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Burst Barrel

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Hmmm, very interesting! I'm glad no one was hurt. I looked at the D.O.M. Topic on page 2 of this forum and it did NOT split at the seam :idunno: when a ball was short started. This barrel split very differently from that one. I'm going to have to agree about the ball being short started and close to the muzzle "6 inches?" instead of close to the breech when the gun was fired. I think if the ball was close to the breech it would look like the pictures of the D.O.M. barrel. JMHO of course.
 
I'm no expert but I think it gave up much closer to ram rod entry.
We really need more details.

I really really hate this. 90% of shooting a smoothbore is faith. Faith that it's going to hit the target and Faith that the SOB is not going to blow up in your hands.

I'm strongly considering scrapping or re barreling mine. I shoot it around kids in public demos. Like I said we need more info.
 
I wonder if he only short started a ball

The short start/obstruction barrel failures I have seen here, and on other forums, are as destructive as this one. The usually bulge and fail for only a few inches.
But I wasn't there and can only guess at the cause. I'm sticking with smokeless as my best guess.
 
I thank our good Lord that your friend was not hurt!! That is the most important thing. This type of thing makes everyone think some.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!
 
Yes, thanks for sharing and glad your friend was not physically injured.
 
Crankyman

Most of the muzzle obstruction failures I have seen peel the halves back in a curl when they split like this, or bulge at the failure point. This seem to make this scenario less likely but not impossible. Smokeless powder failures tend to produce these long splits, but tend towards bulging and fragmentation. The barrel seems to have split cleanly with no indication of fatigue, but it didn't follow a straight line (like a weld)wandering along. Easiest way to determine if it is DOM is to polish a couple of inches of the splits (on the inside or outside) in a few places, and apply acid for about 30 minutes to reveal the weld by etching. Also if too hard an alloy was used it may have work hardened, unlikely but also easy to test. Take a file to the inside of the barrel, if it is harder than the outside it may have work hardened becoming too brittle. If it did I would expect fragmentation though. You can also heat the muzzle split on one side red hot and quench it in water, if it hardens so it cannot be filed this could also be an indicator of to hard an alloy. Alas it could also be one of those failure nobody could predict or even explain.
 
That is one freaky split! Upper and lower splits into two even lengthwise halves . . . and right past the wedding band into the octagonal section.

I notice the one image shows the flats to be milled with no draw-filing to smooth out the milling marks.

That must have been exciting to touch that last shot off!
 
Crankyman said:
Last Friday, as he was shooting it in his back yard in preparation for our gun clubs monthly shoot, the barrel burst. The burst split the barrel from about an inch in front of the touch hole all the way to the muzzle with the split running roughly along the top and bottom. It peeled the sides of the barrel around like a banana peel. My friend was stunned but unhurt. It was not an "India" made gun or barrel and we are at a lose as to what may have caused the rupture. I know there is a way to post pics on this forum but I haven't been able to figure it out yet. When I do, I will post some pics of this tragedy.

Classic 12L14 barrel failure. This stuff is very brittle and gets more so with use. Its extremely common and I would bet a months pay its 12L14 or a similar cold rolled steel. Its used by most ML barrel makers.
Does not need a bore obstruction.
There was a letter from LaSalle steel specifically stating NOT to use this for gun barrels. This was published in the Buckskin Report over 30 years ago.

LaSalleSteelletter001.jpg


And this by a metallurgist who is still shooting MLs btw.
ToughandBrittle.jpg


ToughandBrittle2.jpg


ToughandBrittle31.jpg

He really kicked off the discussion with this article.
This went on for over a year with one of the 12L14 users (who was switching to 1137 GB quality at the time BTW) writing articles trying to say that metallurgists and steel makers did not know what they were talking about. The final article was by a lawyer who bascially said that there was no legal defense for using inferior steels for gun barrels if someone is injured. But I can't locate it right now to scan in.
BTW a "best iron barrel" properly welded is safer than a 12L14 barrel. All the Civil War Springfield Rifle Musket barrels were skelp welded "best iron" and have a good reputation to this day, 150 years after they were made.
But not all old iron barrels are best iron, most are made of much lower grade material. Or from steel, starting in the early 19th c, and this is of unknown alloy and poor purity so....

