Parker Leads...Others Follow

[charlie cleveland]

to my understanding the PLAIN STEEL BARRELS weremade by parker bros...or do i have this wrong......the gun i have has a patent date of 1874 on it plus serial no site says made in 1874....does this fall in the time period that parker made there on barrels....... charlie

[Drew Hause]

Charlie: I was waiting for a Parker expert to step in, but I'll go ahead and...step in it
358 guns were made with "Plain Steel" which was used for a short period in transition from "Decarbonized Steel" c. 1875. The decarbonized steel was probably sourced from Remington; plain steel possibly.
The Parker ads found by EDM and John Davis only mention Parker making Laminated and Twist barrels c. 1878

[Autumn Daze]

Drew, To claify...Decarbonized steel was left over musket barrels from Parker Bros. contract with the US government during the Civil War.

Both decarbonized and plain steel barrels are considered by many to be unsafe to shoot.

[Drew Hause]

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/...e=1&PHPSESSID=

[charlie cleveland]

i beleave i have this figured out now...remington was probably the makers of the plain steel barrels....carbonized steel seemed fairly strong after reading about how it was made...do i have this right....thanks for the info....one thing i figured out a plain steel barrel gun is rare but not worth a whole lot... charlie

[Autumn Daze]

Thank You Drew. Page 503 and 504 of the "Parker Story" talks of Remington possibly making the decarbonized barrels for Parker. A little later Parker changed the name to Plain Steel as Remington was using the name "Decarbonized" on their newly introduced double gun.

Also the authors believe that the "Gun Iron"barrels were made from surplus musket barrels being first used in the"Charles Parker Makers"guns and then carried over to the "Parker Bros" guns for a short time.

Drew...Thanks again for all your research.