Brass barrels, what is the story?

[Ezra]

Good Christmas morning guys, and I hope you all have a blessed Christmas day.

I am curious regarding the origin and actual use of "brass" barrels on long guns historically.

Generally speaking:

Was brass used as a result of scarcity of wrought iron?

Does anyone know of circa 1730-1760 brass barrelled long guns?  Particularly fowlers?

Was the use of brass barrels in long guns particular to certain regions?

I know that nowadays naval bronze is used (at least that's what Ed Rayle uses), but did they actually use pure brass back in the day?

Yes, I am thinking of a semi-custom project, but need input.  Take care guys, and enjoy some time with family.


Ez
(Loren)

[James Wilson Everett]

Here is one, a musquetoon - sort of a cross between a blunderbuss and a fowling piece.  I made one of these once, a lot of fun to shoot, but not really very practical.

Jim

[jerrywh]

 I have never seen a original long rifle with a brass or a bronze barrel and doubt if there was one. I don't think there was a shortage of wrought iron in colonial days. Brass was probably rarer than wrought iron. There were some English pistols and maybe a few Blunderbusses with bronze barrels I am not sure but they probably weren't brass but bronze. Some of the cannons were bronze maybe all of them.  They could not cast steel in the 1700's and brass is soft and has less strength than bronze.
i  There were at least on set of pistols with barrels of packtong.   Packtong is a alloy similar to nickel silver.
 A brass barreled fowler sounds very scary to me. Fowler barrels are thin and brass is weak. Furthermore there are a lot of kinds of brass.

[Mark Elliott]

I know of only one long rifle with a brass barrel.   It is known as the Brass Barreled Rifle because no one else knows of another one.   I have seen and worked on a brass (?) barreled blunderbuss.   Although, it probably was not actually brass.    More than likely they were made of gun metal which is a type of bronze.   I have no way to tell if they are brass or bronze, or gun metal.   Gun metal is so called because it was use to cast cannon barrels.    I only assume that a sea service blunderbuss had a gun metal barrel just like the cannon on board.   

[Ky-Flinter]

There were apparently some brass barreled long guns.  One is the rifle shown in RCA Vol. 2, #103, and was owned for a time by Wallace Gusler.  Here are some links related to that gun, and historical documents that mention brass barreled guns.

http://www.flintriflesmith.com/Antiques/BrassBarrelRifle.htm

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=2149.0

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=21309.0

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=5553.0

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=2094.0

-Ron

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

This is really an interesting question.  Here are some engineering figures from materials as we know them today.  What brass/bronze was originally used - I don't know.

Wrought Iron Bar ASTM A189  (The original barrel material)
UTS  48,000 to 54,000 psi
YS    30,000 to 32,000 psi
Elongation  25%


12L14 leaded steel  ASTM A108  A29  (What we use today)
UTS  78,000 psi
YS    60,000 psi
Elongation  10%


Naval Brass Alloy 464  (Ezra says Ed Rayl uses this)
UTS 75,000 psi
YS   53,000 psi
Elongation 20%

[Eric Kettenburg]

As far as I can determine they were all simply cast around a mandril (steel or iron coated with clay) and made of plain yellow brass.  I believe any that were actively used were probably also prone to bursting at the slightest weak point or inclusion and very likely the reason you rarely see them used for rifle barrels would be the higher pressure/patched ball resistance would likely increase the chances of a rupture.  The BBR was ruptured at a point partway down the barrel and the Deschler rifle was cut off @ a foot ro so forward of the breech, leading me to believe it too ruptured.  The cast blunderbuss barrels and every cast pistol barrel I've seen has been a smoothbore and given the short lengths and smooth bores probably explains the higher survival rate.  That, and I assume a much more infrequent use.  I think constant use as in a rifle would probably lead to work hardening or increased level of brittleness.  I know I've seen at least one or two German pieces with brass barrels, probably more than one but I can't remember off the top of my head at the moment.

