William Bailes double barrel replica

[Hank01]

First off, greetings one and all. I’m new to the community but not new to gun building. I realize this site is dedicated to the American long rifle but so much of its history is traceable to the early smooth bores of England, Germany and France. If this post is site inappropriate I will gladly remove it.

I’ve been studying and building 18th century English style double sporting guns for about three decades. Wrote a book called “The Classic English Double Barrel”, now in its 4th edition. Development of doubles started in London with William Bailes and Benjamin Griffin being two of the earliest known makers. Both produced single barrel fowlers but sometime around 1760 both introduced doubles. Evolution of the double barrel in England was slow. It took nearly 90 years to bring the English double to its highest form of refinement. What’s the point of this post?

The plan is to build a replica William Bailes double. Armed only with photographs and sparse recorded data it’s going to be a total scratch build. So far I have found nothing off the shelf part wise that fits the description. So, we’ll be making barrels, creating some parts by sand casting, crafting other parts by cutting, turning and hand shaping. It’s an enormous if not daunting project probably taking years to complete. Am I nuts? Well, sort of. Just hope I live long enough to finish it.



Bailes double pictured above sold at auction October 2019. This is the subject of the project. It’s trimmed in silver, hallmarked 1758 bearing the mark of Jeconiah Ashley as the silversmith. This work is illustrated in “Messrs Griffin & Tow and W. Bailes” (Keith Neal, David Back) Pp 156-8 plates 74a-c. It has swamped barrels of Spanish form joined by a full length top rib. There is no bottom rib. Flat face locks stepped in at the tails have no roller on the frizzen. The stock and metal parts display rococo inspired relief carving and engraving typical of the period. Keith Neal dates this work 1760 commenting that it’s one of Baile’s earliest works and would have been priced at £20. That’s roughly $5,000 USD in today’s market.

Yup, I must be nuts!

Hank

[rich pierce]

Welcome, Hank! Great project. Keep us posted on your design work and fabrication work. Might keep you busy for awhile!

[flatsguide]

Will follow this with great interest..I just hope I live long enough too to see it finished.
Good luck.
Cheers Richard

[Hank01]

Rich, Richard You can bet there's gonna be plenty updates. Plenty of discussion too. But, being officially retired there should be lots of time for project devotion.

[smylee grouch]

This project will be watched by many. Welcome to the site and thanks for posting. 

[smart dog]

Hi Hank,
Great project and good luck with it.  Good locks the right shape, size, and quality will be a tough obstacle. No commercially made locks (left and right) can fill the bill so you will probably have to make them.  Keep us posted.

dave

[Bob Roller]

Hi Hank,
Great project and good luck with it.  Good locks the right shape, size, and quality will be a tough obstacle. No commercially made locks (left and right) can fill the bill so you will probably have to make them.  Keep us posted.

dave

The EXTERNAL parts of the L&R Durs Egg locks offer a good potential after DETAILED polishing.The mechanisms are another set of rules and ARE the lock.I have made several sets but don't want any more lock work from anyone here or in Europe.
Welcome to this forum and good luck with the double gun copy.
Bob Roller

[Daryl]

$5,000.00 - inexpensive at twice the price for that gun.
Best wishes with your project, Hank & welcome to the forum.

[Hank01]

Thanks smiley. Hope you keep watching!

Dave, Bob, An appropriate lock is just one of the many details a modern offering does not fulfill. It may be possible to pick and choose parts from various suppliers to build a "frankenflint" that somewhat  resembles what we're looking for but no doubt many parts must be fabricated to get exactly what is needed. Right now i'm considering Jim Chambers' gunmaker's flintlock kit as a starting point. Another consideration is a set of Griffin castings (662 right, 683 left) from The Rifle Shoppe. Even these will require considerable modification not to mention the long wait time to get 'em. 

Daryl, from what i've uncovered so far, Mr. Bailes built top quality guns at rock bottom pricing. He catered mostly to the elite in and around London. He was not a wealthy man at his passing in 1766.

[Hank01]

We have barrel blanks! Two 19 bore, two 11 bore, all 36” long.






Plan A was to buy off the shelf barrels. Only one commercial swamped barrel comes close to matching what’s needed for this project. Colerain’s 38” American Fowler has similar dimensions to the Bailes but 5” too long and has only one band. Forget about the rest. The only option is to make ‘em. Plan B: buy blanks and outsource shaping. (Eric Kettenburg, I hope you’re reading this) I’ve contacted Rice, Colerain, Oregon Barrel Company, Buckeye Barrels etc, etc, along with several individual makers and local machine shops to see if they could make the barrels. No takers yet. Still waiting for an answer from one. Plan C: In the meantime i’m preparing to do the work myself. How? We have in the works a design for a "barrel mill". It's planned to be a three step operation. First step is turning the round part out the muzzle to include the flare. Second step is turning the barrel bands, third step is milling the tapered octagon. This machine will be custom built in my shop using repurposed and off the shelf components. Sound simple enough?

