The Classic English Double Barrel

[Pages:9]From Hank's messy but highly organized desk:

It was recommended that I write something about myself to include on the book website. Not knowing much about book marketing, it was stressed that people are more inclined to have faith in your work if they know a little more about you. I'm sure most will agree that it gets boring really fast when people start talking about themselves. We'll not let it go there.

My name is Gary Hankins AKA Hank. I'm sometimes asked if there's any kinship to William C. Hankins of the Sharps & Hankins fame. I simply don't know. My great great granddad's name was William H. who served as a captain in the CSA. Are they related? Perhaps I should look that up. Being born and raised in the farm country of central Ohio there was plenty opportunity to learn the skills of hunting. As an avid hunter himself, my dad always kept guns in the house his favorite being the Browning "Sweet 16". It is an accurate statement to say I grew up with guns and was taught to handle them with diligence and respect. From the age of ten until high school graduation my summer months were spent working in my dad's auto body shop where I learned metal working and finishing. My formal educational consists of a degree in electrical engineering, which has served me well. Over the course of time several fortune 500 companies employed me as an r&d engineer, process engineer, quality engineer, quality manager and plant manager all the while tinkering with, studying and building black powder guns.

My first black powder gun was a Christmas present way back in 1974. It was a Japanese made flintlock horse pistol kit marketed under the Ultra-High Products trade name. The frizzen could not be hardened so it was fired a total of four times using strike anywhere kitchen matches instead of a flint. It made great big booms and the recoil from the .69 caliber round ball was overwhelming. The frizzen spring snapped on the fourth shot and it was never replaced. I still have that pistol. The frizzen spring is missing and the frizzen is just as it was finished over 40 years ago. Many other kits followed that one of which, other than the horse pistol, only two remain in my collection. My first scratch built was a percussion target pistol completed in 1991. The working parts of the lock came from Dixie Gun Works and the lockplate was carved out of a piece of 3/16 steel plate. Much to my surprise it turned out to be an extremely accurate shooter. I still have it too. Double flint sporting guns caught my attention also in 1991 after seeing Bill Brockway's Recreating the Double Barrel MuzzleLoading Shotgun. It was a good book and I relied heavily on it to complete my first double flint. Seemed like it took an eternity to complete. Many more followed and each one was a learning experience. With my growing interest in the double flint sporting gun, research became a vital part of the hobby reading and documenting everything I could about them and how to build them from scratch. Then one day a friend suggested that I write a book.

The first edition of the Classic English Double Barrel was published in 2002. It was pretty lame actually with only a couple dozen copies sold. It was given a well deserved facelift and the second edition was published in 2007 as an eBook. But, once again, it fell short of its intended purpose the primary complaint from readers being the lack of photos. Old reviews of the second edition still live on the web. To fix the shortfall the second edition was rewritten to include a couple hundred actual construction photos. Some sections were expanded to include additional historical and technical information and more appendices added to include the making of tools and alternate methods of making gun parts. Everything was packaged up and recompiled to make what you see now, the third edition offered both in print and as an eBook. A few pages from the Barrels section are included below.

Is it a good book? Preliminary feedback says yes but you'll have to judge that for yourself. I could offer my own opinion but it would be jaded, a brazen attempt to force my views onto you. I won't do that but will say I hope you find The Classic English Double Barrel informative, helpful and interesting. Give us some feedback. Let us know what you think of it and should you decide to build a replica 18th century English style sporting gun, best of luck with your project. There. How boring was that?

Barrels

Before we go into the details of barrels, we need to talk about safety. To accurately reproduce the classic English flint double, Damascus1 barrels are in order. Even though plain steel barrels can be worked into fine examples, plain steel barrels simply do not capture the character or inherent beauty of the classics. Damascus barrels are becoming scarce but are still found at gun shows and swap meets and on the internet. Most Damascus barrels found today came from old hammer guns built during the mid to later part of the 19th century and into the early 20th century. There is no way of knowing how these barrels were maintained or cared for. Primers and powder of a century past or more was corrosive. If not properly cleaned or cared for, corrosive residue left in the barrels can and will destroy the integrity of the forged wound iron over time. NEVER and I repeat NEVER fire a gun built with these barrels from the shoulder without first properly proof testing them. Your life or someone else's life could be at stake.

A short discussion of length

Prior to the dawn of the 19th century the barrel of a typical English fowling piece was quite long, sometimes approaching 40 inches in length. There are several theories as to why this is so. But, as doubles grew in favor, barrel lengths began growing shorter with the majority of English makers producing doubles having barrel lengths of 28 to 30 inches after 1800 with some of the larger bores approaching 32 inches. This works out pretty good as most barrel sets found today are well within this range. However, I prefer longer barrels as a longer barreled piece is easier to swing and point accurately and less inclined to check prematurely. One thing to keep in mind is the fact that a muzzle heavy gun is not as lively as one having greater weight toward the butt. Balance is a major contributing factor to a well handling, naturally pointing double. The subject of balance is covered in greater detail in the section titled Carving the Stock where we discuss how to balance your recreation to suit your requirements.

