What is a twisted barrel ?

[Gustavo Hoefs]

I want everyone to know before I posted this topic I searched the forum but did not find the info I was looking for. I recently saw a photo of a pistol by Bolek Maciaszczyk with what appeared to be a spiral design on the barrel, it was referred to as a twisted Barrel. I would like to know more about this type of barrel. Thanks in advance

 

[galamb]

Perhaps it is being used to describe "spiral fluting" ???

Or maybe Damascus Twist...

 

[nwtradegun]

a twisted steel barrel is as follows. a long rod od stell in hammered around a mandrel. fored welded using borax or some type od flux. this will explain better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7eacS2oDcs

 

[nwtradegun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yu1gIVT4hA

 

[gunmaker43]

Bolek hand filed the spiral groove on that wheel lock pistol.
In Vienna, Austria I saw a Jeager rifle in museum with a octagon barrel, right in front of lock it made a twist to left so the lock plate flat became the top flat, really something.....Tom

 

[tenngun]

I saw a queen Ann pistol with an octagon barrel that had been compleatly twisted to the end. With a wrench that fitted the end into the spiral.
Some English writers referred to rifled bored as spriled guns. Spain built some squared boated guns with a spriled barrel to spin a square bull it for killing 'infidels'.

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
Spiral fluting barrels was sometimes done on 16th and 17th century guns. It is hand filed and actually not as hard as it may appear if the iron or steel barrel is relatively soft, like the originals. I would never try to do it with a Green Mountain barrel because of the tough steel they use. The Italian Cominazzo family often filed horizontal fluting in barrels. It was just decoration although the English maker, Martin Reynold made several turn-of pistols with spirally fluted barrels that served to provide a grip so the barrels could be unscrewed from the breech for loading.

dave

 

[Gustavo Hoefs]

I was imagining all sorts of ways to accomplish this. Maybe leaving a set of flats on the breech & muzzle end then inserting a mandrel into the bore, heat and twist to achieve a pattern. Probably be quite difficult to bring the bore back to true again

 

[dave_person]

Hi Goo,
Remember, the barrels in those days were usually soft iron, which files and cuts much more easily that the modern steels we now use. There is a woodcut engraved illustration in Espingarda Perfeyta showing a gunsmith shaping a barrel mounted in a lathe with a hand-held chisel. The lathe is spun by an apprentice. Also, on several pistols with spiral fluted barrels that I have seen, the fluting was only on the exposed half. The bottoms of the barrels covered by the stock were round.

dave

 

[Gustavo Hoefs]

I am working on a .36 cal Rice barrel right now that cuts, files & responds to the touch a tool as softly as any mild steel I have ever worked with. About soft Iron, I am puzzled about Iron in general because in order to refine iron ore it must be smelted collecting the molten iron and cast into an ingot which then must be worked or remelted and alloyed to make it into steel. Wikipedia says cast iron cannot be worked hot or cold. I suppose my question would be, are "Cast Iron" or "Wrought Iron" the modern terms for an alloy or a process or both?

 

[Rifleman1776]

During the AWI, British generals sometimes cursed the American Riflemen with their "damned twisted barrels". Meaning rifled and not smoothbores as were found in the Brown Bess muskets. Tracing terminology can take us some strange directions.

 

[dave_person]

Hi Goo,
Wrought iron is not poured into a mold and allowed to solidify. Rather the melted ore is poured into some sort of flat mold, but while cooling it is hammered, then folded and hammered again (wrought means worked - hammered). The result is that the skelp has a grain to it and it contains very little carbon, unlike cast iron. It is very malleable with high ductile strength, unlike cast iron. I believe Rice barrels are made from 12L14 mild leaded steel, which machines well. You would not have the same experience if you used a Green Mountain barrel made from 1137 steel, which is much harder to shape.

dave