Nut Boring

[Aaron Beck]

Interesting concept. Lancaster the town?
Barrel making is a hobby, so Im not finding any of this boring.

[Woodcock survey]

Thank you, i was interested to know the sequence of the different operations and you did so beautifully along with a great deal of other information.

[Bill Murphy]

Lancaster, the British gunmaker, not the town.

[edgarspencer]

Originally Posted by Aaron Beck

Barrel making is a hobby, so Im not finding any of this boring.

[Aaron Beck]

Parker and most gun makers brazed or soldered their tubes together, then constructed the lugs separately. Highest quality barrels, such as chopper lump, are tubes with the lugs an integral part of the forging, machined and them soldered together. Unlike the barrel failure of the Repro, in another thread, Chopper lump barrels can't "come apart".

It seems likely to me that the two tubes and lug were brazed together and then finish machined as a unit. All of mine seem to have a brass/spelter coloration indicating a much higher temp than the solder on the ribs. I assumed them to be furnace brazed in some type of fixture

"The purchased tubes likely only got one, maybe two rough boring operations, before assembly. reaming and chamber cutting was almost certainly done when the two tubes were now a barrel set. Chamber reaming, and finally rim cutting, were done before fitting to the receiver."
This choking sequence doesnt seem to allow for concentricty if the barrels were bent to regulate in the last third as is often discussed for point of impact. maybe im mixing things up on this point. Since the muzzles usually appear concentric, I assumed they were choked before assembly. Maybe the pilot can follow the curve as it is slight. Can you clarify Edgar?

[Dean Romig]

There was a feature presented by Dave Suponski some 10 years ago that I published in Parker Pages, taken from a machinists handbook from the twenties or thirties that described in great detail with illustrations, the entire barrel making/boring of the Parker shotgun barrels. When I’m back home tomorrow night I’ll look it up and post the volume and issue here…. Or folks can look it up on their own copy of the Parker Pages Digital Archive.





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[Aaron Beck]

Ive seen that but couldnt find it again. Is there a searchable index?

[edgarspencer]

I don't know if the barrel joining step was furnace done or rosebud torch, but My guess is hand torch. As Dean says, Dave Suponski wrote a good article. He had, at that time, and may still have, an unfinished barrel set completely soldered, and it was a mess of solder. The barrel makers were pretty liberal with the solder, based on what I saw in that set, and doing it in a furnace would have proved more difficult to add additional solder where it might have been needed.
I don't think the regulating process for shotgun tubes is anything like that done on double rifles, but I doubt any adjustments involved additional boring. Since there is very little documentation, I'm really only speculating.
There are a few guys still around who knew Charlie Parker, and my dad knew him because he grew up in Meriden. My dad had many Parkers, since he was a kid, and bird hunting and fondness for shotguns was synonymous with Parker. He had his uncle's Model 97, and a Model 12, but I don't ever recall him hunting with them. It would be great if Charlie had written a book and anticipated all these questions. Larry DelGrego is another who has family connections directly to the company, and I have no doubt he has more 'first hand' knowledge than any of us.

[Robert Delk]

One of the most interesting things I have read in a long time.The knowledge of Mr. Spencer is amazing.

[Dean Romig]

Contractors in the barrel department at Parker Bros would hold the barrels up to a light source, like a window with an opaque covering, and ‘regulate’ the tubes together this way. I believe they would simply thump them with their fist as a hammer.





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