Today's safe barrels?

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

"Learning is not compulsory.......... neither is survival!"
                W. Edwards Deming

[oldtravler61]

  Dr. Boone that just hits the nail on the head perfectly. Thanks Oldtravler

[bob in the woods]

We had a fellow show up at a muzzleloading match ; patched balls only,  and asked if he could shoot his inline.  Yes, OK , since we try to get newer shooters involved. His rifle was one of those rated OK to use with smokeless, and that is what he brought to use at the match.  He wasn't happy about having to use BP even though we gave him the powder.  The marketing of M.L. rifles for use with smokeless has confused and muddied the water for a lot of new to M.L. folks, and I'm surprised we don't see more accidents /barrel failures than we do.

[Bob Roller]

We had a fellow show up at a muzzleloading match ; patched balls only,  and asked if he could shoot his inline.  Yes, OK , since we try to get newer shooters involved. His rifle was one of those rated OK to use with smokeless, and that is what he brought to use at the match.  He wasn't happy about having to use BP even though we gave him the powder.  The marketing of M.L. rifles for use with smokeless has confused and muddied the water for a lot of new to M.L. folks, and I'm surprised we don't see more accidents /barrel failures than we do.

I think the NMLRA has a rule that says "NO SMOKELESS POWDER FOR ANY REASON".Back in the early days of the
muzzle loading revival there was a "Semi Smokeless" but I think it died with some of the powder mills like King's
in Ohio years ago. Farris had some in the early 1950's and I would imagine these cans are now collectors items.
What bob in the woods described is the root of a real threat. Suppose a newby shows up with a conventional,side
lock caplock rifle and an unnoticed can of Bullseye or 2400 and stokes up his rifle and then everyone finds out what
a shoulder fired pipe bomb is.Perhaps inspections are a good idea in light of the muzzle loader moving into the space
age.I recall an incident at Friendship years ago about a fellow shooting a "duplex"load in a bench gun. This consists
of a very small nitro powder  base charge and a much bigger charge of black powder. He was said to have gotten distracted
and reversed the ratios of powder and when the gun blew up Bill Large and I were standing near the main gate and felt the concussion
of that load going off. By Divine intervention,the shooter wasn't hurt and nobody else was but that mishap prompted the NO
Smokeless rule.Looking at the gun and the powder brought with it is the only way to eliminate these types of narrow escapes
and nobody should object to it.

Bob Roller

[TMerkley]

Since we are on this topic,
Anyone ever utilized a "used M2 50 cal" barrel and re-cut it for Muzzle loading?

[Daryl]

A .5 barrel's rifling twist of 15" is a mite fast for a ML, unless it is shooting 800gr. or heavier cast bullets.

Taylor's 24" twist .50, handles 600gr. to 1,000 meters just fine.

[Percy]

I talked to PacNor today. They make barrels for muzzleloaders like Savage with a very fast twist. They are also very limited to lengths and bores they can make. They do not install breech plugs or do the machining to install one. The only breech work they do is like you see on a Savage muzzleloader. They can make smoothbore barrels (bored round bar) that are 38" or less in length. Materials available are stainless or 4140 steel. He did say they do NOT have a problem getting 4140 material in small quantities. After talking to them I believe the 250 to 300 dollars for a 4140 contemporary muzzleloader barrel that was mentioned previously is very optimistic.

[rich pierce]

Those fast twist barrels may also have shallow grooves.

[Daryl]

Rich- they are likely not over .005" deep. However a phone could result in considerably more accurate 'guess' as to rifling depth.  I do not know what it is in the factory inlines.

[Daryl]

If a person wanted to build up a flint or percussion bullet gun - or say, an English style Creedmoor rifle, he'd could do a lot worse than choosing a Pac-Nor barrel.

[Bob Roller]

If a person wanted to build up a flint or percussion bullet gun - or say, an English style Creedmoor rifle, he'd could do a lot worse than choosing a Pac-Nor barrel.

