L14 for low pressure gun barrels. Its still possible, for example, to buy high end shotguns in England with Damascus barrels proved for smokeless powder. The best British machine made Damascus of the late 19th c was equal to the best "Whitworth steel" of the time. ALL  the Rifle Muskets made in America for the Civil War were skelp welded "best iron". These, from my reading, were proved with 280 gr of musket powder and a 500 gr Minie SPACED 2" off the powder.
My contention is that a ML barrel made of a gun barrel quality steel of the proper heat treat will not fail catastrophically even if double loaded. In any event a barrel should never fragment, brittle failure, with Black Powder as the propellant.
Now there WERE failures of welded barrels. Less in Europe than here since we had no proof laws.  Years ago in the old Buckskin Report a physician sent in an account of a man with a breech plug in the corner of a man's eye. He had come after some years of head aches after having a rifle burst. The plug had entered the corner to the eye and was hidden until  the doctor look closely and could see a piece of iron beside the eye. He was able to extract it without destruction of the eye. 

[Dphariss]

Have shot Douglas barrels for 50 years and never had any problems with them .  I still own several and intend to continue to do so . I don't know of anything you can't break .

  Eddie

ANY modern steel is REALLY strong (on paper) in relation to the pressure that BP will make with a RB. But the stated TENSILE strength of a steel has almost nothing to do with its ability to handle SHOCK and INTERNAL PRESSURE.  I have some Douglas barreled rifles that I shoot now and then if I don't think about it. A rifle and a pair of pistols.  But it gives me the creeps and I have a GM I am going to put on the rifle for shooting purposes.
Douglas? There were several failures but fortunately few injuries. The advent of the "maxi-ball" resulted in several mangled shooters but these SFAIK were not Douglas. But the injuries were gruesome and in at least one case were children. The increased pressure involved with the Maxi proved "too much".  The maker of the rifles claimed they added a "x-ray" or some such inspection to find "flaws" which to ME was an admission they were using cheap steel. We at the Buckskin Report were pretty sure they had done a complete steel change. The "events" ended in any rate and of course once the BS Report was gone there was no publication that would report it after the $#*! raised when the Douglas blowups were in MBs in the 1960s. I have heard of mutilations, a missing hand, due to a 12L14 fowler barrel breaking at the wedding bands (stress riser). So....  Then we have the grooves cut to form the rifling. STRESS risers. I will not buy a barrel not made of an UNLEADED steel. Back in the 1990s on of the then "custom" barrel makers got very nasty with me on the phone when I offered to send him 1137 to make me a couple of barrels from.  Why you might ask....  I would rather have a piece of hot rolled 1010  for a FL barrel than 12L14 even if annealed. Since annealing to remove the brittleness does nothing about the lead, phosphorus and sulfur inclusions. But 12L14 CUTS EASY. But if people in log cabins could cut wrought iron barrels with a file set in a piece of wood I would think that moderns could cut material that is not "free machining". Yes its harder on tools and leaves rougher cuts on the SURFACE when profiled.  So 41xx series steels (bsides being really hard to find in small lots, under say 50000 pounds or even more) is more work. 4150 barrels need to be lapped if cut rifled for example. AND. ML shooter are the cheapest people in the developed world especially when buying ML guns or gun parts and THIS drives what we are sold in castings, locks etc etc. Low cost gun parts have ALWAYS been low quality and the more complex the part the more likely it is to be low quality. As a friend jokingly told me in a phone conversation when I mentioned lock plate casting flaws "you bought a casting and did not buy a welder to go with it?"
AND why, if steel of unknown composition would make great barrels why did the Gov't stay with "best iron" for the rifle muskets?  Because the KNEW what iron was and how it would react. If we look at a copy of  "Colonial Frontier Guns" and the x-rays of dug up trade gun barrels and how poor the quality was.
I have a copy of a letter from LaSalle Steel that explains that NO leaded steel is suitable for barrels. 

I KNOW this is a scary subject. Trust me. It worries people. But people need the information so they can make judgements.
But there are people who post here that simply will not comment, or will not go to any lengths of the subject since they have been savaged for doing so. Or will send me info/ask questions in PMs or email so they don't get in hot water. ME? I am impervious and will post what I want, though through decorum I don't mention names, anymore. Which, I know from experience will result in even more determined attacks (facts irrelevant) and then the administrators will get in the act for my goring some sacred cow so its just more polite not to.

