No wonder we were afraid of Damascus

[Kingston Wulff]

The advent of smokeless powder occurred in 1895 but probably took a few years more to complete the transition among manufacturers of firearms. Parker still made Damascus until about 1915 by special request. My thoughts are that the Damascus barrels are strong but too expensive to produce along-side vulcanized steel. So the manufacturers wanted you to believe that you needed vulcanized steel because it was safer. Read: new marketing to sell new guns.

[John Davis]

Hopefully our Editors will forgive me for pulling back the curtains on a future Parkers in Pulp article, but I thought this might add to the discussion.

July 24, 1898, San Antonio Sunday Light, “Mr. Chas. Chabot while gunning for doves Friday afternoon with Mr. A. C. Pancoast, had a narrow escape from severe injury or probably instant death. He was using Walsrode powder in shells supposed to contain 24 grains of chained lightning’ as the boys call it, in a sixteen gauge Parker gun. Mr. Chabot fired at a dove crossing the road when the shell in the right barrel exploded, tearing out a piece of Damascus steel nearest the breech about four inches long which disappeared in the circumambient air. The effects of the explosion knocked Mr. Chabot down and severely powder-burned his face; otherwise he escaped injury. Strange to say, that just about one year ago he met with a like accident, the left barrel of his gun being blown off. Messrs. Parker Bros. on being informed of the last year’s accident gladly replaced a new set of barrels for those exploded. There is hardly any doubt but what the shell which exploded the gun contained an overload, as Mr. George Chabot, his brother, is authority for the fact that he has used Walsrode smokeless powder for the past three years without an accident.” [Author’s Note: First for the curious, “circumambient” is defined as “surrounding.” Second, what else would you expect from something referred to as “chained lightning?”]

December 24, 1898, Denton Journal, Denton, Maryland, “Sheriff Rice’s fine Parker gun burst while he was shooting partridges on Wednesday last. The powder used was the smokeless kind and thought to be very strong. A large piece of the left barrel was blown off, and Mr. Rice was badly burned about the face.” [Author’s Note: Another blown barrel. These articles serve to illustrate that the transition to smokeless powder could be a hazardous one.]

December, 1898, Sporting Life, “Parker Bros., of Meriden, Conn., manufacturers of the popular high-grade Parker gun, have issued notice to the trade of an important addition to their line. The circular is as follows: ‘We can now supply you with a Plain Black Barrel, that we do not hesitate to recommend as a hard, tough and thoroughly reliable barrel and in consequence is suitable to shooting nitro powders. We unhesitatingly recommend them for trap and pigeon guns when a party desires a barrel similar to the Whitworth Fluid Pressed Steel. We have decided to name them Titanic Steel, by which name they will be known and stamped on the top rib. They will be made in the $100, $150 and $200 list, and will be kept up to the high standard that has characterized our guns of these grades.” [Author’s Note: Parker Brothers finally enters the fluid steel market in earnest.]

[Drew Hause]

Sporting Life, Sept. 10, 1904 “Burst Gun Barrels”
https://digital.la84.org/digital/col...id/38180/rec/3
The number of burst gun-barrels which come to the attention of the shooting public is remarkably small, considering the thousands of guns in use throughout the country. The main reason for the comparatively small number of guns burst is the great use of factory-loaded shells, or the hand-loaded of reliable dealers. The day of loading one’s own shells is pretty well passed, therefore, the over-loaded or double-charged cartridge is very seldom found. Very often a burst barrel is blamed on the gunmaker or the shell-maker, but more often on the manufacturer of the powder. Cases are known where a party blowing out a gun-barrel, using an extra heavy charge of dense powder, blamed it on a bulk powder. A suit for damages was quickly withdrawn after an examination of the gun had been made.


