12L14 barrel comes apart

[M. De Land]

A shooting friend of mine showed me a once nice .50 cal flint lock rifle with a swamped barrel he has, at the indoor match yesterday; that had split the barrel and blew the front part of the full stock apart. No one was hurt but it was an eye opener to examine. Jeff said it happened at last months indoor match which I missed.
He had loaned it to a new shooter and was talking him through the loading sequence and got interrupted just as the ball was about to be pushed home. The new shooter got the patched ball down bore about ten inches as I understand it and for some reason decided that was good enough and touched it off before Jeff could get back to him.
The barrel looked like the split started just ahead of the narrowest part of the swamp profile an ran almost to the muzzle.
I have never before seen a patched ball short start at any barrel position even bulge a barrel let alone split it wide open so this was quite a surprise to me.
I am sure short seats happen quite often especially with new shooters and fouled barrels but it's the first barrel I have ever seen split or even be bulged by it from a patch ball.
When I got home I looked up the barrel maker and the steel type used that is posted by Bob Roller on the internet. It is 12L14 but the chart did not say wither it was cold or hot rolled.

 

[rchas]

Any word on who manufactured the barrel?

 

[Rifleman1776]

Everything you stated puts the fault on the shooter, not the barrel. Carelessness can split the finest gbqs barrel.

 

[nkbj]

Reckon anyone ever put strain gauges on a barrel and gave it such treatment?

 

[M. De Land]

That is true and my friend takes full responsibility for it as he should have not allowed himself to be drawn away from the new shooter he was guiding through the loading sequence.
It also high lights the very good reason for having a marked loading rod to avoid short seats.
How ever it still remains true that 12L14 was not designed to be gun barrel steel as it has very poor shock load hoop stress strength. Hot rolled it is better than when cold rolled and in most cases will stand black powder pressure but it does not afford the safety margin of strength that 1137,8620 or 4140 barrel certified steel does.
The majority of muzzle loading barrel producers use 12L14 so it must be pretty safe for black powder pressures. I have a Douglas barrel made of it and it is one of my most accurate muzzle loaders but Douglas stopped making muzzle loading barrels after several suits . I believe their 12L14 was cold rolled as probably is my barrel made with in months of their discontinance of muzzle loading barrel production.

 

[ohio ramrod]

I shoot a Douglas barrel as does my nephew and his son. The barrels have held up for many thousand shots with no problems. In fact my nephew and his son took first and second place at a turkey shoot earlier today. The barrels are completely safe if used properly.

 

[hanshi]

Ignorant "shooters" do stupid stuff; a barrel needs a stupid shooter to burst.

 

[oldwood]

You gotta seat the ball on the powder.!!!! ...............

 

[bang]

Even the best of barrels can experience damage or failure with high pressure spikes from barrel restrictions.

 

[Cattywompuss]

New Shooters Unattended: turning a precision controlled explosion into a pipe bomb, one gun at a time.

Glad no one was injured.

 

[M. De Land]

I shoot a Douglas barrel as does my nephew and his son. The barrels have held up for many thousand shots with no problems. In fact my nephew and his son took first and second place at a turkey shoot earlier today. The barrels are completely safe if used properly.

So had the barrel that let go, withstood many years of use, until it didn't any longer with a short start! I don't believe a patched ball 10 inches down bore should have resulted in a burst barrel ! I've heard of and witnessed it occurring to often with no damage at all to not believe it was the 12L14 weakness that caused the rupture !
I'm not worried about my Douglas barrel coming apart as I'm sure it will be fine as long as I don't make a mistake in it's proper use but I don't kid myself that their is any margin for error with it's metallurgical make up.

 

[nkbj]

Sometime you gets by and sometimes you doesn't.

 

[Brokennock]

the split started just ahead of the narrowest part of the swamp profile an ran almost to the muzzle.

I'm no expert on split muzzleloader barrels, have seen a few modern arms have "catastrophic failures" for various reasons working on ranges for 20 years though.

This seems odd to me.
The crack or split goes from the point of obstruction toward the direction of reducing pressure?
It would seem to me that the split would go from the obstruction back through the area of increasing pressure, toward the breach. The pressure that is building to the point of bursting the barrel, is building between the point of ignition and the obstruction.

Was the ball maybe really only a few inches from the muzzle?

 

[Travis186]

I hate to admit it, but we all make mistakes, and I short started a ball yesterday and touched it off without ramming it home in our turkey shoot. Heat of the moment, got distracted by some commotion going on next to me and made a bone headed mistake. The gun was fine, barrel wasn't bulged or split, but I knew as soon as I set it off by the sound that I didn't run it home. Be careful fellas, it can happen to the best of us, new or seasoned.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

So had the barrel that let go, withstood many years of use, until it didn't any longer with a short start! I don't believe a patched ball 10 inches down bore should have resulted in a burst barrel ! I've heard of and witnessed it occurring to often with no damage at all to not believe it was the 12L14 weakness that caused the rupture !
I'm not worried about my Douglas barrel coming apart as I'm sure it will be fine as long as I don't make a mistake in it's proper use but I don't kid myself that their is any margin for error with it's metallurgical make up.

So we shall review the failures of your arguments.

I don't believe a patched ball 10 inches down bore should have resulted in a burst barrel !
Well that's IS what happened. Your refusal to believe it, is not evidence, it is simply disbelief of an observed effect. So perhaps you may want to reword that phrase, perhaps something like "There must've been something more than just a patched ball stuck".... BUT if a patched ball 10" from the muzzle won't do that, and it was something more drastic...it still might not be the fault of the chosen steel nor the barrel maker.