The ML barrel makers still use 12L14 because it machines far more easily (its designed for automatic screw machines making hardware store grade screws, the lead, sulfur and phosphorus inclusions make it machine really smooth) than hot rolled steels and the 4140-4150 series especially. The 41xx series also doubles tool wear and increases machining time by double in some cases and its much harder to get a good finish in a cut rifled barrel. 4150 has been (and still is) a military standard barrel steel since about 1940 if not before and many if not all WW-II Garands have 4150 barrels as do current M4s and M-16s, M2 machineguns and most commercial firearms not having a stainless barrel.
Part of the reason mill run cold rolled steels are used is that it is very difficult for small scale makers to get Gun Barrel quality steels since they are certified and more carefully made they are only made in furnace melt lots. As a result small scale makers of modern barrels often have to pool orders to get the tonnage up to buy a lot of steel.
So they use what they can get or will bother to get and as a result sometimes ML barrels burst. But the safety valve for the barrel maker is the "reloader defense" since the shooter cannot prove he loaded it right they have a hard time getting any justice if they get hurt, and people have been hurt. Your friend is lucky he did not lose a hand or some other body part.

Dan
 
:bull: on your 12L14 take on things. If this was "extremely common" barrel makers such as Colerain, Rice, and Don Getz would be out of business because people would stop using their barrels and you would see more posts about "Burst Barrels" either on here or on ALR. Also the post you put up is unreadable (the typing is to small). I still believe it was a short started round up by the muzzle of the gun because if it was close to the breech you would see a barrel that looked liked the one on page 2, because you would have a sudden pressure build up that would burst the barrel. This barrel looks more like it POPPED when the pressure hit the round up by the muzzle. :2 .
 
I have seen a modern barrel, on a winchester rifle, split into two equal halves, and peel backward from the muzzle like a banana. This was in a .30-06 with snow in the bore from a careless hunter. Nobody hurt. The splits followed straight paths backwards from the muzzle.

I have seen several dozen smokeless powder accidents in sidelock and inline rifles, and they all were burst very close to the breech, with the forward portion of the barrel remaining intact. Therefore, I do not think this was a smokeless accident.

I have seen a split of this type, although the split did not reach anywhere near the muzzle, but it started at the touch hole, and moved forward along the barrel. It was a single split, so did not divide the barrel into halves. This was with blanks only, and it is theorized that a deposit of powder from what was poured remained in the barrel about 18 - 24 inches above the breech, say perhaps 10 - 20 grains, out of the 100 grains used in the blank. As the powder was fired, it is theorized, that it ignited the portion left forward, causing a back pressure situation, which split the barrel open. This has never been tested so it is still a theory. Although this was in an India made barrel, and probably from seemless tubing, it is very similar to this accident. If it was only a blank in this case then I submit that no ramming happened and some of the powder was left in the forward portion of the barrel.

In this case, IF a projectile was loaded, then no fear of residual powder that did not reach the breech, for the loading would have moved residual powder down toward the breech.

If this was done using shot, then I like the idea that some of the shot moved forward, but the lack of a bulge to indicate the center of the over pressure tends to indicate to me this may not have been the problem. Unseated ball or shot, or either which moves forward a bit from the breech due to handling (or recoil on a SxS gun), tends to give a very noticible bulge as well as splitting the barrel.

If this was done with a single projectile, it appears to have some similarities with a ball that was short-started, but wasn't rammed home. Except those types of obstructions tend to bulge at the obstruction, near the muzzle, and peel backward, not split the barrel, from what I have observed. However, my observations were all on barrels not made out of hydrolic tubing. Perhaps this IS the solution but included that the barrel was tubing?

