Opinions on Doll's Heads and other stuff

[Dean Romig]

1.) Regarding Parkers with composite barrels, be they hammer guns or hammerless... I have never seen a set of composite barrels that had a doll's head rib extension made of any kind of composite steel, Damascus, Twist, Laminated, Bernard, or any other. Why is that?? If they could make a full-length rib from composite steel, why not the doll's head extension?
I know that for a perfect doll's head fit it was easier and probably cheaper to make the doll's head a separate piece, filing the front of it where it joined the rib rather than trying to get a perfect fit of the doll's head if it were incorporated with the full-length rib, so I get that.... but why not make the doll's head from a matching piece of composite steel??

2.) Now, if fluid pressed steel was available and the doll's head could be made from it, why did we have to wait for Mr. Joseph Whitworth to finally make barrels with it? Or was fluid pressed steel not available until Whitworth produced it? Were the doll's head extension, horse shoes, wagon wheel rims, tools and machinery made from a steel that wasn't strong enough for shotgun barrels? Was it a problem to bore a piece of steel to make a shotgun barrel? Was it easier, stronger, prettier, to wind a bundle of twisted and hammer-welded ribbands around a mandrel to form the tubes?

We see reference to very early barrel tubes having been formed from cold-rolled steel where there was a weld seam up the length of it but this was nowhere as strong as fluid-pressed steel...

I'm sure this has been asked and answered somewhere... Just looking for some concise reasons and opinions.


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[B. Dudley]

I have seen plenty of rib extensions made of composite steel. Here is an example of one.

33280715-5655-4D84-BBE8-A4DCA4C5152B.jpeg

However, my observations are that they are usually never the same pattern as the rib or barrels. And the grain of the steel is usually in a direction as such that the extension just looks like a swirly mixture. Much like the photo above.

[Dean Romig]

I'll have to take your word for it Brian... I enlarged it but I still can't tell. Can you show a better picture of it?





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[B. Dudley]

2EAC1A98-63CD-416B-B11C-706598119162.jpegAnother one.

[Dean Romig]

Nope, that’s not a doll’s head. Nuce gun though.





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[B. Dudley]

Yup, I missed that fact. The very early guns do not have a separate extension. I just came across that photo in my albums on my phone.

[Aaron Beck]

I imagine that there are many reasons why the rib extension was usually steel, but it probably just came down to cost.
Some ideas I had.
The pattern in damascus is a result of stock removal, so making a matching piece would require some figuring (npi), hard to pair the right nib with the tubes and ribs from europe.

Pattern welded barrels (as opposed to knives) were pretty soft and while the cylinder was plenty strong for barrel work, a nib on the end of the barrel was probably more resilient in steel. it would likely wear better too.
Regarding 2- I dont know much about early barrel manufacturing but I have been wondering. Were civil war arms made of steel or iron? I just got a burnside carbine which is marked cast steel which I believe means the barrel is made of crucible homogenized steel, not cast as a barrel but could be incorrect. Regardless it is steel from 1864. I think it is clear that composite barrels were prefered by sportsmen and thats why they appear on higher grade guns. Lc Smith and Parker featured fluid steel barrels on the entry level gun but stepped up to a composite one Grade above and this held long after it was cheaper to make "better" steel barrels.
Thats a very nice looking Twist barrel gun!

[Dean Romig]

Aaron, I don’t understand what you mean in saying “the pattern in Damascus is the result of stock removal”. Please explain. We have always understood that the pattern of any composite barrel is the result of how the iron and steel rods were stacked, super heared, twisted then hammer welded around a mandrel, filed, polished, then chemically treated to enhance the pattern.

The only Twist barrels shown are on the PH that Brian posted - is that the one you mean?





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[Aaron Beck]

Yes on the twist, not the fanciest pattern but a handsome upgrade over a straight vh.

As for damascus, the revealed pattern we all like is found somewhere in the middle of the forged bar. So as you say, you stack up different metals, weld them together and then grind them back to reveal the pattern. Etching highlights the pattern but is part of the finishing process. I believe different amount of stock removal is required to show different patterns. You could show a twist pattern with little or no grinding whereas bernard would require removing almost half of the metal thickness as I understand it. In either case the same proportion of stock is removed from the thick and thin ends of the barrel tubes.
I believe the dolls head stock is thicker and wider than its corresponding rib so it seems likely it would always come out of a different piece of stock.

[Aaron Beck]

I may be incorrect about the starting dimension of the rib extension, I have never seen that wasnt installed.