Engineering persons, barrel makers & metallurgists please

[Goo]

Lets see if I can avoid getting kicked off the forum with this question.   As I understand it black powder barrels are made from low carbon steel.   As I understand metallurgy the reason low carbon steel is used is that it does not work harden over time becoming brittle increasing the risk of failure during the firing process.     
I have been reading about ferritic grade stainless steel steel 405, 409, 436 etc.  these steels can be work hardened but are not heat treatable.    I believe even low carbon steels 1018, 1024, etc can Not work harden.    The question is am I attempting to compare apples and oranges or do these two types of material share some qualities and practical application potential ? 

[Hungry Horse]

 I can’t figure out why unless you are planning on making a barrel from one of these non traditional materials you would need to know this. I’m sure if there was a superior material out there for muzzleloading barrels, someone would be making barrel from it.

  Hungry Horse

[Acer Saccharum]

Goo, you may do a search and find all the comments and opinions you can stand. Some are from members who really know their steels. But in the end, you'll still be scratching your head for a definitive answer. I don't believe there is one.

[Bob Roller]

I can’t figure out why unless you are planning on making a barrel from one of these non traditional materials you would need to know this. I’m sure if there was a superior material out there for muzzleloading barrels, someone would be making barrel from it.

  Hungry Horse

Jim McLemore in Hebron,Indiana makes his ML barrels out if 4150 Certified for gun barrels
like the 50 BMG.

Bob Roller

[Ky-Flinter]

.......  As I understand metallurgy the reason low carbon steel is used is that it does not work harden over time.
.......     
.......  I believe even low carbon steels 1018, 1024, etc can work harden.

Huh?  Now I'm confused.

-Ron

[Goo]

Goo, you may do a search and find all the comments and opinions you can stand. Some are from members who really know their steels. But in the end, you'll still be scratching your head for a definitive answer. I don't believe there is one.

You are probably right.    I don't have any desire to make a barrel out of 400 series stainless steel just wanted to see if there was some one out there with specific knowledge of that material.

[Goo]

.......  As I understand metallurgy the reason low carbon steel is used is that it does not work harden over time.
.......     
.......  I believe even low carbon steels 1018, 1024, etc can work harden.

Huh?  Now I'm confused.

-Ron

Sorry I meant to say can not work harden

[galudwig]

[Bob Roller]

Goo, you may do a search and find all the comments and opinions you can stand. Some are from members who really know their steels. But in the end, you'll still be scratching your head for a definitive answer. I don't believe there is one.

You are probably right.    I don't have any desire to make a barrel out of 400 series stainless steel just wanted to see if there was some one out there with specific knowledge of that material.

Bill Large made a number of musket barrels for Springfields,Enfields,Zouave and others
on request from 416 stainless. Not traditional but a good way to keep the "National Armory bright"
finish on the barrels.

Bob Roller

[WadePatton]

Yes, we have hashed out a lot of steel alloy discussions here.  If you'll find one or two of those you'll see who the metallurgists are.

[n stephenson]

Jack Garner has a rifle he built years ago with a stainless barrel. It is an octagon , round ball barrel. I don`t know who built the barrel , but it is from the 80s . We call it the "green gun" . It has a stunning piece of wood , but whatever he stained it with , it turned as green as jade!

[kudu]

Ok I agree with most other comments and will agree this subject is DEEP its be a while since college.

400 series stainless steels are Martensitic and ARE heat treatable contain more carbon and about 10% more chromium and 1%more manganese.

300 series  have high chromium18-30% and nickel 6-20% and have the highest corrosion resistance But are mostly NOT heat treatable BUT will work harden I.E. your drilling on you drill press with too many RPM and not enough Feed You see the slightest color change you Just work hardened your hole.

If you "Wikapedia" Martensitic or Austenitic they refer to crystiline structure. and it gets REAL deep telling about grain and molecule orientation.

Too Much for Me. I hope I didnt make any mistakes so Im shutting up Now.

Also a good quick study is the web site Penn Stainless Products

[Scota4570]

I can’t figure out why unless you are planning on making a barrel from one of these non traditional materials you would need to know this. I’m sure if there was a superior material out there for muzzleloading barrels, someone would be making barrel from it.

  Hungry Horse

Jim McLemore in Hebron,Indiana makes his ML barrels out if 4150 Certified for gun barrels
like the 50 BMG.

Bob Roller

Unfortunately he seems to have closed his doors.
http://www.sleepyhillbarrels.com/index.html

[tiswell]

Goo,
    This won't answer your metallurgical question, but at Dixon's I asked Jason of Rice Barrels if he would make a barrel out of 4140 steel. His answer was, it would take so long to cut deep round ball type rifling in that barrel that he would have to charge so much that you would think I was ripping you off.


                                                                                                                            Bill

[Bob Roller]

Goo,
    This won't answer your metallurgical question, but at Dixon's I asked Jason of Rice Barrels if he would make a barrel out of 4140 steel. His answer was, it would take so long to cut deep round ball type rifling in that barrel that he would have to charge so much that you would think I was ripping you off.


                                                                                                                            Bill

Those kind of barrels and other quality components are not intended as distressed market items.
I don't like being that blunt but there are those out there,who like car maker Abner Doble say,
"The best isn't good enough". These people are around but are the ones Paul Harvey called,
The Uncommon Man.

