"Thin barrel" question re: round ball

[FlinterNick]

Proof is irrelevant to brittle steels. It might pass 5 proofs and then fail a short round count later. Because it does not tolerate internal pressure well when its cold rolled and the inclusions are another problem. But cause the same thing. And stress relief is not a cure either. Here is a steel maker on the subject.

Proof isn’t relevant ? No evidence…. No proof, your hypothesis is moot.

All BP barrels will burst crack of blow up with a short start.

 

[IanH]

All BP barrels will burst crack of blow up with a short start.

Balderdash. I short-started my Kibler .45 SMR with a GM barrel and nary a problem, barrel unfazed, missed the target though. I've also failed to get the ball fully rammed a few times (learning curve with patch lubes, not swabbing between shots, and the fouling ring creeping up on me) and no problems at all, thank goodness. 70 grains of 3F. Maybe what they say about God watching over the ignorant and fools is true, or maybe it's good metallurgy and the laws of thermodynamics? Don't tell me it was because it's a flintlock.

 

[FlinterNick]

Balderdash. I short-started my Kibler .45 SMR with a GM barrel and nary a problem, barrel unfazed, missed the target though. I've also failed to get the ball fully rammed a few times (learning curve with patch lubes, not swabbing between shots, and the fouling ring creeping up on me) and no problems at all, thank goodness. 70 grains of 3F. Maybe what they say about God watching over the ignorant and fools is true, or maybe it's good metallurgy and the laws of thermodynamics? Don't tell me it was because it's a flintlock.

Well god bless you, I’m happy nothing happened. Your own safety is what counts the most, not me being right.
My point was if you short start a barrel, there is a very high chance there will be a problem of some sort.

Why didn’t the barrel burst, probably not enough gas build up.

I’ve seen Kibler rice and green mountain barrels with bulges in the breech, it really depends on a lot of things, Gun care mostly.

And please take care to not short start.

 

[IanH]

And please take care to not short start.

Yes Sir. I knew that but didn't have a religious loading routine to prevent it worked out at first. I also dryballed a few while thinking about patches or lube or digging for more balls and forgetting the powder. I've learned a lot since then and I hope have managed to fill my bucket of wisdom as fast as my bucket of luck is pouring out. However, it sure seems to me that if failure to fully seat a ball in a dirty gun or to even get it past the muzzle for whatever reason was a death sentence, there would be a lot more tombstones both modern and from all the desperate wars fought with muskets and muzzleloading rifles.

 

[Dphar1950]

Frankly I don't much care what people shoot. But they need the information. Though I have at times made sure I was not on the lock side when the gun was fired (anyone ever had a drum (cold rolled) break off when the gun was fired?) and like the shooters head between me and the breech in some cases. The resistance to factual information has been going on concerning this subject since the early 1970s. When the blowups really took off with the mass produced American MLs. At the time "The Buckskin Report" was the only publication that reported on this to any extent. The European stuff the Italians at least, from my contacts, uses a GB quality steel, for example, I doubt this has changed.
If you want a metallurgists view of all this start with the October 1985 Muzzleblasts articles by James Kelly. I think they ran for 3-4 months at least until December. They are WAY too long to post here and I only have them in word format as I was emailed them some years ago.

Balderdash. I short-started my Kibler .45 SMR with a GM barrel and nary a problem, barrel unfazed, missed the target though. I've also failed to get the ball fully rammed a few times (learning curve with patch lubes, not swabbing between shots, and the fouling ring creeping up on me) and no problems at all, thank goodness. 70 grains of 3F. Maybe what they say about God watching over the ignorant and fools is true, or maybe it's good metallurgy and the laws of thermodynamics? Don't tell me it was because it's a flintlock.

The Green Mountain is GB quality 1137 NOT cold rolled mill run.

 

[Dphar1950]

Well god bless you, I’m happy nothing happened. Your own safety is what counts the most, not me being right.
My point was if you short start a barrel, there is a very high chance there will be a problem of some sort.

Why didn’t the barrel burst, probably not enough gas build up.

I’ve seen Kibler rice and green mountain barrels with bulges in the breech, it really depends on a lot of things, Gun care mostly.

And please take care to not short start.