The machine itself consists of two separable components: A simple lathe to turn barrels and bands; a vertical mill to shape and taper the flats. Bed for the lathe is reinforced t-slot aluminum. Rest and tool post, face plate, chuck and tail stock being off the shelf items. Power for the lathe comes from a surplus ½ hp motor. A router designed for milling 80% lowers will be the detachable vertical mill. Shaping a barrel on this contrivance will be slow by some standards but helluva lot faster than the alternative. I can’t even imagine trying to grind, file and shape everything by hand, let alone two of ‘em. The beauty of this beast lies in the fact that it can take either round stock or a straight octagon blank and turn it into a swamped barrel. Need to hurry up and get it built.

Plan D: buy some BIG files.

Hank

[Bob Roller]

Some of the mechanisms I have seen are flimsy and reproducing them by casting is a gamble.The Twiggs I made on the Davis externals had a big upgrade in the mechanism using a 3 screw bridle with the sear on an axle (or pin).IF you are going to make your own internal parts I recommend 1144 "stressproof" for the tumblers.It machines like leaded steel and hardens in oil.Fly and sear from 0-1 and main and sear springs plus  frizzen springs can be easy to work 1075 annealed and screws from 12L14. The quality of the locks will determine the usefulness of the gun.
Bob Roller

[Hank01]

Thanks for the tips Bob. An as cast lock kit can be a real pita as many can attest. Definitely not the best way to go. I've had good luck with 1095 (blue tempered steel) for frizzen springs but i agree with 1075 for a main spring. Never worked with 1144. I've always used 1020 because of its case hardening properties. Maybe it's time to try 1144?

[Bob Roller]

For over 50 years I used 1144 for tumblers and no reported problems.I don't think I used 1018 for anything except lock plates for a variety of caplocks. The cast internal parts I have seen using antiques for masters looked insufficient to me and once shaped and cleaned they would not have been anything I would even think of using.At this point in time I am making nothing in the shop and when the weather warms up to where I need no heat I might make some more double set triggers and use what materials I have and then quit completely.
Bob Roller

[Hudnut]

With respect to making octagon to round barrels...
Years ago I machined a quantity of barrels on a 16" South Bend.
Tapers were turned by offsetting the tail center.
I milled the flats as follows...
Took a piece of channel iron.  Made and mounted a couple of V-blocks, one at each end.  Took a piece of octagon barrel, turned a portion of it round, to just slide into the barrel bores.  Drilled out the bore of this piece, and threaded the octagonal end.  Bored a taper in the round end.  Machined a piece with an enlarged taper on one end, matching the internal taper of the piece that fit the barrel and the other end threaded to screw into the octagonal end of the barrel insert.  Slit the round end.  The result was an expanding internal collet.  Slip it into a barrel, turn the inner piece, and the round end would expand to grip the barrel firmly.  The protruding octagon portion would engage one of the V-blocks, indexing the barrel, the round part of the barrel would rest in the other V-block.  The barrel would be clamped in place.
The assembly replaced the lathe compound.  It would be set at a slight angle to the spindle axis of the lathe.  An end mill was held in the chuck.  Power cross feed was used to pass the barrel across the end mill, the carriage being locked in place.  When one flat was milled, the barrel was rotated 1/8th, and another flat machined.  Keep going until all 8 flats were cut.  This rig worked very well, didn't take long to mill the tapered octagon section of the barrels. 

[Hank01]

...The cast internal parts I have seen using antiques for masters looked insufficient to me and once shaped and cleaned they would not have been anything I would even think of using...

Spot on Bob. Parts finishing up too small and/or too thin is the primary disadvantage of those kits. So much time can be spent making everything fit/work properly. No doubt that time to do that is better spent making the parts from scratch.

...The assembly replaced the lathe compound.  It would be set at a slight angle to the spindle axis of the lathe.  An end mill was held in the chuck.  Power cross feed was used to pass the barrel across the end mill, the carriage being locked in place.  When one flat was milled, the barrel was rotated 1/8th, and another flat machined.  Keep going until all 8 flats were cut.  This rig worked very well, didn't take long to mill the tapered octagon section of the barrels... 

Great ideas! Failed to realize flats can be milled using the cross feed. Similar ideas though with replacing the compound. Where you have the jig, our plan puts the router. Blank is fixed between spindle and tail stock, router advanced using the carriage. Angle to get the taper is adjusted through the tail stock. Make one pass, index the blank and repeat. I like the idea of using V blocks and internal collet. Not to mention using a scrap barrel to index the blank. Pretty slick! This causes me to rethink the "barrel mill" plan. Mind if i borrow some of your ideas?

