Brass castings

[coopersdad]

I'm accumulating parts for future builds, and received some buttplates and  a triggerguard from a couple places.  I've read here that many brass castings now available are not real, soft yellow brass, but harder bronze, which is hard to file, won't bend well, and is the wrong color, especially as it ages. I used such a buttplate on a rifle once, and don't wish to again. 

 I think that's mostly what I received, but can that be determined from looking at them as received?   If I file on them to check, I get to keep them.  The photo below shows three buttplates and a trigger guard on the left.  The guard and plate on the right are castings I got from Jack Brooks several years ago, and I know those are proper brass.   

The second one from left looks closest to correct, although it looks a little off color.  The others are almost green in color, especially the plate and guard closest to each other. 

My inclination is to send them back and keep looking.  Any advice on evaluating these is appreciated!!

[Hungry Horse]

Mike, I think you are more likely to get yellow brass if you buy sand cast parts, instead of investment cast parts. Sand casting lends itself better to casting with yellow brass than casting investment. But there are no guarantees what you will actually get. Often the suppliers don’t know what their parts are cast from.

  Hungry Horse

[Hungry Horse]

I did make a great discovery while filing up some rifle furniture the other day. I was in my shop, and notice a peculiar little file I bought some years ago, that was designed to sharpen large fish hooks, for deep sea fishing. It is diamond shaped, with long flat angles, and safe knife like edges. This file, and a new chainsaw file made short work of knocking down the rough surface of the sand cast parts.

  Hungry Horse

[rich pierce]

Those all look good to me.

[Chowmi]

I have the same castings from Jack Brooks that you show on the right side of your picture. I seem to remember that he said they were good soft yellow brass. I have not used mine yet, but I have run a file over some of the casting sprees and they look pretty good to me. Smooth shiny yellow finish after a few strokes with a mill file.

Don't know about the others.

Norm.

[jerrywh]

Brass info.   For about the tenth time, whether brass is sand cast or investment cast has nothing to do with how flexible it is  or how hard it is.  Only the content of the metal determines that.  However being over heated or improper heating can result in what is called hydrogen embrittlement.  Most castings that cannot be annealed or bent are actually silicone Bronze. They are not brass.

[Dave B]

I had an experience with this very thing working on a Verner project.  I had almost completed the butt plate inlet and was going to tap in the last little gaps at the edges of the sides of the plate. The plate would not flow in with my tapping. I heated it to anneal the casting and it cracked all over the place. I ordered the same plate again and it was dead soft and worked perfectly. Same part number  same butt plate in sand cast form but very different brass. I suspect as Jerrry pointed out the first was probably a silica bronze. It about broke my heart to lift that butt plate out of the quench and see all those cracks.

[Goo]

[quote author=coopersdad link=topic=48343.msg478119#msg478119 date=1520265282

 I think that's mostly what I received, but can that be determined from looking at them as received?   If I file on them to check, I get to keep them. 


[/quote]


You can't file on the sprue or the gate to test the metal ?   That part gets cut off anyway don't see why anyone would mind that.

[Ccg747]

ok, so now we know about the brass and its elements, how about an address or phone number to contact the one who has the soft brass. lol.  This might make it easier for future builds for folks. 

Chris

[deepcreekdale]

The best castings are from Roeves Groening. His phone number has been posted hundreds of times on this site. He does not have an email or web presence. That having been said, once brass has been filed and polished, there isn't that much difference in color. I use what I can get if I don't cast my own. Brass is copper and zinc, bronze is copper and tin and looks nothing like brass, more like copper with a brown tint and it weathers to green. Does anybody think that in colonial times, they only used the purest most refined, perfectly blended brass? Back in the day, all brass was recycled door knobs, candlesticks, broken cookware or whatever with who knows what impurities included. Too many modern builders come to rifle building with a 21st century mindset of industrial standards and specifications. If your brass is shiny and bright yellow, it wouldn't look much like any antique rifle I have ever handled.

[coopersdad]

Dale, I've heard for years that Mr. Goehring has the very best castings.  So I decided I should try, and I called a couple months ago and the man who answered said Mr. Goehring was not there.  I said I was checking to see if he had some particular castings.  His reply was "I doubt it" but he asked which ones. I gave him the numbers and he said someone would get back to me.  I received a phone message from Mr. Goehring's daughter,  who said she was taking over sales from her dad, they didn't have what I was looking for, and had no idea when they may be available.  She sounded very pleasant, and it sounded like they were continuing the business, so hopefully they will keep it going. 

My frustration here is that I am at best an advanced beginner builder, with no one within hundreds of miles with the slightest interest in this, the closest suppliers or longfile shows to actually look at parts in person are a 3000+ mile round trip, so I rely heavily on this wonderful place and the incredibly generous people here for advice on doing things the correct way.  I read posts from those on this site whose work I greatly admire describe their builds as using "good soft yellow brass", as well as posts deriding the existence of the harder bronze castings as completely inappropriate, and I get the (surely mistaken) impression that only an uneducated noob would use them.  Mr. Pierce says all the parts in my photo look good to him, which tells me color and texture of a rough casting are not indicative of quality.   