Given what I know of 1137 GB quality its virtually impossible to bulge one with BP. Unless someone REALLY screws up. As pointed out before HP White labs ran a 1” at the breech 45-70 to 50000 PSI with no issues. Not even a stuck case. There were other tests done that were very impressive in house when the plant was in New York. 12L14 WILL sometimes bulge but it usually splits. If the bar has been normalized and has no significant inclusions it my bulge. I have a photo of one that was bulged with a significant overcharge (wrong powder measure) and then a stuck ball the guy decided to just shoot out. The gunsmith who built the rifle machined a cut at the bulge and it showed a lot of heat at that point where teh gas went around the ball before it moved.

 

[Dphar1950]

Proof isn’t relevant ? No evidence…. No proof, your hypothesis is moot.

All BP barrels will burst crack of blow up with a short start.

Since the discussion was on PROOF LOADS this is what is meant by “proof”. You cannot proof a cold rolled steel barrel and then believe this makes it safe. It simply means that the barrel stood that shot and the various attached parts, breeching, vent liner/drum or nipple seat did not fail. And as pointed out in previous a DUCTILE barrel will likely only bulge. A brittle barrel will likely break.

 

[Dphar1950]

So far as the makers. So long as ML shooters insist on buying cheap barrels the use of cheap steel will continue. As I pointed out and the letter from Lasalle above states. Higher grade steels start with a clean furnace or at least one dedicated for that grade of steel. So they cannot make a run of 1010 mill run steel than make high quality steel next in the same furnace. And it has to be ordered in furnace melt lots. Not 5 or 10 or 25 tons. So small makers have to pool orders or have some one who has a truck load or two to buy some from. Cost. A 20” long cut rifled and lapped AR-15 barrel, round, ready to install is about 550 bucks delivered and its good, in my case, for maybe 4 seasons since we don’t shoot many matches in Montana (yeah I like to shoot and like rifle matches so I shoot or have shot in at least 4 different rifle sports). Now this is one of the stainless alloys, which I don’t like but the wait time can be long as it is and chromoly is even longer in many cases. I bought enough GM swamps and straights to keep me in ML work for a few years at my current rate of production. I have a 1 1/4” x 44 gain twist 45 caliber barrel that is GB quality 4150. I have a 50 stocked into a FL match rifle that weighs just shy of 18 pounds. Note that any of the 4140/4150 steels are much harder to cut than leaded screw stock. Which is designed to make screws in automatic screw machines at quite a fantastic rate so the next time some wood twists off for no apparent reason at low torque levels remember that its surely 12L14 or very similar and that screw had an inclusion. BTW for cartridges like 45 ACP (<20000 psi) hot rolled GB 1018 is adequate for barrel steel. At least in handguns. But its not good for 357 mag or 9mm Or even hot 38 special. It may well bulge. Anything lower than 1010 is considered to be “iron” in the modern world. But its does not cut as smooth or as fast as cold rolled free machining steels. The primary objective of this still is that it machines. I used to shoot 12L14 barrels. I started this in the mid-1960s. Douglas mostly. IIRC the one Kentucky I had was a Sharon(?). I once proved a Chrom-moly 45 1 1/8 with 200 or 250 gr of FFF ( It was some years back, I have it on video somewhere) and a PRB and a Maxi on top. No issues. I have 3 really nice rifles in the safe that I just don’t shoot anymore. I may put a GM 54 I have on one of them to make it a shooter again. I even lapped a little choke into it several years ago. They load easier and clean easier too.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

Good lord, give it a rest would ya?

 

[Brokennock]

When the blowups really took off

"Really took off,,,,,"?!
Seriously? How many "blow ups would you expert opinion tell us happen per year? How about data for "blowups" per year before and after, "the 1970s"?
Can you please maybe compare those statistics to any increase in the number of muzzleloader shooters, say post-1975?

 

[Brokennock]

Good lord, give it a rest would ya?

Maybe someone's screen name should be "Windy Diamond" 🌬

 

[Rob M.]

Hard to tell , folks not knowing any different I guess. Ive shot a lot of round ball from thin muzzle smoothbores ... Esp those original barrels , very thin . I like my barrels around 1/16 " thick at muzzle . t

I have seen it written many times regarding a fowling piece that it is "not for round balls" because the "barrel is too thin". I don't understand this. Balls are usually less mass than a typical load of lead shot for a given gauge, so I cannot see how pressure would be a concern, nor excessive recoil from round ball loads vs. a shot payload. Fowling pieces are generally lighter overall than muskets or military smoothbores, but again, I do not see how that makes any difference whether one could effectively use a round ball in one. Trade guns, particularly the French ones, had paper-thin barrels yet were probably used more with round balls than shot.

