Always Safety Check Your Parker Before Shooting

[Elvin Ehrhardt]

Guys I just received this old Parker Brothers Hammer Gun I got from an auction a while back. It's a beautiful piece, made in 1881 one of the earlier 12-gauge, Lifter Actions coded a D2 as a Grade 2 with Damascus barrels on a number 1 frame. It locks up very tight, no dents or cracks anywhere, and the barrel wall thickness was well within acceptable range. However, as you can see in the video clip the Damascus is de-laminating inside the right barrel about an inch forward of the front edge of the chamber. This is a very good example of why there is a need for everyone to safety check these old Twist, Laminate and Damascus barrels that were twist welded around a mandrel to form the barrels. This gun looks pristine everywhere until that borescope looks inside the barrels. The left barrel was a little pitted, but fine. The right barrel clearly shows de-lamination just forward of the chamber which is where the strongest pressures are developed during firing. I checked very carefully at the location for any signs on the outside of the barrel, but found nothing. Unfortunately, I won't be able to shoot even my Black Powder loads in it, but there is some saving grace, I have a set of full length 20-gauge sub-caliber tubes that will fit it, but its days as a 12 gauge are over unless I come across another set of barrels that might fit it. Be careful guys, never chance firing one of these old masterpieces before they have been thoroughly checked to be safe. Sorry guys the system won't take the movie clip so a posted a couple of screenshots of the bore scoping. If anyone wants to see the clip, send me an email or phone number and I'll send it to you.

[Chris Robenalt]

Good "heads up" Elvin! Thx for sharing.i walk the line myself at times!

[Mike Franzen]

Could you see anything just looking down the barrel or did it only show up on the scope?

[Elvin Ehrhardt]

Mike
To answer your question, no. Although it is apparent that there is pitting, the only way to see this kind of damage is close examination and the bore scope is really the only way that I know of that will give you that ability.

[Ed Blake]

What is de-lamination?”

[Elvin Ehrhardt]

Ed Early barrels used on Parker Bros and other shotguns made during the 1800s were limited to types of Twist, Laminated, Bernard, and Damascus Steel barrels that were all made by taking three to four pieces of half inch steel rods that were heated to red hot and hammer welded together then heated again and hammer twisted and welded around a round steel mandrel the approximate size of the desired barrel. This heating, twisting and hammer heat welding continued until the full length of the barrel was formed. The barrels I am talking about here were formed that same way using Damascus rods. The delamination I am referring to in my post is where some of those old hammer heat welds are coming apart or de-laminating, inside the barrel just ahead of the chamber. It is difficult to say what is causing this, but since the location is just above the chamber, it is likely that pressure from firing has contributed to wearing out the pictured weld that was created over 145 years ago when those barrels were made. As I mentioned, the delamination-lamination hasn’t made it all the way to the outer surface of the affected barrel, but it is sufficiently visible to make that barrel unsafe to be fired again even with lite loads. My alternative was to fit new sub-gauge tubes into the old barrels so the gun can still be used.