I worked at Pittsburgh Forge from 1965 - 1971 and watched lots of hot steel go through a steam and board drop hammers. It was not a fun place to work!!!! It wouldn't take long to stamp out a Parker frame, working on piece work incentives, I imagine they would make 3 or 4 a minute.

The Spencer, of Billings & Spencer was Christopher Spencer, my Great Grandfather's first cousin. He had a spinning and weaving mill in Manchester before going into partnership with Charles Billings, approx 1870. Their principle product lines were mostly sporting related, and their biggest local customer, also in Hartford, was Columbia Bicycle.
Spencer had something to do with a gun, prior to this. He invented the Spencer Repeating rifle, which he personally sold to Abraham Lincoln.
From the picture of the rough forging in TPS, it would appear they were closed die forgings.

Genius
 

Edgar knows everything. And he remembers everything...

Mr. Spencer and Mr. Lewis;

It is great to hear your expert opinions and thoughts based on your backgrounds. I know this is not absolute and maybe is not a real concern but was wondering with these older guns and obviously older metals is if steel crystallization is a problem.

All I know is that my family had a general store a long time ago and my grandparents were antique collectors and had old barns full of stuff. When store was closed the just moved stuff they did not sell into the old barn. 50 years later when I was a kid I rummage around and find a bunch of old wedges for wood splitting. A couple were old, never used and not rusted. So I did not think twice about using them since I had some old twisted hardwood needing to be split. Split a few logs and then on third log a big chunk of metal came flying off. You could see where steel had recrystallized.

Obviously quality of steel could be different from a wedge to a gun frame but... With as thin as some of these metals are, inconsistent quality controls, and now time should this be a concern. I don't know if there is anyway to tell if there is a process like that working until it just fails but do either of you gentlemen have any thoughts.

I know crystallization process and causes are sort of a hard subject to discuss and I don't know that any reasonable use of these guns could be a problem, but always wondered about manufacturing process and just time that leads to these issues.

Damn farmer doesn't come around for a year and when he finally blesses us with his presence it's to bust my breechballs.

Not a concern of mine. Maybe it is to others

Not even sure what you mean by 'recrystallized'. A splitting wedge is so far down the quality chain, it isn't surprising that it may have been made from sweepalloy, and heated treated likewise.

Yup, Obviously
What you're probably alluding to is something referred to as Inter-granular Attack, or Inter-granular Corrosion. A shotgun receiver is highly unlikely to find itself in the environment suitable to begin such a process.

Parker and other quality makers did not bore their barrels from poured castings of low quality steel or iron.

Haven’t been on forum since July. But I had to look Phil Carr since I’m in Tucson for a wedding. And I saw some of those quail on the golf course this morning!!!!

Thank you. I know they had different qualities of metal for different tasks and I was using the wedges as an example. Plus I was pounding that steel with a sledge hammer and not on a gun. My understanding is that when in forging process the granular attack or crystallization could start setup and then its just time. I have heard a lot argument either way. I don't know that I am as concerned about it as much with fluid steel its the some of the older guns with damascus or twist steel, but guess those issues fail for pitting or corrosion. .

I know a lot of folks are damn the torpedo full steam ahead and have had little problems. Probably there are low odds but glad to hear your views.

The Britsh use chisels in part to carve there fences, I suspect Parker would use chisels to generate the ribbons also.