Hank

[bobw]

Hank,
Would it be possible for you to show a drawing of the barrel profile you want.  I’m confused as to the issue of profiling it in a home shop.  I build custom single shot cartridge guns from scratch and profile my own barrels from blanks in my home shop.  Tapered octagon on a mill is not hard, tapered octagon transitioning to tapered round is also not hard.  Just takes time and is all that is needed is a vertical mill, a medium sized lathe and tooling to hold the barrel.  I have also tapered and flared a short barrel on the lathe.  I basically free handed the the flare by stepping the barrel size I wanted.  This is an interesting project because a sxs muzzleloading rifle or fowler has interested me for sometime so I’m hoping you get something going.
Bob

[Hank01]

Bob, not sure if this image is clear enough to see the detail but here goes:



Issue i have is total lack of machine tools. I have a drill press and that's it. Hence the need to make a machine to do the shaping. Other than that i see no problem either, sans the thought of doing it all by hand. Not sure if it will show up in the drawing above but the barrels used by Mr. Bailes has two bands, the second band is heavily worked and ornately engraved. Pic below shows the detail:



Pretty cool huh?

Hank

[Hudnut]

...The assembly replaced the lathe compound.  It would be set at a slight angle to the spindle axis of the lathe.  An end mill was held in the chuck.  Power cross feed was used to pass the barrel across the end mill, the carriage being locked in place.  When one flat was milled, the barrel was rotated 1/8th, and another flat machined.  Keep going until all 8 flats were cut.  This rig worked very well, didn't take long to mill the tapered octagon section of the barrels... 

Great ideas! Failed to realize flats can be milled using the cross feed. Similar ideas though with replacing the compound. Where you have the jig, our plan puts the router. Blank is fixed between spindle and tail stock, router advanced using the carriage. Angle to get the taper is adjusted through the tail stock. Make one pass, index the blank and repeat. I like the idea of using V blocks and internal collet. Not to mention using a scrap barrel to index the blank. Pretty slick! This causes me to rethink the "barrel mill" plan. Mind if i borrow some of your ideas?

Hank
[/quote]

The barrels I was making were straight taper, octagon and round.  Made setup easy.  The round portion was already tapered.  The section that would become octagon was 1 3/16" blank diameter.  I could set up a dial indicator referencing on the round portion, and track the compound back and forth adjusting as necessary until the indictor was reading zero, then start the milling.  The 16" South Bend had lots of compound travel.  The internal collet + V-block indexing system worked really well.

[bobw]

Hank,
The diagram is hard to see.  But, from what I think I’m seeing is, a straight taper octagon section 12 inches long starting at the breech with .010 taper per inch.  The bands are smaller (.805) than the octagon flat at the front end of the 12 inches (.925).  I can’t tell what the breech end size is but the math would sat 1.045.  The octagon should be machined first in my opinion, it can be run right out over the band area.  This should be done in a mill and both barrels in the same setup.  Then move to the lathe.  The round section is roughly 19.25 inches long and straight, no taper, the 14.25 inches in front of the band.  At 5 inches from the muzzle it starts and flares to .865 or .012 per inch at the muzzle.  In a lathe it would be just a matter of supporting the barrel so all the issue turning long stuff isn’t an issue.  I would probably turn a shoulder between the end of the octagon and the end of the band, then push the shoulder against the chuck jaw, only dealing 20 inches then.  The last feature turned would be the bands.  The toughest portion being that 5 inch flare but even that’s not that daunting.  Unless I’m missing something any machinist could do this without hardly thinking about it, it would just take quite a bit of time.  I am curious where the barrel blanks came from and are the bores finished and polished and what steel, 4140 possibly.  Just so we aren’t next door to each other, and don’t know it, what area of the country are you in?  I’m Iowa.
Bob

[Hank01]

You got the picture Bob. Breech width across the flats is 1.040, 0.920 at first band to give 0.010/inch octagon taper. Uploaded drawing says 1.039/0.925, which is incorrect (obsolete drawing). Round barrel length from second band to muzzle is roughly 19 ¼. 0.805 OD nominal extends from second band to roughly 14 ¼ where the flare begins. Flare expands from this point 0.012/inch from 0.805 nominal to 0.865 at the muzzle. I fail to see where you missed anything. In short, you nailed it. I agree with you by saying any skilled machinist should have no problem cranking out these barrels. Pic below shows band detail for additional reference:



Blanks came from Core Metals. As for material, (saying this may be akin to smacking a hornet nest with a stick on a hot summer day) it’s 1020 DOM stress relieved tubing. I’ve read most of the comments here and elsewhere concerning the evils of using DOM tubing as barrel material. Most beliefs are unfounded. Having ran countless FEM models under the worst case scenario, DOM tubing is safe to use. But, not unlike any barrel material for that matter, is subject to catastrophic failure by poor design, loading error or deliberate use over and above rated design capability. There probably will be much discussion about this.