Jim McLemore called Tuesday and said that the Rigby barrel project he's doing is working out and he is
making tooling to make integral Rigby flats. I have no idea about prices but that quality of work has
never been cheap nor should it be.He DOES use Gun Barrel Certified steel for these and all other barrels he
makes.
Bob Roller

[Joe S]

http://www.sleepyhillbarrels.com/index.html

Welcome to Sleepy Hill Barrels!

Attention

For the foreseeable future I will be taking a break from the black powder field.
I will not be taking or filling any muzzleloader barrel orders.

[Bob Roller]

http://www.sleepyhillbarrels.com/index.html

Welcome to Sleepy Hill Barrels!

Attention

For the foreseeable future I will be taking a break from the black powder field.
I will not be taking or filling any muzzleloader barrel orders.

I didn't see a date on this and it may not be current.

The phone# I use is 1-219-552-4050,

[Joe S]

I'll give him a call.  Thanks Bob.

[rtadams]

5-18-17

Bob Roller,

Do you know the AISI number plus any letter such as (L) etc. of the Gun Barrel Certified steel that Jim McLemore uses?

Best Regards,

Robert T Adams

[JBJ]

What a sad state of affairs. Like many (most?) of the members, I have used Douglas and Rice barrels over the years and fortunately have not experienced any issues. Having said that, the discussions in this thread have left me with qualms about handing over  a rifle built for my son and another for my grandson without replacing the barrels. I am willing to accept the risks for myself because of my experience and safety habits but I am not willing to pass that risk along to them. So who do I turn to for a pair of new barrels made with an acceptable grade of barrel steel with my existing breech plugs installed? Further, when you get along in years delivery time becomes an issue! As I said at the outset, a sad state of affairs.
J.B.

[Joe S]

Nothing will change unless we convince the barrel manufacturers that it is in their best interest to supply us with better barrel steels.  On our end, we need to expect higher prices.

Green Mountain can make good barrels at competitive prices, but there is a big difference between Green Mountain's capabilities and the small shops that supply our market.

[Daryl]

5-18-17

Bob Roller,

Do you know the AISI number plus any letter such as (L) etc. of the Gun Barrel Certified steel that Jim McLemore uses?

Best Regards,

Robert T Adams

Seems to me, Dphar noted it was 4150  here on the forum some time ago.

[JCKelly]

McLemore told me he used AISI 4150 steel a couple of years ago

[Mike Brooks]

What a sad state of affairs. Like many (most?) of the members, I have used Douglas and Rice barrels over the years and fortunately have not experienced any issues. Having said that, the discussions in this thread have left me with qualms about handing over  a rifle built for my son and another for my grandson without replacing the barrels. I am willing to accept the risks for myself because of my experience and safety habits but I am not willing to pass that risk along to them. So who do I turn to for a pair of new barrels made with an acceptable grade of barrel steel with my existing breech plugs installed? Further, when you get along in years delivery time becomes an issue! As I said at the outset, a sad state of affairs.
J.B.

I'm pretty happy with the way things are right now......

[wattlebuster]

I am with Mike on this. I load an shoot safely an have taught my 2 grandsons the same. Nobody has proved to me that my barrels are unsafe. I have been shooting these style guns for 40 yrs with zero problems an I sure aint gonna quit now because some metal expert says my barrels aint safe. If these barrels were blowing up like they say then the ambulance chasing lawyers would have a field day in the courts trying to get some money out of someone an then NO ONE would still be turning out barrels of 12L14 but im sure Rice an Burton an whomever will be at work making barrels next week. I can blow up any barrel no matter what its made of if I let stupidity take over

[Elnathan]

What a sad state of affairs. Like many (most?) of the members, I have used Douglas and Rice barrels over the years and fortunately have not experienced any issues. Having said that, the discussions in this thread have left me with qualms about handing over  a rifle built for my son and another for my grandson without replacing the barrels. I am willing to accept the risks for myself because of my experience and safety habits but I am not willing to pass that risk along to them. So who do I turn to for a pair of new barrels made with an acceptable grade of barrel steel with my existing breech plugs installed? Further, when you get along in years delivery time becomes an issue! As I said at the outset, a sad state of affairs.
J.B.