I've heard of and witnessed it occurring too often with no damage at all to not believe it was the 12L14 weakness that caused the rupture !
I seriously doubt you have any kind of credible sample. You stopped the shooters each time that you "saw" it happen, and verified that they had barrels made of 12L14 steel, or verified the steel that they were using (no you didn't, and who would?) , and you verified how much pressure was applied when the ball was jammed each time, or were they all clean barrels and the shooter simply short started the ball and then fired... which you don't know either. SO you don't have all of the variables of what you witnessed recorded..., you have nothing but your memory to compare it to the ruptured barrel event that you are commenting upon but didn't actually witness...., and as for what you heard, those incidents mean nothing. That's second hand information. You previously have decided that the 12L14 is not suitable, and you are emotionally deciding this is the evidence that you've been waiting to get to vindicate the opinion.

You may very well be right, but there would need to be controlled testing. Even the event that you report is second hand information. For example did anybody get photos? Did you submit the barrel to a certified metallurgist?

LD

 

[M. De Land]

I'm no expert on split muzzleloader barrels, have seen a few modern arms have "catastrophic failures" for various reasons working on ranges for 20 years though.

This seems odd to me.
The crack or split goes from the point of obstruction toward the direction of reducing pressure?
It would seem to me that the split would go from the obstruction back through the area of increasing pressure, toward the breach. The pressure that is building to the point of bursting the barrel, is building between the point of ignition and the obstruction.

Was the ball maybe really only a few inches from the muzzle?

All I can say is what the owner told me about the ball location. I'll ask him to bring it by so I can get a better look at it under magnification and run my bore scope down and see if I can detect anything odd. I may take a few pictures and post them so we can all get a better idea of what happened.
He wanted me to cut it off mid barrel at the split end and re-crown but I told him it would not be safe without a magniflux scan at the very least.
I wouldn't reuse it even then personally.

 

[M. De Land]

I hate to admit it, but we all make mistakes, and I short started a ball yesterday and touched it off without ramming it home in our turkey shoot. Heat of the moment, got distracted by some commotion going on next to me and made a bone headed mistake. The gun was fine, barrel wasn't bulged or split, but I knew as soon as I set it off by the sound that I didn't run it home. Be careful fellas, it can happen to the best of us, new or seasoned.

I've witnessed this very thing several times with the same result you had. I personally ruined a .50 cal TC Hawken barrel about 40 years ago by ringing it with a maxi ball that had worked forward in the barrel after carrying it all day in the rain with the muzzle tilted down. I shot a grouse on the way home and noticed the ring at the next range session. Odd I didn't notice it while cleaning in the field but I didn't.
The Maxi of course is three times heavier than is a patched ball. It bulged but did not rupture.

 

[William Lincoln]

Something is odd here. Could it have been a double charge?
Or something else? How much powder was involved?
Sh-t happens. I've screwed up badly-- but even some
serious short rams did not split my barrels (one a mild bulge).
Is there enough good barrel salvageable towards breech
for maybe a pistol project?

 

[M. De Land]

So we shall review the failures of your arguments.

I don't believe a patched ball 10 inches down bore should have resulted in a burst barrel !
Well that's IS what happened. Your refusal to believe it, is not evidence, it is simply disbelief of an observed effect. So perhaps you may want to reword that phrase, perhaps something like "There must've been something more than just a patched ball stuck".... BUT if a patched ball 10" from the muzzle won't do that, and it was something more drastic...it still might not be the fault of the chosen steel nor the barrel maker.

I've heard of and witnessed it occurring too often with no damage at all to not believe it was the 12L14 weakness that caused the rupture !
I seriously doubt you have any kind of credible sample. You stopped the shooters each time that you "saw" it happen, and verified that they had barrels made of 12L14 steel, or verified the steel that they were using (no you didn't, and who would?) , and you verified how much pressure was applied when the ball was jammed each time, or were they all clean barrels and the shooter simply short started the ball and then fired... which you don't know either. SO you don't have all of the variables of what you witnessed recorded..., you have nothing but your memory to compare it to the ruptured barrel event that you are commenting upon but didn't actually witness...., and as for what you heard, those incidents mean nothing. That's second hand information. You previously have decided that the 12L14 is not suitable, and you are emotionally deciding this is the evidence that you've been waiting to get to vindicate the opinion.

You may very well be right, but there would need to be controlled testing. Even the event that you report is second hand information. For example did anybody get photos? Did you submit the barrel to a certified metallurgist?

LD I+
[/QUOTE ]

I know for a fact at least one metallurgist report states flatly 12L14 should not be used for gun barrels!
I know for a fact the barrel was 12L14 and it split.
I know for a fact it was not over charged and had only one patched ball down bore. I think my opinion on why it happened is reasonable.

 

[Billy Boy]

That is true and my friend takes full responsibility for it as he should have not allowed himself to be drawn away from the new shooter he was guiding through the loading sequence.
It also high lights the very good reason for having a marked loading rod to avoid short seats.
How ever it still remains true that 12L14 was not designed to be gun barrel steel as it has very poor shock load hoop stress strength. Hot rolled it is better than when cold rolled and in most cases will stand black powder pressure but it does not afford the safety margin of strength that 1137,8620 or 4140 barrel certified steel does.
The majority of muzzle loading barrel producers use 12L14 so it must be pretty safe for black powder pressures. I have a Douglas barrel made of it and it is one of my most accurate muzzle loaders but Douglas stopped making muzzle loading barrels after several suits . I believe their 12L14 was cold rolled as probably is my barrel made with in months of their discontinance of muzzle loading barrel production.

12L14 machines very nicely with a nice surface finish, and it’s easy on tooling.