I've cast pistol barrels in brass and I've proofed them, but I've never and would never actually use one for a pistol because there's no way I'd want to absorb that level of liability.

[44-henry]

I suppose a cast tube could be bored out to accept a modern barrel liner, probably wouldn't be PC but would probably be fine for a pistol barrel.

[jerrywh]

 There is one other factor about brass. Brass age hardens. The older it gets the more brittle it gets. Age hardening can be excellerated with heat. Holding brass at a temp of from 500 to 700 for hours can harden it but there is a limit to how much it will harden.

[bob in the woods]

Some 20 plus years ago, Riley Smith made me a .50 cal rifle barrel from N.Bronze.  I used it for a # of years ..enough to actually wear the rifling .  I ended up selling it. It was a lot heavier than our usual steel barrels
If I recall correctly, rifling the barrel was a pain , the material being "sticky" , gumming up the cutter .

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

Here is a bronze barreled rifled pistol.  Seven grooves, 0.469 bore, 1-56 twist.  When rifling this barrel I only pulled the rifling machine a total of 14 times - two cuts per groove.  The groves are 0.015 deep.  No kidding!  Normally with a wrought iron barrel I pull the machine at least 700 times.  The bronze is CDA 936, very easy to machine.  This pistol is all hand made except for the trigger guard which I cold forged from a rifle trigger guard.

[

[Dphariss]

The 12 pound Napoleon, a Bronze Gun, had no failure rate during the Civil War.
It was though it was the heat transfer rate of the Bronze.
BRASS is not a good barrel material.

Dan

[Dphariss]

Guys,

Here is a bronze barreled rifled pistol.  Seven grooves, 0.469 bore, 1-56 twist.  When rifling this barrel I only pulled the rifling machine a total of 14 times - two cuts per groove.  The groves are 0.015 deep.  No kidding!  Normally with a wrought iron barrel I pull the machine at least 700 times.  The bronze is CDA 936, very easy to machine.  This pistol is all hand made except for the trigger guard which I cold forged from a rifle trigger guard.

Not all Bronzes are the same and some cut differently.
There are also differences in their suitability for gun barrels. Just like steels.
The yield numbers are meaningless if the material has poor resistance to internal pressure. Wrought Iron is not as strong as steel. However, while steel barrels were common on ML rifles from the 1840s onward and there were steels available by 1860 that were increasingly improved, "silver steel" for example that allowed Colt to build 44 caliber revolvers on a 36 frame,  the US military used skelp welded "best iron" barrels on the rifle muskets because it was safer than the steels available at the time in the relatively thin musket barrels. The 3" rifled field pieces of the era were also wrought iron. This was not a random decision since burst field pieces were a problem all through the war. When the Navy adopted higher performance ship board rifled artillery burst guns were a serious issue. A large cast gun, then the largest in the world, burst on the USS Princeton in 1844 killing the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of State. The Gov't spent years working on this problem and it was never fully solved until breechloader replaced the ML artillery with better quality steel barrels. I read a study on this and the attempts to correct it in a book printed by Congress post Civil War  as a printed report on the Conduct of the War. 
By the end of the decade of the 1860s steel making had again improved and factory made small arms, the better quality ones at least, began to use mild steel barrels. Largely due to the pressures involved with the new high capacity cartridge guns shooting long, heavy bullets and 70-100+ grains of powder.

Dan

[Captchee]

Schoharie 1/2 stock fowler

[Eric Kettenburg]

Now THAT is cool!  Do you have more pics of that?  Just the portions I can see sure look earlier than the 1800 attribution on the card and I wonder if it was originally full stocked and later cut-down when converted to percussion? 

[Mike Brooks]

Yep, looks more like 1750 or perhaps a bit earlier. 1/2 stocked much later.

[Eric Kettenburg]

Especially given the swell at the pipe.

[ddoyle]

I posted a link on here at one time to a document that detailed the alloy details and manufacturer process of bronze gun barrels. Interesting study. As with period iron/steel bronze was stressed BEFORE final reaming/rifling and produced a very robust and capable weapon. I.e a load of sufficient umphf was fired to create a desired amount of upset in the material. It was then finished and strength was greatly increased.

