Bill Large barrels

[Bob Roller]

 I am really sorry to hear  that
Gene Hyer passed away. He was one of the first I called on that sad day in September of 1985 when Bill Large passed away. I made calls all over the world that day and even after all these years,I still think of Bill and am grateful for the knowledge he so freely shared with me. His third born daughter,Jeanette still lives in the house her mother and father owned and I make it a point to stay in touch with her and occasionally go there and fire a few shots with whatever I am carrying in my pocket.

Bob Roller

[Jack Hubbard]

Gene was one of the nicest guys I knew....I rode with him to Bill Larges shop once....Gene said he had taken pictures of Bills 50th wedding anniversary....He picked up a barrel and had a short visit with Bill...I remember the fire place in his shop....I thought it was pretty neat to have a fireplace in his shop....Last time I visited with Gene was at Friendship....He said something about not having enough of Bills barrels...He always talked of Bill Large with kindness....

[NGQ]

I have a Bill Large barrel that I used to build a Hawken in 1983.  It's .54 cal, 36" long with 1 1/8" to 1" taper with a left-hand breech plug & percussion nipple "snail" & tang.  It is marked "W. M. Large" in a crescent, then "JJJJ" in a flat line under the crescent, then a single "L" under the "JJJJ" line.  I saw Mr. Large's name in John Baird's book, found his phone number using directory assistance (no internet back then), and called the number.  Mr. Large answered the phone, we discussed what I wanted, and I sent him a check.  A nice barrel that I still love to shoot arrived shortly thereafter.  I figured Mr. Large must be a fairly good barrel maker if he was listed in Mr. Baird's book, but I had no idea how highly esteemed he was until reading this forum!

[L Moler]

I built a Womelsdorf/Redding rifle in the style of Leonard Reedy back in 1976.  I wanted a 48 inch .45 caliber tapered barrel and the only one that I knew of who could make the barrel back then was Bill Large..  He was quite the guy to do business with..
I believe that gun is doing time in central California.  The guy I made it for passed away a few years ago.

[Bob Roller]

I have a Bill Large barrel that I used to build a Hawken in 1983.  It's .54 cal, 36" long with 1 1/8" to 1" taper with a left-hand breech plug & percussion nipple "snail" & tang.  It is marked "W. M. Large" in a crescent, then "JJJJ" in a flat line under the crescent, then a single "L" under the "JJJJ" line.  I saw Mr. Large's name in John Baird's book, found his phone number using directory assistance (no internet back then), and called the number.  Mr. Large answered the phone, we discussed what I wanted, and I sent him a check.  A nice barrel that I still love to shoot arrived shortly thereafter.  I figured Mr. Large must be a fairly good barrel maker if he was listed in Mr. Baird's book, but I had no idea how highly esteemed he was until reading this forum!

Bill Large had a superb reputation for high performance muzzle loader barrels and he started by rerifling or recutting old ones as a very young man. He corresponded with Norman Brockway,a maker of superbly accurate match rifles in Vermont (I think).Also some from Harry Pope but Pope was all about breech loaders that should be loaded from the muzzle. He actually MADE his first barrel in 1958 after getting a proper shop built and adding dedicated barrel making equipment as it and money became available. Before that he bought rifled blanks from a source in Montana or Missouri and recut the rifling to suit his ideas and then planed them octagon on an 1898 vintage planer.
I will say that about 90% of what I know and do today I learned from Bill Large and the other 10% is automotive that has nothing to do with Bill.
John Baird's books were written using his experiences and MOSTLY by those of the late Thomas K.(Tom)Dawson
of Williamsport Indiana.Baird's first book mentions several of us. I have the 3rd or 4th copy off the press and still refer to pictures of locks used on the Hawken rifles. Dawson's Hawken copies were undetectable unless he told you he made them. ALL of them have his name and gun # on the bottom flat. His widow,Helen passed away a couple of weeks ago in Indiana.His grandson Mark is doing a creditable job of reproducing the long rifle and has forged a lock and barrel for at least one of them.

Bob Roller

[okieboy]

 Bob, maybe you could get Mark to post some of his work to ALR. It is great that he is continuing a tradition that will trace back to his grandfather which traces back to the Hawken brothers.

[JCKelly]

John Henry, do you happen to know how Bill Large's barrels were annealed? I had thought fthey were made of LaSalle's STRESSPROOF?

Ahhh . . . John are you that Steel Drivin' Man? Ya always been my hero

[Bob Roller]

John Henry, do you happen to know how Bill Large's barrels were annealed? I had thought fthey were made of LaSalle's STRESSPROOF?

Ahhh . . . John are you that Steel Drivin' Man? Ya always been my hero

A lot of Bill Large's barrels were 1144 LaSalle stress proof and after getting a shipment of it that had defects made obvious during drilling,he quit using it.The defects appeared as hard spots in the bars that ruined some costly deep hole carbide tipped drills.I ran into this a while back while making tumblers for locks from it.
It occurred at the end of a bar and it didn't ruin the carbide tool I was using it did make me destroy the two blank tumblers which I did deliberately.
Bill went to some kind of leaded steel after that episode and changed steel companies as well after his long term supplier blew him off when he complained about wrecking expensive tools. He had several bars of 1144 cut to length for barrels and I bought them for tumblers and had no problems but external turning is a different operation than boring a long hole.
The leaded steel gave no trouble and he used it until the end of his career. I don't remember the number of this leaded material.
Getting to your original question,Bill did not anneal his barrel blanks.

Bob Roller