• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

DOM Tubing that being used for barrels

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
DOM tubing is excellent for fabricating structures including frames for dragsters, motorcycles, cars, fences, railings, tracks for amusement rides, telescoping poles, support struts, works of art, etc., as well as high/low pressure or vacuum tubes for pneumatic and hydraulic applications.

There thousands of things that can be built with it limited only by imagination.

The catch is, when using it for some application where failure could result in death or maiming great care must be used in selecting the tubing and in properly analyzing the design based on any potential weakness that may exist.
For instance in the case of explosive pressures the material should have a safety factor of 4. That simply means the design must be 4 times stronger than it would need to be for normal pressure applications.

Equally important for dangerous applications is obtaining the material certifications and verifying that the tubing delivered and the certifications go together.
 
Thanks for reply Zonie. I always thought DOM seamless tubing was a piece of tubing with say a 1/2 inch hole in it that was bored and then they changed sizes by Drawing it over the Mandrel up to a certain size. Then they take the next larger size say 1 inch and Draw it over anothe mandrel fo the larger sizes.............From what I've read here it is folded around a mandrel and welded then smeared over another mandrel to hide the seam by extrudeing metal over the seam and hiding it?

Doesnt make sense to call it seamless unless it is truly seamless. I wonder if maybe some of the tubing with the seam is some sort of hot/cold rolled reverse internal process causing the seam............I guess you call this Musing

Bob
 
Leatherbark: Your method does work for short pieces of tubing and it does make for a truly seamless tube. The problem is that most tubing is made in lengths which is too long for that method to be used.

The DOM process of making tubing for instance is a process which uses rolls of flat sheet stock to feed the forming/welding/drawing machines which make thousands of feet of tubing non stop.
As the tubing comes out it is cut to easily handled lengths by a saw or abrasive wheel. It's all automatic.
This kind of production keeps the cost down.

I know the term "seamless" brings to mind a solid piece of tubing without welds, folds or crimps but what the word really is trying to describe is a tube without visible seams.
As I mentioned above, this smooth flawless surface is needed to get the various tubing connectors to seal easily.

There is a lot of tubing used that is not "seamless". That is to say, it has been sized by running it thru a die but no attempt is made to smooth out the seam.

Take a look at the exhaust pipe on your car or at a local muffler shop.
It will have a nice electric arc bead running the full length of it and the bead can be seen on both the inside and outside of the pipe (tube).

For this application a welded tube will work fine because most of the joints are welded together or clamped. It is not used with compression or flaired fittings and a little leakage is permitted so the extra expense of making it DOM tubing without a weld bead is not necessary.

Another welded tube that is used "as welded" is the shell of the "tin" (steel) cans we buy at the store.

Then, there is also tubing which is made by forming lap joints along the length of it and then rolling it around a mandral with the joints coming together where they get smashed together forming a nice locked joint.
 
I just got off the horn with Chambers Flintlocks.

They do not use DOM in their barrels. All of their barrels are Rayl barrels.
 
Well, now I'm confused. According to their website thy have a number of vendors barrels.

Maybe he was only talking about the fowlers.That's what I ordered, called to talk about and said so. So maybe that's the deal.

Buckeye barrels is in the same building as Chambers. They produce solely for Chambers, I think.

Buckeye Barrels
 
Buckeye is Jim's daughter, Blackpowder Barbie. She does not produce barrels but sells the Rice, Rayl, etc. barrels that go with the kits. Rayl's name was given you in reference to the kind of kit you are buying/inquiring about.
 
Stumpkiller said:
I thought they were teamed with L.C. Rice?

Maybe that's just for rifle barrels?

L.C.Rice fits up and tunes Chambers locks, his brother has the barrel business.
 
Yep. Just got off the horn with Barbie. You're right on all counts.

I ordered the early Lancaster in a .54.

It's in stock, she'll pack it this week and I'll have it way before January.

Christmas in maybe September. :grin:
 
CoyoteJoe said:
Stumpkiller said:
I thought they were teamed with L.C. Rice?

Maybe that's just for rifle barrels?

L.C.Rice fits up and tunes Chambers locks, his brother has the barrel business.

Well I hope he is still tuning up locks :shocked2: :rotf: I have a lefty L&R for a customer that 's been apart in a bowl down there for a long time. I would not have even fooled with the L&R if LC could not tweak it up. Couldn't get a Kiwi lock at the time.
 
mbokie said:
Yep. Just got off the horn with Barbie. You're right on all counts.

I ordered the early Lancaster in a .54.

It's in stock, she'll pack it this week and I'll have it way before January.

Christmas in maybe September. :grin:

CONGRATULATIONS! :applause:
Enjoy!!
 
Thank You kindly Captain. :v I fully intend to.

I'll be getting my bench prepared in the meantime.
 
What method is used in turning DOM tube into a barrel?

Is a threaded plug used on one end?
Or is it somehow welded?

Also what is the safest way of creating a plug in the tubing? Have some thick Dom tubing I would like to try and make a barrel just for the test

Best regards.
Igor.
 
I debated whether to respond or not to this loaded topic, because when I asked on open forum once the response was pretty caustic at times. To be fair some of you shared your knowledge and experience freely, thank you. But real hard numbers were for the most part hard to find. So I researched the mechanical properties of DOM tubing for myself after which I proceeded to build a gun. I proofed my .62 barrel at 200 grns of 3fff and 2 prbs measuring it every 2 inches before and after the shot with a digital micrometer. There was no measurable change. I order my tube from the same vendor you had in your post and, they delivered me a 20' piece cut in 4' lengths for $167.00. The ID was consistent on all 5 pieces within a thousandths of an inch. One of the complaints made against DOM was the lack of testing, well I tested it yesterday. When I built my gun I had 2 pieces profiled for barrels, so I took the second one out yesterday morning and breeched it. I started at 250 grns of 3ff and 1 prb and, marked the barrel every 2 inches measuring it with a micrometer. I fired and measured it, increasing 50 grns of 3fff each shot till I reached 400 grns. there was no measurable change so, I fired a final shot at 400 grns of 3ff and 2 prbs. This blew off the stop block I had nailed to my test plank 30', the barrel went 10'. There was no measurable change. Here is a picture of the test plank and the barrel there were 6 16 penny nails in the stop block. To keep on till I destroyed the barrel seemed pointless. I realize some people will be against DOM regardless. I don't want to argue, these tests were to educate us all. Make up your own minds, I did. That being said I am far from a novice with my tools, so newbies beware :nono: gunbuilding is always a proceed at your own risk affiar.
P.S. Some have talked about a visible seam down the inside of the barrel. Before it is fired there is one but, not past the second or third cleaning. Metals Depot has a good product and, the seam vanishes pretty quickly. The originals were welded in a much chancier process after all. For those of you who possess the skill to forge weld a barrel by hand my hat is off to you. :bow: I have made short welds in a forge and can just barely appreciate the skill required.
 
Well, that's a pretty good test! .62 caliber correct? you said profiled for a rifle does this mean that the barrel is tapered? Most fowlers are either a tapered round barrel or tapered Oct. to round with a thicker breech and a thinner muzzle aren't they? Just thinking out loud. It looks like it would work for a smooth bore to me, but a 48" inch barrel is a bit too long for me. I think the next test you do you should proof a 36" and a 32" barrel and see how a shorter barrel performs.
 
I LOVE destructive testing. Those really are some hoops you made that poor tubing jump thru. I'm convinced!

I know a guy who is using nuclear industry tubing to taper for barrels and including a muzzle swell.
 
Back
Top