Barrel Striking observation

[B. Dudley]

This set of recently refinished damascus barrels are 1 frame 12g. from a 73,000 serial number range gun.

A good example of how much metal was removed from the tubes themselves when you can see that much of the tube metal on the side of the rib. roughly 1/32" worth.

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[Dean Romig]

Good illustration Brian. Evidence of barrel striking is often seen at the muzzles too where no metal is filed away medially from the edges of the top rib all the way down the tubes to the edges of the lower rib.





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[Robert Delk]

Sounds like a serious amount of tedious work.

[Bill Murphy]

I'm sure more than one of us did not realize that this much major striking is or was performed on the finished and ribbed barrel assembly.

[Roundsworth]

I started cleaning the barrels on my 1907 GH and discovered the same thing. I was concerned with the 10 ounce difference from rough to finished, thinking that the bores had been honed excessively, but I am no longer concerned. I kinda thought 3-4 (finished) was pretty light for 30" barrels. It would be interesting to know how many Super-Xs or Leaders have been through my barrels, with no misfortune!

[Eric Johanen]

Not having done this or seeing it done, I'm really surprised by the amount of barrel metal removed. I've cleaned up and prepared factory stock barrels for muzzle loaders and never had to remove near that much metal. 1/32" is around .040...that is a serious amount of barrel stock. I look for minimum wall thickness of around .030 to .035 and well accepted wall thickness ahead of the chambers. Those barrels must have had serious external pitting or other damage to need that amount of striking. Any idea as to what the wall thickness measures after the refinish? I do not consider anything under .025 even on a very special gun. Just curious and looking for more information.

[Dean Romig]

Eric,
The barrels of most fine doubles, in order to meet the requirements of of say, a "light" twelve, or sixteen, or twenty would require striking quite a bit of metal off to meet both that requirement as well as producing a quality, well-balanced shotgun. A shotgun that came that way from the factory had absolutely nothing to do with external pitting.

Quite possibly the set of barrels that would require the most striking would have been a 28 gauge on the 0-frame or a 20 gauge on the 2-frame... something along those lines where maintaining balance would have been mostly in the practiced hands of the barrel striker.






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[Eric Johanen]

Dean, I understand the original striking of the tubes to make weight. I thought this was a result of the re-strike and refinish. My mistake.

[Dean Romig]

Eric, in this particular case that may very well have been the case.






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[Roundsworth]

Eric, my entry may have been misleading. My barrels have not been refinished. They have been struck, quite a bit, like the barrels Brian has. If Brian's were struck that much for the refinish, they must have been in rough shape!