Another hint that Parker made their own barrels

[Austin W Hogan]

Dave Suponski and Larry Frey are experienced tool engineers. We have been passing things around and looking into this with hope of finding first how damascus or twist barrels were turned and bored. Speeds and feeds of cutting tools are dependent on the material being cut; how do you pick a speed and feed for two dissimilar materials twisted together?

There are many Parker barrels with proof marks with serials in the low thousands. Most of these have the barrel flats brazed on indicating the barrels were purchased turned prior to delivery to Parker. King revolutionized barrel finishing with his patented turning process and forging of the flats. The British are thought to have ground the contour on damascus barrels; King's patent has a cutter on the tool post. Turning Parker barrels from rough tubes began somewhere before s/n 3000.

According to John's article, Parker manufactured laminated tubes around the 10 - 15000 serial range. They were laminated in three sections and forged together. We think they may have been marked with P on the flats. There are a few grade 5 laminated barrels that are quite handsome. There are some grade 3 barrels that do look like three pieces of pipe welded together.

There is a discontinuity in the printed word relative to Parker Barrel manufacture in the twentieth century. Parker catalogs contain the statement relative to Acme barrels "we have always made these barrels ourselves" The first Acmes appear at around s/n 134000, or 1906. The testimony before congress was cited as 1912. This could be a scanning font error.

We know that Parker was making barrels in the 1920's from Charlie Parker's story about the visitor's suit being soaked with oil when the boring bit went through the side of a bar being bored.

It is likely that Vulcan barrels were made of a faster cutting steel than higher grades, as it was necessary to turn 40 V barrels a day, or more to maintain production.

It is possible that Trojan barrels were outsourced as there was no variation in length or choke offered, and it was also necessary to make more than 40 Trojan barrels a day to meet production

Best, Austin