So when someone says "That barrel is very thin, I wouldn't shoot round balls in it.", my question is "Why not?"

 

[2 shots]

thanks guys... i just put all my b/p guns in the garbage. they are all going too blow up. AAAAAHHHHHH

 

[shorthair]

My take on this is that a lead ball is solid mass/weight and shot is dispersed mass/weight.

The impact of a ball bouncing side to side down the bore is more of a solid hit to the walls than the individual lightweight shot moving down the bore.

Also, a ball gets spit out of the muzzle all at once, while shot would, more or less, come out in a dispersed fashion.

The sudden blast of the gases escaping behind the ball may be more than the thin muzzle wall can handle.

In my opinion, it's why cannon barrels have such pronounced flares at the muzzle. To counteract the violent release of gasses.

.02

Since the pellets in a shot load get deformed during travel down the barrel I think that they would be pretty tightly packed but not a solid sphere, as long as your ball was not oversized it should be safe.

 

[RAEDWALD]

Lawyers won’t grow a hand back in any event. AND a good iron barrel was not going to create grenade fragments. In fact the British proof house, at least did a very energetic proof. AND if the barrel bulged and did not burst it could be hammered back to shape and reproved. Some times several times until it passed. Iron is not brittle. I suspect the the issues with still until the late 1860s+- was the reason that the Union‘s Rifle Musket barrels were skelp welded “best iron” was the lack of control of the steel alloys of the time. These BTW were proved with 200 gr of musket powder and a 500 gr Minie spaced 2” off the powder. And if a barrel failed it was examined by a committee to determine why and the workman responsible had to pay for the barrel. I like to point out that years ago my dad shot a Garand with dirt in the barrel. Dunno what ammo he was using probably ball. It put a lump in the barrel about 1.5” behind the front sight. No breaks, no burst, just a short lump. Now tho Garand barrel is pretty thin at this point and the bullet is doing about 2700 by that time, maybe a little more. So buy yourself a 12L14 fowler barrel load it with a standard load with a ball then plug it 3” behind the muzzle. Most cold rolled steel will break. BTW the Garand barrel was 4150 perhaps 41V50. It been in use since the 1930s by the military. It can be shot when red hot and not suffer a failure other than the bore erodes faster. The fact that the TENSILE of 12L14 is 3-4 times the max pressure that can be obtained with BP NONE OF THEM SHOULD EVER FAIL, i.e. burst/break even with a bore obstruction. The fact that some do, proved or not should tell you SOMETHING. Everything I have stated about 12L14 comes from a long time shooter of MLs who happens to be a metallurgist that specialized in failure analysis. BUT getting a metallurgist to comment on a firearms failure/suitable steels is difficult Since they immediately figure its a law suit and don’t wanna be called to court. The other thing… Many years ago, mid-1970s IIRC a certain American company who was mass producing “Hawken” rifles with, at the time 12L14 barrels, was sued several times. But the Handloader defense saved them. Even if the barrel burst at the breech as some did. One in particular “proved” to have been used with smokeless. A friend of mine, who would post on some forums as “Mad Monk” decided to to the chemical analysis on Goex straight form the can. Created the fouling, did the chemical tests and behold he got a “smokeless” result. But the injured party’s lawyer did not bother to have Goex fouling tested. “Mad Monk” used to work for Oxy Chemical and it eventually killed him. Finally. This is ALL info people don’t want to here. Scary. Flintlocks are less prone to failure, perhaps very, than percussion since they have a “softer” pressure rise, but it still worries me. Flintlock shotguns in Britain that were converted were known the fail even though they had passed British proof. We also have to remember that the POWDER was better by about 1800-1830 than it was in 1760-1780 for the most part. There was a change in powder making about 1770 that I am not going go into. The old Buckskin Report would call a spade a spade and it put it under in the end. You cannot print the truth with consequences. It was amazing the number of failure reports that came into John’s office at the time. But they did not appear in Muzzleblasts or other magazines. It can PO the advertisers. So there is a LOT you never see in ANY gun magazine. Have written articles and have a friend who has written literally thousands for various big names I can tell you that you don’t find anything that might injure or insult and advertiser since this is where they make the money. SO even if there was blowup every week you won’t hear of it and the shooter is gonna blame himself and shut up so people won’t know how “stupid” he was since MLS “never blow up” unless the shooter loads them wrong….. Some of the photos I have seen over the years where the barrel “broke” with not stretching are pretty scary. In modern firearms with much higher intensity powder an overload with at worst bulge something. However, an under load of some powders like IMRs etc or some pistol powder will cause brittle fractures even with modern steels and it can be anything from a 357 mag, a 45 Colt to a 50-140 Sharps reproduction (tested to 50K psi in 45-70 with not even a stuck case) to a 300 Win Mag. It WILL break and show little or no distortion. Just break since its possible to convert smokeless powders into a high explosive by loading too light. Like trying to creat BP or cast bullet velocities in a large case and a powder like IMR 4831 or IMR 3031 or Bullseye, or Red Dot. Unique loads published by lyman for DECADES were notorious for ringing rifle chambers. Ruger told my employer, when we got one back) that they had Rugers in 45-70 come in with 150 separate rings in the chamber. This was known and in the 1930s, soon after IMRs were developed and it was documented by Phil Sharpe, if you know who he is and have read his book…. So while you CAN destroy a modern steel barrel 4140/4150 it can’t be done with blackpowder. But everyone is an “expert” but they have not read or seen what I have or had communication over the almost 50 years with the people I have. Here some excerpts from The Buckskin Report.View attachment 250954View attachment 250955View attachment 250956

