steel used in barrels

[Dean Romig]

That's my opinion too John, although we may never be able to prove our hypothesis.

[Bill Murphy]

John, you are out of here. Parker steels are better and stronger as the price goes up. Anyone who does not believe that is no longer an esteemed Life Member of our organization.

[John Davis]

I miss EDM. The idea is that grading Parker fluid steel was a carry over from the Damascus days. Purchasers were accustomed to various qualities of Damascus steel. And of course 3 blade was in fact finer than twist, 4 blade finer than 3 and so on. When fluid steel was introduced, sportsmen of the day expected the same, and gun makers gave it to them. Perception being more important than reality. But I think Charlie Price best set out the arguments of why the fluid steels were probably all basically the same, perhaps only differing somewhat as between suppliers. That was a great article by the way. And although I can't prove anything, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it's probably a duck.

[Dean Romig]

[Bruce Day]

Acme and Titanic barrels finish finer than Vulcans.

[Autumn Daze]

My belief is that there are at least three different steelsused in Parker Bros. barrels. This may just be as simple as three different suppliers. Anyone in the steel business knows that no two manufacturers are exactly alike even though they may call the material the same name ie: c1018,or 4140 etc. I have not given up on getting samples and results. Some day this will come to fruition.

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Bruce Day

Acme and Titanic barrels finish finer than Vulcans.

Do you mean to say refinish?

As they came from the 'factory' in Meriden the Peerless and Whitworth barrels were more highly polished than Acme and Titanic. The Parker Special Steel, Parker Steel and Vulcan barrels were very nicely done but striking marks were plainly visible under the fine rust blue of new barrels.

Remington barrels, on the other hand, were nicely filed and polished and had virtually no striking marks at all but the rust bluing process was different than the Meriden process and produced a duller or coarser luster to the finished product.

[Richard Flanders]

It would be simple enough to do Dave if you could get pieces of blown barrels or muzzle trimmings or whatever. How about the guns that Sherman blew up? I can get them analyzed and I could even do polished sections of the steel and photograph the crystalline structure. This is all basic microscopy. Bring it on! Where's Edgar on this? He knows more about this kind of thing than the rest of us do collectively.

[edgarspencer]

Originally Posted by Richard Flanders

Edgar on this?

I'm here, just taking it all in.
As You and Dave have pointed out, absent actual records supplied to Parker from the mills, doing a chemical and photo-micrograph analysis are really the only definitive way to put the argument to bed. Most likely, collecting a range of samples and maintaining traceability would be difficult. It would be possible to analyze samples using x-ray florescent spectrometers, which are every bit as accurate as wet-lab analysis, and photo-micrograph analysis non-destructively, That said, what owner of a Peerless barreled gun is going to volunteer up his gun? Who can blame them for not wanting to take a risk of a small blemish where they polished it and etched it?
The technical ability of raw material suppliers to supply a low alloy steel goes back a long way, but what made one company stand out was their ability to certify it. That required in-house analytical labs that had the capacity and skill to analyze each heat of steel, and each heat-treat lot, as well as a physical testing department to machine and pull tensile specimens. While I made castings as large as 25,000 pounds for rather particular customers like Electric Boat, and GE Steam Turbine, I also made them down to a few pounds, and those little castings could barely be used for paper weights for the reams of documentation that ultimately drove up the price.
Every alloy is defined by it's range of individual elements, but also by it's heat treatment. A set of Vulcan steel barrels may have the same chemical analysis as a set of Acme or Peerless barrels, but those high end barrels may have a much finer grain structure, achieved from very precise times and temperatures. Does HTA stand for 'Heat Treated, Annealed"? I don't think so, simply because annealing essentially yields a nearly dead soft, stress free material. It's just my guess that it might stand for Heat Treated Alloy Steel. Those heat treat cycles for C, Cr,Ni,Mo steels are Normalizing, to achieve hardness and tensile strengths, and Tempering, to achieve ductility. It does no good to heat treat it to a high tensile strength, and have it shatter like glass.
If one supplier had orders for tubes, ultimately to be used in V and A grade guns, he may have made them all from the same heat of steel, and maybe even the same heat treat lots. He may have simply been asked to certify a certain number or quantity of rough tubes. In our own company, some castings may have gone out the door at $2.50 a pound, and others, of the same metallurgical history, at $50.00 / pound. It's how much paper with signatures that went with it that made the difference.

[Joe Clarke]

Sorry for posting on this older thread...I was reading the various posts about the different monikers for the Parker barrel steel and really enjoyed reading Mr. Spencer's posting as I also work for a Steel foundry...and wholeheartedly agree with his commentary. In particular the parts about the paperwork weighing more than the castings sometimes...especially when meant for the applications like the ones he referenced! I don't happen to have a Parker with "Titanic" or any of the other fluid steels...yet!