Hi,
I am so glad that folks are enjoying this. All I can say is that I have a real passion for British guns from this period but it is from the perspective of a gun maker. I want to know how they made the finest guns in the world so I can up my own gun making game. With respect to Wogdon, John O'Sullivan and Dewitt Bailey published their book "Robert Wogdon, Wogdon and Barton, John Barton: London Gunmakers 1764-1819" in 2019. It was published by Bonhams and is a deep dive into the biography, history, and work of that great gun making firm. Many of the details I am exploring are described in the book.
When discussing the barrels on Wogdon's pistols, the question "Did he bend his barrels?" always comes up. The answer is yes. O'Sullivan and Bailey provide indisputable radiography and instrument measurements proving it in their monograph about Robert Wogdon. I used much simpler tools to determine if the bores of my pistol barrels were curved. I turned a dowel to a diameter just slightly smaller than the bore of the barrels so it would slide in easily but with very little play. The dowel could only be inserted about 2/3s of the way into both barrels before binding. Then I compared the outside top and bottom profiles against a straight edge. The first photo shows the straight edge along the top of the barrel.
It touches most of the way and shows a fairly straight taper from the breech to the muzzle. Then I checked the bottom.
You can clearly see the space between the ruler and barrel and the barrel is strongly swamped downward at the breech. That was how Wogdon concealed the bend downward at the breech. He made the top profile either a straight taper or a gentle swamp while giving the unseen bottom a fairly substantial swamp that accommodates the bore bending downward toward the breech. As Seth mentioned in his video, the idea was to lower the point of impact of the bullet because of "muzzle flip", the tendency for the muzzle to rise during firing. While Wogdon's pistols were famous for accuracy, the barrel bending had nothing to do with it. It does not send the ball out with a downward arcing trajectory until gravity overcomes the force of propulsion as it eventually does for any bullet shot from a gun.
Keep in mind, these guys were not physicists and had very limited means to rigorously test ideas.
So my barrels appear to be bent. Moreover they are likely made of "watered" or "stub" iron. Stubs are the left over horseshoe nails that folks would collect off the roads and sell to iron mongers. The iron used to make nails had to be top notch or the nails could not be cut or used. So excellent iron was used and the barrel forgers believed the pounding of the nails on the roads and cobblestones made that iron more ductile. The stubs were bundled together within a hoop of iron and mixed with bits of steel. The assembly was heated red hot in the forge and hammered into a flat skelp. This made very strong barrels with beautiful patterns when browned. Here is an example from a fowler by Mortimer.
The Mortimer barrels are made from stubs but the initial flat skelps are cut into strips that are then twisted with other strips and welded together into flat skelps. Then those are spirally welded around a mandrel to form the tube. In the case of my pistol barrels, the stub iron is not twisted and they likely were lap welded longitudinally along the length of the tube. They probably had a beautiful marbled appearance from the browning when new.
The 40-bore (0.488 caliber) barrels are 8" long, 0.884" high and 0.892" wide at the breech. They taper to 0.684" high and 0.689" wide at the muzzle. They are fitted with 2 lugs for flat keys on the bottom each with loops 0.125" wide. The wide loops create a nice smooth and wide surface over which the keys slide. That provides smooth but firm pressure on the keys.
The barrels are of a style O'Sullivan and Bailey called "French" form. Wogdon used that style for most of his early production. The barrels are mostly tapered round but there is a top flat all the way to the muzzle and the first 2 inches of the barrel at the breech have slight octagon flats, which you can see here.
Later, Wogdon adopted fully swamped octagon barrels for his dueling pistols. The barrels are stamped with London Gunmaker Guild view and proof marks as well as Wogdon's mark. They are visible on the left oblique flat. After 1778, the marks were on the bottom of the barrel. Wogdon engraved his name and "LONDON" on the top flat along with a border of oval "rouletting" at the breech. Later, he would usually have a double row of more rounded rouletting engraved at the breech.
As you can see from the muzzle photo, the top flat was filed into a round turned barrel. It is not raised.
I made height and width measurements the full lengths of both barrels. Based on the irregularities in those measurements I am certain the barrel blanks were hand filed to form the taper. The turret lathe was still in the future. They were not obsessed with modern machinist precision with respect to minor deviations in the taper and evenness of the barrel. The front sight is mortised into the barrel and appears to be made of silver. It is not dovetailed and there is no windage adjustment. Again, that is an early feature.
The barrels are fitted with "false", "standing", "break off", "hook" breeches. Virtually all British guns of better quality at this time used standing breeches coupled with barrel keys. The tangs are beautifully engraved and the fit today must be as tight as it was in the 1770s when the pistols were made.
The standing breeches have the lugs on the bottom for cross pins that anchor the bottom. With the tang screw, the two points of anchoring provide rigidity to the breech so the hook can engage very firmly and not lift the breech up. To that end the slots in the breeches for the hooks are tapered toward the top so the hook on the barrel tightens into its slot when fully seated. They are as precise and snug today as they must have been 247 years ago. They also have rear sights fitted. The sights are not adjustable and feature a wide "U" notch. That was designed so the shooter could acquire a target picture quickly with sufficient accuracy at about 15 yards. The vent holes are bushed with some material that might be gold but I cannot tell. They are not the wide gold liners you see on high end British guns.
More to come.
dave