Dan

[Bob Roller]

Have shot Douglas barrels for 50 years and never had any problems with them .  I still own several and intend to continue to do so . I don't know of anything you can't break .

  Eddie

ANY modern steel is REALLY strong (on paper) in relation to the pressure that BP will make with a RB. But the stated TENSILE strength of a steel has almost nothing to do with its ability to handle SHOCK and INTERNAL PRESSURE.  I have some Douglas barreled rifles that I shoot now and then if I don't think about it. A rifle and a pair of pistols.  But it gives me the creeps and I have a GM I am going to put on the rifle for shooting purposes.
Douglas? There were several failures but fortunately few injuries. The advent of the "maxi-ball" resulted in several mangled shooters but these SFAIK were not Douglas. But the injuries were gruesome and in at least one case were children. The increased pressure involved with the Maxi proved "too much".  The maker of the rifles claimed they added a "x-ray" or some such inspection to find "flaws" which to ME was an admission they were using cheap steel. We at the Buckskin Report were pretty sure they had done a complete steel change. The "events" ended in any rate and of course once the BS Report was gone there was no publication that would report it after the $#*! raised when the Douglas blowups were in MBs in the 1960s. I have heard of mutilations, a missing hand, due to a 12L14 fowler barrel breaking at the wedding bands (stress riser). So....  Then we have the grooves cut to form the rifling. STRESS risers. I will not buy a barrel not made of an UNLEADED steel. Back in the 1990s on of the then "custom" barrel makers got very nasty with me on the phone when I offered to send him 1137 to make me a couple of barrels from.  Why you might ask....  I would rather have a piece of hot rolled 1010  for a FL barrel than 12L14 even if annealed. Since annealing to remove the brittleness does nothing about the lead, phosphorus and sulfur inclusions. But 12L14 CUTS EASY. But if people in log cabins could cut wrought iron barrels with a file set in a piece of wood I would think that moderns could cut material that is not "free machining". Yes its harder on tools and leaves rougher cuts on the SURFACE when profiled.  So 41xx series steels (bsides being really hard to find in small lots, under say 50000 pounds or even more) is more work. 4150 barrels need to be lapped if cut rifled for example. AND. ML shooter are the cheapest people in the developed world especially when buying ML guns or gun parts and THIS drives what we are sold in castings, locks etc etc. Low cost gun parts have ALWAYS been low quality and the more complex the part the more likely it is to be low quality. As a friend jokingly told me in a phone conversation when I mentioned lock plate casting flaws "you bought a casting and did not buy a welder to go with it?"
AND why, if steel of unknown composition would make great barrels why did the Gov't stay with "best iron" for the rifle muskets?  Because the KNEW what iron was and how it would react. If we look at a copy of  "Colonial Frontier Guns" and the x-rays of dug up trade gun barrels and how poor the quality was.
I have a copy of a letter from LaSalle Steel that explains that NO leaded steel is suitable for barrels. 

I KNOW this is a scary subject. Trust me. It worries people. But people need the information so they can make judgements.
But there are people who post here that simply will not comment, or will not go to any lengths of the subject since they have been savaged for doing so. Or will send me info/ask questions in PMs or email so they don't get in hot water. ME? I am impervious and will post what I want, though through decorum I don't mention names, anymore. Which, I know from experience will result in even more determined attacks (facts irrelevant) and then the administrators will get in the act for my goring some sacred cow so its just more polite not to.

Dan

I have made thousands of lock screws from 12L14 and if it wasn't for the heat generated by the cutting tool I
think it could be machined with a finger nail. Green Mountain using an adequate quality steel,1137 is good
enough for black powder if proper loading is observed like making sure the ball is ALL the way down on the powder.
Jim McLemore may be getting back into gun barrel making now that his wife of many years has passed away after
many years of illness. He uses 4150 CERTIFIED for gun barrels and sleeps well knowing that the muzzle loader
barrel he sent to a customer is made from material that can stand up to the abuse a machine gun gives it.
The "everything made for a muzzle loader must be cheap"has no place in his shop or mine either. We both agree
that "cheep" happens in a box of baby chickens and has no place in gun barrels.
It is a sad thing that when REAL sound advice is given then tradition dictates it MUST be countered with an argument.

Bob Roller