William Welshausen vs. The Charles Parker Company
Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, Decided June 14, 1910
https://www.ravellaw.com/opinions/b6...e0e4fa0830982c
The complaint alleges that the plaintiff purchased of the defendant a gun of its own manufacture, with an express warranty by its agent that the same was sound, of best quality and fit to stand the strain of proper and ordinary use, and that the barrels thereof were of the best Damascus steel. It also alleges negligence on the part of the defendant in manufacturing the gun and putting it on the market, and in allowing it to go into the hands of customers without proper supervision and inspection during and after its manufacture and before it was sold; that the gun was weak, insufficient, badly constructed, and of poor quality of steel, and that because of such defect the left barrel burst when the plaintiff was using it in the ordinary manner and with due care, and injured him.
The plaintiff lost.

1936 testimony by W.A. King, Parker Gun Co. regarding a barrel burst, likely a 20g shell inserted before a 12g
https://books.google.com/books?id=jU...J&pg=PA802&lpg

[mobirdhunter]

Thanks, Drew and John, for those accounts. It makes me wonder what it would have been like if there was social media in the 1890s.

[Drew Hause]

Wolffe & Co. in Walsrode, Prussia had a London agent, George Beutner, in 1892, then established The Walsrode Smokeless & Waterproof Gun Powder Co. in the U.S. in 1894.
Walsrode Gray 33 grain = 3 Dram; Green 30 gr. = 3 Dram.

A. Hillier and his Parker gun
https://books.google.com/books?id=lN...J&pg=PA228&lpg

I've never seen an ad for a black or smokeless powder "Chained Lightning"

[Drew Hause]

Havilah Babcock “Fallen Lady”
Tomorrow I would give those New Englanders a lesson in the art of eye-wiping, but right now I would gloat over my beauty alone. I'd doll her up just a bit. Later I'd remove the old black paint from the barrels and have them reblued, of course, but right now I'd merely hit the high spots, like that paint smudge on the left barrel.
Daubing it with a little paint remover, I waited a moment, then brushed the paste off. The exposed metal didn't look quite right; it seemed to have a spiral pattern. I stopped dead still, a chilling suspicion at my throat. Removing the forearm, I went to work vigorously with an emery cloth. Again the telltale spirals leaped at me.
The sickening truth was irrefutable: the barrels of my precious gun were visibly, unmistakably, and irreparably Damascus, made in the old black-powder days by twisting strip steel around a mandrel, then heat-welding it. For unnumbered years Damascus barrels were highly regarded, but the coming of smokeless powder doomed them. In simple fact, nitro loads blew many of them apart, with resultant damage to the shooters.

“Fallen Lady” first appeared in Field and Stream in the late 1940s (the “Lady” then may have been a Lefever), was re-published in May 1962 (now a Parker), and is included in The Best of Babcock, published in 1974.

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Drew Hause

Havilah Babcock “Fallen Lady”
Tomorrow I would give those New Englanders a lesson in the art of eye-wiping, but right now I would gloat over my beauty alone. I'd doll her up just a bit. Later I'd remove the old black paint from the barrels and have them reblued, of course, but right now I'd merely hit the high spots, like that paint smudge on the left barrel.
Daubing it with a little paint remover, I waited a moment, then brushed the paste off. The exposed metal didn't look quite right; it seemed to have a spiral pattern. I stopped dead still, a chilling suspicion at my throat. Removing the forearm, I went to work vigorously with an emery cloth. Again the telltale spirals leaped at me.
The sickening truth was irrefutable: the barrels of my precious gun were visibly, unmistakably, and irreparably Damascus, made in the old black-powder days by twisting strip steel around a mandrel, then heat-welding it. For unnumbered years Damascus barrels were highly regarded, but the coming of smokeless powder doomed them. In simple fact, nitro loads blew many of them apart, with resultant damage to the shooters.

“Fallen Lady” first appeared in Field and Stream in the late 1940s (the “Lady” then may have been a Lefever), was re-published in May 1962 (now a Parker), and is included in The Best of Babcock, published in 1974.

One of my favorite Babcock stories. Thanks for the reminder.