Dangerous Damascus

[Kevin McCormack]

[QUOTE=Dean Romig;207794]I'm pretty sure the side panel engraving determines the "Roundel" style of engraving Larry.


No, you're wrong - a roundel is a circular shape or sphere of any size or location usually containing an artistic rendition or symbol, regardless of where it appears on an object.

[Dean Romig]

[QUOTE=Kevin McCormack;207811]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

I'm pretty sure the side panel engraving determines the "Roundel" style of engraving Larry.


No, you're wrong - a roundel is a circular shape or sphere of any size or location usually containing an artistic rendition or symbol, regardless of where it appears on an object.

Sorry Kevin, in this context we're talking about the side panel's determining if the gun is a 'Roundel engraved gun.'

I understand your point and I agree with it except in this particular context of the side panel's engraving style.





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[Daniel G Rainey]

Very interesting, but that is the way business works. To some bigger is better. Ammo companies that owned gun companies wanted there guns to shoot the more powerful and more costly ammo in order made more money. Just like the camo companies coming out with new patterns each year. It is not that the old goes not work,but they need something new to sell. When hunters kills a bird it is dead and it makes no difference if it was shoot with 28 ga. or a 3 1/2 12 ga. It is just as dead. Chances are that the bird shot with the lighter load will not be shot up as much and better on the table.

[John Allen]

Daniel,You really nailed it.Remember that in the late 1940s and 1950s everyone wanted magnums.They believed that if a little was good,a lot must be wonderful.We still suffer from that a bit today with these stupid 31/2" 12ga.guns.They don't realize that the loads are lower velocity,longer shot strings,and more recoil than a standard 23/4",11/8 oz.field load.

[Kevin McCormack]

DEL G-R-E-G-O !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Pa SxS]

How do you guys remember all this???

I can't remember what I had for lunch

[Keavin Nelson]

I think it had more to do with marketing by the gun company's, twist steel was harder to find, more expensive to make/import. Fluid steel barrels were for the most part local, cheaper to make, but didn't have the handsome patterns. So to sell plane steel, the "old" damascus had to be less, either strong or?

[Drew Hause]

Keavin: Almost all the 'rough forged tubes' used by U.S. doublegun makers, both pattern welded and fluid steel, were sourced from Belgium, and they said so.

Hearings, Vol. 14, United States 60th Congress 2nd Session
November, 1908.
http://books.google.com/books?id=XW0vAAAAMAAJ&dq
We further request that shotguns barrels in single tubes forged rough bored…be continued on the free list as at present, because their manufacture or production can not be economically undertaken in this country.
Hunters Arms co., Fulton, N.Y., Ithaca Gun Co., Ithaca N.Y., Parker Bros., Meriden, Conn., Lefever Arms Co., Syracuse, N.Y., J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co., Chicopee Falls, Mass., N.R. Davis & Son, Assonet, Mass., Baker Gun & Forging Co., Batavia, N.Y.

Report on Duties on Metals and Manufactures of Metals
By United States Congress. Senate. Committee on Finance, 1912
Testimony regarding the Payne-Aldrich and Dingley Tariff Bills
http://books.google.com/books?id=QDkvAAAAMAAJ
http://books.google.com/books?id=QDk...AJ&pg=PA879&dq
STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS HUNTER, OF FULTON, N. Y., REPRESENTING THE HUNTER ARMS CO. AND OTHERS
The Chairman: Will you state the companies you represent, Mr. Hunter?
Mr. Hunter. The Hunter Arms Co., the Baker Gun & Forging Co., Parker Bros. Gun Co., Hopkins & Allen Arms Co., A. H. Fox Gun Co., Lefever Arms Co., H. & D. Folsom Arms Co., Ithaca Gun Co., N. R. Davis & Sons, and Harrington & Richardson Arms Co.
Senator McCumber: Does the American manufacturer use the unfinished importation?
Mr. Hunter: He uses what are designated in the present bill as “gun barrels rough-bored.” That is what we import.
Senator McCumber: To what extent do you use those?
Mr. Hunter: Entirely.
Senator McCumber: You do not manufacture any of them?
Mr. Hunter: No, sir. We have no facilities for making shotgun barrels.
Senator McCumber: Does any other company make them?
Mr. Hunter: There are a few that make them for themselves only. None are made to be sold. We never have been able to buy any in this country.

THE TESTIMONY OF W.A. KING REPRESENTING PARKER GUN CO.
Mr. King: I can speak only for our own company in so far as wages go. For instance, on the question of barrels, Mr. Hunter informed your committee that some years ago some of the manufacturers of this country attempted to make barrels. We made some barrels: we built an addition to the factory, put in some up-to-date machinery, and brought some men from Belgium to show our blacksmiths how to do it. We had to pay our blacksmiths not less than 32 cents an hour, up to 40 cents, and we gave it up, because the highest wages paid the Belgian blacksmiths for exactly the same grade of barrel are 11 cents per hour. That is what is paid to the highest-priced man employed.
Senator Smoot: In Belgium?
Mr. King: In Belgium: yes, sir. That is where all of our barrels are imported from, with the exception of our very high-grade Whipple (probably a typo for Whitworth) steel barrels.

I certainly agree about the marketing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...hIiY62Hx4/edit

[Dean Romig]

And... the 'pattern welded' or composite barrels made by Parker Bros. were only in about 1877, '78, and '79.

Aside from the 'marketing' factor - which was huge - was the fact that importation was rendered practically impossible by the attacks on any and all commercial shipping by the Germans in WW-I. That fact alone put a definite end to importing raw barrels from Europe.





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[Paul Harm]

Drew, I believe Remington was making their own " fluid steel " barrels long before 1908 - although they didn't call them " fluid steel ". They had rolling mills to form barrels from a piece of stock 2" round by 8" long . Their rifle barrels were sold world wide.