Bob Roller

[smart dog]

Hi Tiswell,
However, I believe Rice is making a thin walled smooth bore barrel from 4140 steel.

dave

[T*O*F]

I have a couple of 4140 Alex Henry LR barrels that he made.  They were $500 apiece.  He rifled them but had to send them to another machinist to profile them.

[Dennis Glazener]

Hi Tiswell,
However, I believe Rice is making a thin walled smooth bore barrel from 4140 steel.

dave

Yes he does, I have probably the first or one of the first in a 16 bore. I was going to build a fowler with it but probably will never get to it!
Dennis

[fahnenschmied]

For hundreds of years barrels were made from good old plain wrought iron, not steel at all.  Whatever alloys of mild steels you listed can and will work harden, as will wrought iron.  The lower the carbon, the more bending it can take before breaking, as a general rule.  Hardness is not required, toughness is.  There are many stainless steels that are tough and would certianly make suitable barrels.  However, personally I'd rather have a bronze barrel than any stainless one.

[Bob Roller]

I have a couple of 4140 Alex Henry LR barrels that he made.  They were $500 apiece.  He rifled them but had to send them to another machinist to profile them.

That class of rifle,the Alex Henry and other fine British thousand yard specials are certainly
not in the distressed market. Those two barrels and two of my "4 pin" locks would be $1600
and then the wood,sights,buttplate,cap box and whatever labor would be more. Bullet mould
as well isn't cheap.
I was in a discussion with another man on this forum about a man who still thinks that Anything
about a muzzle loader HAS to be cheap. My opinion was and is,this man grew up in a family that
never did really well with earning money and didn't use it wisely when they had a few dollars.
When I first came to WV the Backassward nature of the culture was appalling and stupidity was
 rampant. I recall Lucky Strike cigarettes going up TWO CENTS on the pack and the smokers
thought the world had come to an end.Ditto for gasoline.I had a 1937 Cadillac V12 when I was
20 and it cost $36.50 a YEAR to license it because WV had a 3 stage license system for cars and
the Cadillac was a heavy one.Several neighbors asked "How do you afford to license that car?
I told them it figured out to 10 cents a day(24 hour day) and it wasn't hard to do.They couldn't
figure it out so I let I drop.

Bob Roller

[Elnathan]

I can’t figure out why unless you are planning on making a barrel from one of these non traditional materials you would need to know this. I’m sure if there was a superior material out there for muzzleloading barrels, someone would be making barrel from it.

  Hungry Horse

Jim McLemore in Hebron,Indiana makes his ML barrels out if 4150 Certified for gun barrels
like the 50 BMG.

Bob Roller

Unfortunately he seems to have closed his doors.
http://www.sleepyhillbarrels.com/index.html

I spoke to Jim a couple months ago, and while he said he probably wasn't going to be taking any more orders, he is considering doing runs of ten or a dozen barrels or so and putting them up on his website for sale. If so, it'll likely be after his grass stops growing and it gets too cold to do the outside work he's been busy with.

[JCKelly]

Tigres are winning & there's an auction going for a Madison Mitchell hen Mallard decoy I want. So more later

Even plain low cardon steel has adequate strenght for a "properly loaded muzzleloader". All are not. When things go wrong it is  toughness that matters. Free machining steels, such as the ever-popular 12L14, have all the toughness of a good sharp cheese. If nothing goes wrong, OK But if the steel has a crack or the shootr makes certain common errors his body may be modified in an undesireable manner.

I would not suggest stainless, yes I know  modern guns are made of a special type of 416 stainless. lower in sulfur than most. But SOME modern handguns use plain old off-the shelf 416 and when times are hard they break in pieces.

Clean the rifle & use some decent low sulfur, especially low phosphorus, non-leaded steel. The Europeans do, not so here.

Only practical solution I know of is to get a Spanish or Italian made muzzle loading rifle, keep the barrel and throw away the rest of it. I have a partially finished Leman percussion in the basement, representative of such.

Got my first metallurgy lesson case-hardening frizzen on Miller Bedford cheap lock over a blacksmiths forge in Salisbury, Maryland. Graduated from Lehigh U. with a degree in metallurgy 1963. Worked a range of manufacturing & stainless research jobs, made a few muzzle loaders and was expert witness in a couple of gun lawsuits for their maimed shooters in the 1980's.

No one - NO ONE - likes to hear an engineer's view of the barrels made in USA, save those from Mr Roller's friend

Buy Spanish or Italian guns, keep the barrels, pitch the rest. Get some American hardware & lock, decent curly plank and go thou forth & enjoy. 

[Elnathan]

With due deference to Mr. Kelly, the US military standards for gun barrel steel do allow for 4150 resulfurized to .05-09%., and they expect it to perform to the same standards as non-resulfurized steel down to -40 degrees.  Since most 41-series gun barrel steels, including the stuff used by Rice, are resulfurized (presumably to the same degree, though info on that is hard to find), I think that is worth taking into consideration. That is a lot less sulfur than in 12L14, mind you.

Also, 8620 is has no extra sulfur, phosphorus, or lead, and there are a couple gun barrel makers who use or can use that steel if asked nicely, so I don't think that the situation is for US barrels is quite as dire as Mr Kelly portrays it. I do wish there were more options, though, for those of us who worry about such things.



http://mil-spec.tpub.com/MIL-B/MIL-B-11595E/MIL-B-11595E00003.htm

[JCKelly]

Just for fun (or not) you might maybe want to read my tonights comments on "Case hardening a 4140 breech".