Very sorry to hear that Bill has finally passed away. He was very free with his informed advice and I learned so much from him.

 

[nhmoose]

If I could not shoot the round ball I would be very hesitant to shoot the same charge with shot and wads.

 

[tnek13]

A lot of information but I will still shoot both shot and/or ball in my Trade Gun

 

[IanH]

A lot of information but I will still shoot both shot and/or ball in my Trade Gun

"As God intended".

 

[PathfinderNC]

Good grief, who in the hell is going to read all that?

I was waiting for the Cliff’s Notes version

 

[Dphar1950]

"Really took off,,,,,"?!
Seriously? How many "blow ups would you expert opinion tell us happen per year? How about data for "blowups" per year before and after, "the 1970s"?
Can you please maybe compare those statistics to any increase in the number of muzzleloader shooters, say post-1975?

What were you doing at the time? I was writing for the Buckskin report and there were a frightening number of blow ups. But since this was before, I suspect, quite a few here were even born I don’t expect them to understand. But when the barrels are made of materials that the STEEL makers specifically don’t recommend, things can happen. A number of us suspected that they changed barrel steels after a number of lawsuits. They said that they had put in an xray process. Something they would not need if they used the proper grade and alloy. But they could not admit that the steel they used initially was not suitable for any internal pressure application. This was ALL discussed in detail by a metallurgist who specialized in failure analysis. Who BTW seldom posts on any of the ML site since he gets manure from “experts”. The fact is that a GB quality steel with a 100000 psi tensile will not fail even with a short started ball. It will likely bulge. Before they stopped making ML barrels (they had some failures) a major US barrel maker was using cold drawn octagonal bars. Toward the end the barrels started to arrive with scale on them indicating they were normalised I.E. annealed to reduce the brittleness. Brittle and barrel steels is a bad thing. No all blow ups cause injury. One 45 cal I saw about 1969 split up the top flat from the face of the breech to the rear sight. The other factor was the use of Max-balls which greatly increased the pressure and shock loading. Did you ever wonder why the Union made Rifle Muskets of the Civil War all used skelp welded iron barrels and not steel? You might ask why. These were proved with 200 gr of Musket powder and a 500 gr Minie bullet seated 2” off the powder. Finally what I have posted here is fact not guess work. Its based on documentation that appeared in print from the people with issues, from steel makers, from metallurgists. You might ask about the Remingtom 870 blowups that resulted in Remington going just a little too cheap on shotgun barrel steel. This stuff had a tensile several times that of the pressure generated by shotgun shells. Yet there were failures with trap loads. People ask questions I give answers. The interesting thing is that a cheap leaded screw stock barrel may stand an immense overload and the next one fail with a service load or 10 years later with a service load or never. I simply would like to see a hot rolled Gun Barrel quality steel used. Not a steel that intentionally made brittle and loaded with inclusion causing “lubricants”. Meaning sulphur and lead for two. To make them free machining. Don’t like this don’t read my posts on subject. If you like I could post a photo of the letter sent to and published by John Baird from the steel maker LaSalle. But I suppose they don’t know what they are talking about either.