Rice, Oregon barrel company, Burton, Rayl, Hoyt, Green Mountain, McLemore, and Longhammock will all make barrels out steel-other-than 12L14. I haven't talked to Colerain , DeHaas, or Toenjes (sp?), but so far virtually every barrelmaker has expressed a willingness to use something else. The issue is that some of the alternatives may not be much of an improvement, and that most have limitations in what types of barrels they can make with those steels. And, yes, the wait time is an issue.

I'd encourage folks to ask around.

[rtadams]

5-20-17

Elnathan has stated: "Rice, Oregon barrel company, Burton, Rayl, Hoyt, Green Mountain, McLemore, and Longhammock will all make barrels out steel-other-than 12L14".

The question now becomes, what is the correct AISI steel to use for black powder muzzleloading barrels? Who or what agency determines the correct steel to use so that the novice muzzleloading builder or professional can be assured that every attempt has been made to use the best steel for the application. What should be the certification process to assure that the barrel maker is receiving the correct specified steel from the steel supplier/mill.

I could go on, but will end at this --- Just my thoughts!

Best Regards,

Robert T Adams

[Mike Brooks]

5-20-17

Elnathan has stated: "Rice, Oregon barrel company, Burton, Rayl, Hoyt, Green Mountain, McLemore, and Longhammock will all make barrels out steel-other-than 12L14".

The question now becomes, what is the correct AISI steel to use for black powder muzzleloading barrels? Who or what agency determines the correct steel to use so that the novice muzzleloading builder or professional can be assured that every attempt has been made to use the best steel for the application. What should be the certification process to assure that the barrel maker is receiving the correct specified steel from the steel supplier/mill.

I could go on, but will end at this --- Just my thoughts!

Best Regards,

Robert T Adams

I'm sure the 12L14 barrels currently being made would all pass the  black powder proof  in the proof house of current day  London.

[JCKelly]

There is no government agency that will do this for you.

You are on your own.

This is, quite literally, unbelievable for an American.
I could offer examples from my own experience in Europe and Asia but that is off the subject.

Nevertheless, please do not sue me, but I would suggest you might maybe consider using Aerospace Quality bar in either grade 8620 or grade 4130.

There are probably a number of warehouses that distribute aerospace quality material. Pretty decent quality metal, people generally don't want their planes to fall down.

One place I ran across is Benedict-Miller 
http://www.benedict-miller.com/content.cfm/AQ-Steel/4130-E4130-Alloy-Steel/category_id/102/page_id/114

In my personal, though rarely humble, opinion a muzzle loader barrel has more in common with a modern shotgun barrel than it does a modern rifle barrel.

And that is, both muzzle loaders and shotguns are liable to have bore obstructions. Shotguns with snow or mud from hunting. Muzzle loaders  because we all know that human beings, even those who claim to be knowledgeable, will now & again load with the ball off the powder. Maybe a little (which may double pressure), not uncommonly short started, and once with me just pressed into the muzzle (pistol, did no harm)

Ductility, ductility, ductility. The better modern shotgun barrels, I believe, are some version of 4130 or 4130 with vanadium for finer grain. My GUESS is such an alloy would not be quite up to handing the wear of modern rifle bullets.

4150 is great for machine guns where the rifling should survive thousands of high velocity copper jacketed bullets before wearing out. I'd sure it would be just fine for a muzzle loader but in my own opinion - all metallurgists have different opinions - it offers no technical advantage.

Ahh, but if the barrel maker has access to rifle barrel quality 4150 then it would make sense for him to go with it.

AVAILABILTY is also a material property. Yeah, that is my distributor (warehouse) experience speaking.

There is no organization that will do this for the muzzle loaders.

Are you guys really all so very young that you'd think it beneficial for some gov't agency to help?