People under 50… I’m not 90 but I turned 21 over 50 years ago on the wrong side of the Pacific. By the people 50 years old now were in their teens there was a far different world of MLing than when I was in my teens in the mid 1960s. The Buckkin Report was dead. What killed it was TELLING THE TRUTH. Being part of the organization at some level and friends with both editors, John and Dave. I KNOW that I don’t even want to be a around someone shooting a TC ”Hawken” especially the early ones. Most of the cheap repros give the creeps too. Blown barrels, splits in the bottom of too deep dovetails, failures of “patent” breeches in the cut made in them for the lock plate. I can tell things I have seen in person or described with photos by the people involved that would shock some here. Especially the ones that have never seen a blown up ML. But since MLs are had loaded the shooter never wins in the court. I watched a guy with a TC or one of the copies with the rifle butt on the ground have and accidental discharge when the rifle fell out of half-cock. I was looking the guy at the time from 25 yards or so away and I could not believe it did hole his hat brim. I have seen photos of a man with no left hand the result if a 1/2 oct fowler barrel bursting at the cut too deep wedding bands. This is a stress riser and brittle gun barrels are bad enough without a stress riser which they REALLY “hate”. Pa Keelor, who I used to order parts from in the 60s had a Douglas barrel fail and wrote it up in Muzzle Blasts. Douglas would then not sell him barrels. I saw one, 45 13/16 Douglas split up the top flat from breech face to rear sight when I visited a friend’s house in Illinois when coming from or going to Friendship in 1969. Converted Flintlocks bulged after converted to percussion. This is mentioned either W Greener or W.W. Can’t recall which. Its not the pressure as much and the difference in the pressure RISE I suspect. A flintlock has a “soft” ignition cycle. Percussion does not. It puts a LOT of fire, at pressure into the charge. I suspect this results in a faster pressure rise and more shock to the barrel. Remember also that the IRON rifle musket barrels used by Springfield of Civil War era were proved with 200 gr of Musket powder and a 500 gr Minie ball spaced 2” (TWO INCHES) off the powder. Yeah those thin walled skelp welded barrels were expected to stand this. Yet some modern steels very well may not. So some of us old guys, who paid attention or were in the right place, saw things that are not talked about today. AND printing such things, such as the “Ultra-Hi” guns with the 2 piece barrels that resulted in the bores in the different pieces aligning properly. There was another that had a snail type drum and nipple that a gunsmith in Big Timber, MT at the time was given to find out why it would not ”go bang” when he started the turn the drum out of the barrel it turned a 1/4 turn and FELL OUT. But if this stuff is reported in print and John Baird used to do this, the magazine loses advertising. And goes broke. Thus you ain‘t likely to see such things in ANY gun magazine. They just don’t report it. UNLESS the maker issues a recall. So NOW you know why you don’t hear of many guns blowing up. AND the shooter, believing the BS usually thinks its HIS fault when even with a short started ball a barrel made of something like hot rolled.4150 gun barrel quality will only be rung at most. But only a VERY few, actually only one and not sure he is still making barrels. Green Mountain used hot rolled 1137 gun barrel quality and I think there are some others that use at least some 1137. Its plenty good enough for ML barrels and will handle 50K psi with no issue in lab tests of a 45-70 Shiloh many years ago. 41v50 is mil spec for small arms barrels and this or a minor variation has been in use since before WW-II for US Military rifles and belt feds. Its bed time