I wonder, if there was a single projectile that had an obvious sprue? Could it have been a ball unpatched, with the sprue up? Could the ball have rotated just enough for that sprue to snag on the barrel wall, causing a sudden increase in friction but not stopping the ball completely, but acting to cause a momentary spike in pressure that split the barrel ? Yeah it's an odd idea, but the reaction of the barrel to the over pressure doesn't seem to fully fit the other scenarios.

LD
 
armakiller said:
:bull: on your 12L14 take on things. If this was "extremely common" barrel makers such as Colerain, Rice, and Don Getz would be out of business because people would stop using their barrels and you would see more posts about "Burst Barrels" either on here or on ALR. Also the post you put up is unreadable (the typing is to small). I still believe it was a short started round up by the muzzle of the gun because if it was close to the breech you would see a barrel that looked liked the one on page 2, because you would have a sudden pressure build up that would burst the barrel. This barrel looks more like it POPPED when the pressure hit the round up by the muzzle. :2 .

First this is not the first blown up ML barrel I have seen or saw photos of. The first was back about 1969 with a major maker of ML barrels at the time had several (well 2 at least) failures in 45 cal barrels. One I examined the other was described in Muzzle Blasts by Roy Keeler who I used to buy parts from. BTW the maker would not allow him to buy barrels from them any longer.
These had both failed by splitting up the top flat from just in front of the breech to or beyond the rear sight. It is interesting to note that these brittle steels break in a manner that often causes the crack to out pace the projectile and sometimes it or the patch will be stuck in the crack if the barrel does not fragment.
Look this is not "my take" this is LaSalle Steel, a metallurgist who worked in failure analysis and a number of barrel makers who do not use the stuff. Its unsuitable for gun barrels. This guy is not the only metallurgist that I have heard from on this matter. One who would not even contact me personally (gun barrels invariably mean lawsuit to metallurgists) was a Professor of Metallurgy and in response to my question about using Stressproof (1144 cold rolled and its really not Stressproof except perhaps in carefully machined shafts used to drive machinery, some people I used to work for used it for this of not very carefully contoured it would break) for gun barrels he simply replied "why would anyone use anything but Chrom-moly (meaning 4140-50 series) that ALL I got. He figured I was fishing for an expert witness and only answered through 2 other people. I could relate a company I used to work for losing about 10% of the 1144 blanks they were button rifling but I have spent too much time on this already.

Next if the barrel were not brittle it would not burst as a result of a short start ball it will only bulge. But of course this has to be false too since the common unsuitable brittle steels almost invariably split or burst. Another little fact is that the colder it gets the more likely the failure. Some stainless steels used in barrels 416-416R are also brittle free machining steels. If you go to Krieger's site, for example you will see that they do not recommend them for hunting rifles or firing a stainless barrel under 0f and state that they should not be re-contoured.
Then we have a big name ML barrel maker stating, in print, that if they are tuning a barrel blank and a crack appears they keep turning and if if disappears they use the blank anyway. As a friedn who started making MLs in the late 1940s states, what about the cracks they do not see? This is at Proof testing
Go down the thread you'll find it.
Then we have other parts made of free machining steels. Like drums. If modern drums are used in an unsupported application, not bearing on the lock plate, they tend to BREAK OFF after being used for awhile. I had this happen back in my teens, drum went through a screen door. A friend told me at a rifle match that he had one break in the same manner. Drums made in the 19th c jsut bend (I have one from an 1830s-40s percussion rifle barrel in my collection, very small shank and its bent slightly, ductile iron I am sure)
The brittleness of this material (it cuts cleaner), coupled with the high levels of lubricating metals (to make is cut nice and fast and smooth) result in a material that will fail from internal pressure that is perhaps 10% of its listed tensile strength. So a hot rolled steel, of a good grade (this means minimal inclusions and flaws steel comes in numerous grades that are certified including but not limited to Gun Barrel, Air Craft and Nuclear) even in 1010 or 1018 will work very well for low pressure gun barrels even though its "weaker" than 12L14 or 1144. Its makes stronger barrels, the cold rolled steels produce better tensile tests. A large number, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of 1911 pistols in 45ACP were made with high quality steel 1010 or very similar steels.
A big name in barrels stopped making ML barrels after one of their 12L14 barrels maimed a shooter (remember the cracked barrels mentioned above? Same company). Near the end of production they were annealing the 12L14 to make it more ductile at least exterior of the barrels were scaled from heat. This has its own problems with the lead level present but I did see a 12L14 of their make that only bulged from a ball seated about 12" from the muzzle. It should have cracked but did not. Remington was sued over using 1140M for shotgun barrels and several shooter were maimed. This stuff WORK HARDENS and becomes BRITTLE and some trap shooters who ran through a LOT of ammo had failures.
There are ML shooters who no go to re-enactments with one hand due to barrel failures. Yet everyone "knows" it was their fault right? People would not use faulty steel for gun barrels right?
Many years ago Dad dropped his M1 off a tractor and then shot at a Coyote with it with dirt in the barrel, the barrel had a bulge about 2" behind the gas port. He shot it for years afterwards until I finally rebarreled do to chlorate pits and the bulge. Why did this not banana peal? It certainly has a lot more "umph" in hitting a plug at 2700 fps than BP would.