I guess I didn't phrase my original question correctly.  If soft yellow brass and the harder bronze are equally appropriate, depending upon the builder's intentions (similar maybe to red maple vs sugar), is there a way to make an informed decision if the part received is acceptable?  For example, the triggerguard I got appears to have the correct form, but I'd like to bend it a bit closer to the stock between the bow and spur.  Is the only way to tell if it won't anneal and bend without breaking or cracking (like Dave B's buttplate) is try it, and if it breaks, keep buying them until one doesn't? 

[rich pierce]

The manganese bronze or whatever it is, is reddish not pure yellow. I anneal all brass castings except Goehribg’s before working on them.

I’m not even sure there are many of the offensive manganese bronze ones made anymore.

[jerrywh]

 Silicone Bronze is sort of silvery looking and much harder than yellow brass. Silicone bronxe will not anneal.   Yellow brass ,260 alloy,  is composed of about 30% zink and 70% copper. some of it has a slight amount of lead in it.  Cartridge brass is about the same as 260 alloy and makes good gun parts that are very flexible.  Bronze is an alloy of Copper and tin not zink. 

[deepcreekdale]

coopersdad, I see you live in Colorado so yes, you are pretty far from many of the shows and events where you can pick them yourself. As noted, Mr. Goehring's daughter has taken over the business, if I recall, they live in Pennsylvania so probably don't go west very often. The last time I spoke with him at Friendship, the foundry that he had used for years had closed and all he had were some VERY rough sand castings that he sold at ridiculously low prices because he was not happy with the quality. I understand they are back to their original excellent quality these days but I haven't seen any new ones for a while. He told me he only uses new brass (presumably 260 brass) for his castings which made them quite a bit more expensive than most although I think they are well worth it. Most other castings are made from scrap brass which can have impurities which can make it harder. If I recall, Jack Brooks made some castings for the students in his class out of empty brass casings. That is a little harder than new brass. Some castings are slightly harder to file than others, but that isn't much of a big deal in the scheme of rifle building
I would recommend doing what Rich Pierce says if you think it necessary, it probably is a very good idea. In over 35 years of building, I have bent both triggerguards and buttplates as needed and have never had an issue with breakage or cracking. just go slow and don't try to bend it too  many times. Brass will work harden quickly when bent so excess bending will become a problem.
As nice as Goehrings castings are, and as nice as they are to work, I still say the original gunbuilders of colonial times used whatever "brass like" metal they could get their hands on. So, if your brass is slightly harder, and not as quite bright yellow when new as you wished, I wouldn't sweat it. After all, any rifle that sees any use is quickly going to have a nice patina on all the brass anyway.

[Dennis Glazener]

I understand your situation. The only thing that I could suggest is to ask the supplier if his brass XX's can be bent. I would certainly would think he knows.

I have all my Gillespie TG and BP's (investment) cast by Master Craft and I have never had one that I would be scared to tell a customer that it can be bent and reasonable amount without breakage.

I can usually look at some of those so called brass items and tell you if it can be bent without breaking. They don't look the same as good brass parts do, problem is I can't explain to you what to look for.
Dennis

[Mtn Meek]

The link below might help with identification by color.

http://www.metalreference.com/Forms_Copper_Alloy.html

[coopersdad]

I'd like to thank everyone for their responses, I've learned a great deal.  I think that Mr. Glazener has hit what my issue really is. There is no secret formula or decoder ring I can get with enough box tops (showing my age here...).  He can tell by looking at a casting if it might break or not, but he can't tell me what to look for.  That information is from hard-won experience, like so many things we do.  You can talk all you want about it, but some things you just gotta do to figure it out.  And I appreciate Dale's advice to realize the builders we seek to emulate had to work with what they had so don't be so stinkin picky   

[Clark Badgett]

I work with bronze fairly frequently. It's truly nasty stuff. Most bronze I've ever had the misfortune of working is a decent amount harder to file than brass.

[Nate McKenzie]

Best true yellow brass castings.  http://knobmountainmuzzleloading.com/

[FlintFan]

Much of what Track sells now is yellow brass as well.  Apparently they started making their own molds a number of years ago so they could control what alloy their parts were made from.  Just make sure to ask when you buy to see if it is one of theirs or from another supplier who uses bronze. 

[moleeyes36]

Best true yellow brass castings.  http://knobmountainmuzzleloading.com/

Yes, Dave Keck supplies very nice castings, I only wish he had more styles available.  He's quick to respond, fairly priced for his products and services, and easy to contact and deal with. 

Mole Eyes