Are we neighbors? Sorta. I live in Ohio.

Hank

[bobw]

I would tend to agree with the hornets nest comment!  And, have to admit I would tend to agree.  Probably because I don’t know anything about the strength of DOM and, for a project this size and complexity, I would use a known material.  On the other hand, there will be .195 wall thickness at the breech, still .150 at 12 inch and .090 past the bands.  The pressures past 8 inches drop dramatically in shotguns.  I measure sxs barrels often for integrity and safety and those numbers easily would rate good for black powder or low pressure modern powders.  I own and shoot a damascus barreled gun that is 140 years old and measure at the minimum .022 9 inches from the muzzle and have no fear shooting it.

Back to the barrels.  Thinking about this after my last reply, I have not run the numbers but I would assume they would work out with the barrels touching at the muzzle with the octagon flats held tight together.  Actually they would probably be more than just tight but would need machined flats so they can be soldered together there.  Not having any experience in joining shotgun barrel but having read somewhere that at the muzzle the bores should have the same bore center to center dimension as the breech or slightly less.  This would seem incorrect, but I understand barrels done this way will converge properly when patterned.

Machining steel is tough on light machines.  I have 2 friend with a Chinese bench mill and neither can machine steel with any kind of ease.  They work aluminum ok but neither tries much steel anymore.  You might be better off spending on an old Bridgeport or clone and a metal lathe rather than making something that may not work in the end.  A South Bend heavy 10 would do this project well.  I say the heavy 10 because it has a 1 3/8 inch spindle hole you would need and can be a bench top if you look around.  Most of these machine are 3 phase but there are ways around that at a reasonable cost.  By setting yourself up this way you could machine all the parts on this gun yourself.
Bob

[bama]

Hanko1, welcome to forum. You are not to crazy, I am in the planning stages of a double flint side by side rifle, so welcome to the club.

Jim

[Hank01]

I would tend to agree with the hornets nest comment!  And, have to admit I would tend to agree.  Probably because I don’t know anything about the strength of DOM and, for a project this size and complexity, I would use a known material.  On the other hand, there will be .195 wall thickness at the breech, still .150 at 12 inch and .090 past the bands.  The pressures past 8 inches drop dramatically in shotguns.  I measure sxs barrels often for integrity and safety and those numbers easily would rate good for black powder or low pressure modern powders.  I own and shoot a damascus barreled gun that is 140 years old and measure at the minimum .022 9 inches from the muzzle and have no fear shooting it....

Bingo! Most modern steel, regardless of how it's formed or made, far exceeds the physical and mechanical properties of barrel steel used 200 or more years ago including Damascus. Project barrels at hand are designed for 10000 PSI working pressure. A heavy smooth bore charge develops somewhat less than half of that at the breech. Design data says only 0.080 thickness is needed to satisfy working pressure requirement. An extra 0.010 was added to the thinnest part of the barrel to improve the safety factor while still maintaining barrel shape and form. Burst pressure using 1020 steel at the breech is 21913 PSI while at 14", thinnest part of the barrel, burst pressure is 12,890 PSI. I have no reservation using what we have for barrels. I use old Damascus barrels for mid to late 18th century double reproductions. Once properly proof tested i have no reservation shooting them, some barrels being as thin as 0.020" at the muzzle.

As for joining the barrels some additional work will be needed to get them regulated, that is getting a convergent point at roughly 25 yards. This takes trial and error, about a 1/2 pound of powder and shot and several dozen wads. CAD says a few thousandths need to come off the sides at the muzzle end to make this happen. Breech end must be adjusted accordingly. It's tedious process but totally doable.

It sure would be nice to have a fancy lathe capable of doing all of the barrel machine work. I'm just a poor farmer that happens to build double barrel front loaders. In the meantime we'll continue development on the "barrel mill".

Hank

[Hank01]

Hanko1, welcome to forum. You are not to crazy, I am in the planning stages of a double flint side by side rifle, so welcome to the club.

Jim

Thanks Jim. Best of luck with your double rifle. If i can be of any help i'll gladly try. Just give a shout.

Hank

[bobw]

Hank,
To bad your not closer, I’d definitely help out.  Have help several friend with barrel work but I require them to to either run the machine, help running it or at least watch the process if I think that’s all there capable of. 
I know a few years ago there were damascus blanks floating around, wonder if anything is still out there?
Bob