Pretty desirable material not likely in the realm of the common man.

[Captchee]

 These are the only other photos I have of this piece fellas . Sorry .
Im not even sure exactly where I got these  as they were on an old zip drive . So the could be from the museum of the fur trade ,  from Up at Cody or from the MOI . I also may have kept them after someone sent  them to me asking about a build
Honestly I just don’t remember .

[Mike Brooks]

You suppose that's a maple stock? I'm guessing that may be a New York gun. Struck me as English yesterday as I wasn't paying close attention, it doesn't now. Looks like a wood rib too, but I don't think it is original to the gun. Did you notice the card on the wall states the brass barrel makes it easier to quickly follow birds in flight?

[James Rogers]

The mountings are English styled. I would say they possibly came ready made. Looks to be a maple stock to me as well Mike so I assumed a New York piece also.

[rich pierce]

Those are pictures I took.  Consensus of discussion at the time was that it was a "British Style Fowler" probably made in the NY/ CT area and might be post-Revolutionary War.  Some speculated it was made as a half-stock, not converted. The rib is wood.  It does not have the fancy carving on the buttstock of some of the better British styled fowling pieces but would have been a good inclusion in the book on colonial fowlers. I'm glad to get new discussion on it and now see the swelling at the rear entry pipe is an early feature.  Might have been converted to halfstock etc in New England.  The rear sight is an interesting feature.

[Captchee]

 Yes i would say maple . not sure if its a york or not . seems to be alot of drop and a faily flat comb angle 
Im thinking the under rib is  wood . Zooming in I can see what appears to be wood grain .
 I also believe that it was probably cut down at one time.
Did you notice the ebony nose cap ?

 Im not sure how well the photos come cross at your end but if I zoom in at I see what appears to be a lesser Finnish to the barrel  from just below mid point . That leads me to believe that the bottom of the barrel wasn’t finished to the  degree of the area that was exposed  IE covered by the stock .
 On the other hand though , if you not the carving lines at the entry , if it was a full stock then  the original carved  boarder  would have bowed up just  forward of the entry about an inch.
 As to tracking on birds better . I think it would depend on how light  and balanced it is . If the build ended up being negative in the balance , thus butt heavy  do to the brass barrel , then ya I would think it would swing very well .
 That would also though depend on the bore . It doesn’t appear that the barrel is overly large . Judging by a guess  in comparison to the lock bolts , possibly 1 1/8 across the flats . So if that were true and it was of at least a common bore like .620. Then  it would be a very light barrel .
 All conjecture though . It does however appear that the brass held  well enough to have been converted to cap lock .

[Captchee]

Those are pictures I took.  Consensus of discussion at the time was that it was a "British Style Fowler" probably made in the NY/ CT area and might be post-Revolutionary War.  Some speculated it was made as a half-stock, not converted. The rib is wood.  It does not have the fancy carving on the buttstock of some of the better British styled fowling pieces but would have been a good inclusion in the book on colonial fowlers. I'm glad to get new discussion on it and now see the swelling at the rear entry pipe is an early feature.  Might have been converted to halfstock etc in New England.  The rear sight is an interesting feature.

Thank Rich
 as i said I wasn’t sure where i got the photos from . I was almost ready to say they were from the MOI based on the display board . i apologize for misconception of ownership of the documentation, ill add your name to the photos for future reference .
 would you happen to have any full views  or views of the right  side ?
I know its a display , but  did they let you handle it to document  ?
do you remember the bore size?
i sure would be interested in a link to you original discussion on the piece if possible

[rich pierce]

No worries brother; we are here to share!  There was nobody with the authority to let me handle the gun or even open the case to show the other side.  There were a lot of fascinating local guns there.

Here is a picture of part of the barrel included in a shot of a huge HVF




Looks like the barrel is bent; makes me wonder if this was intentional to sight it in.