Here is an idea. I have posted material generated by an Officer of LaSalle Steel and a Metallurgist. How about you getting some information from a steel maker and a metallurgist who has studied BARREL STEELS and have THEM write a rebuttal.
I closing I will say that I have been making MLs for almost 50 years. I worked as the "tech guy", gunsmith (only one in the building) and custom shop for a major American maker of 19th c single shots. Its not my first barn dance so to speak.
So contact that metallurgist I am waiting but not breathlessly.
By the way one of the NON 12L14 ML barrel makers I get barrels from sent me an email on other subjects and at the end he referred to one of the makers you mentioned in which he stated, "I see _____ is making another run of pipe bombs". Not all ML barrel makers use the stuff.
So far as being out of business? Yeah it makes me wonder. But then like you, people think that it must be the shooters fault. Afterall "you can't blow a ML barrel up with BP".
Dan
 
Ah yes...here comes Dan to try and put Americans out of work again. Why don't we at least wait to see who made, and what this barrel was made from before you start trashing the barrel makers like you usually do.

And again, you conveniently left out one important fact about the burst Douglas barrels that you always refer to. They were extruded octagon, not milled round stock. It was the extrusion process that most likely introduced the flaws that made the barrels split the way that they did. But don't let those facts get in the way of your rant though.
 
Shine said:
Im with you Dan, You show credible evidence.

Actually he doesn't have any evidence, he is arguing theory, and half truths about barrels that burst 30 years ago. Real evidence is the ten's of thousands of barrels in use daily, that are made of 12L14 (which we have no idea that this barrel was even made from yet) that don't burst under normal, or even abused use in some cases. Just ask Don Getz about the experiments he did on 12L14.
 
Mr. Polek even says "we cannot reccomend a good gun barrel steel".
He then goes on a long ramble that accomplishes nothing more than try to lawsuit protect himself.
The 12L14 is (from many past articles in Muzzle Blasts and elsewhere) more ductile than other steels and is desirable for it's good machining properties. A brittle steel explodes like a grenade. The 12L14 splits (reportedly) because it is less brittle.
I don't know what company you worked for, you won't say, but it is known not all companies have high standards. John Baird of The Buckskin Report
fought legal battles with Thompson-Center in their early years over what he considered sloppy controls in their manufacturing process. For the record, we acknowledge they have changed.
Bill Large used 12L14 steel in his famous barrels.
I would like to see on picture of a 12L14 barrel that shattered on failure. Their maleability is why they bulge or split.
OTOH, I doubt this argument will ever be concluded. Googling found references and forum arguments exactly like this one going back many years.
We ain't sayin' nuttin' new here.
 
Shine said:
Niether do you.

Since you obviously didn't read my post I'll state it again. My evidence is the tens of thousands of barrels that have been made from 12L14, and that are in use everyday, that have not burst. That is a far larger data sample than anything Dan is referring to.

And I'll give my trust to the expertise of the people that have actually done destructing testing on 12L14, who I have already mentioned.
 
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