Types of Damascus twist

In the early days of lightweight smooth bore barrel making, wires of dissimilar type was wound around a mandrel then hammers forged the wire together to make a tube. The mandrel was removed and the tube was machined to shape and polished. Two tubes were soldered together using a top and bottom rib to make a barrel set. Treating the barrel set with chemicals and specialized processes caused the dissimilar metal to take different colors, which brought out the pattern of the twist. As the art of barrel making advanced, further developments resulted in the introduction of the more economically produced modern "nitro" steel barrel. Some of these barrels were treated to mimic a Damascus pattern and may even be stamped "Damascus Twist" somewhere on the barrels. They may or may not be true Damascus but the one we want has the

1 The term Damascus as used in this context refers liberally to all types and patterns of forge welded shotgun barrels.

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Plain twist pattern

Single iron stub Damascus

Two iron stub Damascus

Three iron stub Damascus

Images source:

familiar plain twist pattern as the barrels of original works typically display this type of pattern. If you wish your recreation to be as authentic as possible then stay with the plain twist pattern. A pattern other than the plain twist will finish as a fine contemporary work but not as a true representation of the classics.

The most effective way to determine if a barrel set is true Damascus is to polish a portion of the barrel mirror bright and drop a bit of sulfuric acid on the polished portion. If it is true patterned Damascus, lines will appear almost instantly. This, however, is not too good of an idea when trying to find them at the swap meet. Most old barrels will be dirty, rusty brown and grimy. The cleanest part is normally the protected area under the forearm around the lug. Sometimes a Damascus pattern is immediately visible there. If not, use some steel to polish that area up a little. If the barrels have a true Damascus pattern it will more than likely show up. If there is no pattern, you may still decide to use them for your project if they pass the next test.

Ring that barrel!

A very simple yet effective way to test the overall integrity of an old set of barrels is to ring them. Hold the barrels up by allowing them to hang suspended from a finger or two by the locking lug under the breech. Give one barrel a good tap near the muzzle with whatever is handy. Repeat the test on the other barrel. If the barrels are sound they will ring and reverberate as a bell with a sharp, crisp tone. If there is a dull thud or a broken tone then that means the ribs are loose or worse- there is a hole rusted in one of the barrels. Throw that set aside. When you find a sound set, look down the bore of both barrels. Severe pitting is bad news. Mild pitting poses no problem. Moderate pitting is salvageable but requires more work on your part to make them useable. Assess the dent situation too. Mild dents are easily raised. Severe dents are a lost cause. Look at the barrels lengthwise from muzzle to breech. Mild waves are typical of Damascus barrels and of little or no concern. If obvious bulging is visible which does not match the

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waviness of the rest of the barrel, throw that set aside. If all checks out, strike a deal with the seller and smile as you walk away.

Barrel set purchased on the internet for $75.00 U.S. Chambers bored 0.813" x 2 5/8", the chamber diameters being on the high side of the 12 bore typical dimension. Barrels display a two iron pattern similar to the two iron pattern illustrated above. While this pattern is not representative of the classics, this barrel set will lend itself to a fine contemporary example if it passes all of the tests.

Breechloader to flintlock?

We now have a decent set of barrels. The next step is to make the transition from breechloader to muzzleloader. It's also time to make a decision. This stage is the best time to decide which time period you wish to recreate as the breech plug design evolved as the era progressed. The breech plug design used prior to 1790 is an adaptation of that used on single barrel fowlers. None of the breech plug is visible and the lock fits directly against the barrel. Henry Nock patented a new style of breech plug April 25, 1787. His breech plug design is exposed and adds an inch or so to the overall length of the barrels. With Nock's design, the breech plugs are the same width as the barrels and the locks fit against the breech plugs. The early and Nock style breech plug thereby creates a wider stock profile at the wrist across the tail end of the locks. Around 1792 Joseph Manton further improved Nock's design by machining a tapered recess into the side of the breech plug. As with the Nock design, the lock still fits against the breech plug but this design allows the locks to set closer together thereby creating a much narrower profile at the wrist across the tail end of the locks.

Three types of breech plugs used during the classic era of the double flint shotgun. From left to right: the early type breech plug; Henry Nock's patent c. 1787; Joseph Manton's patent c. 1792.

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A time to trim

You may be wondering what to do about the lump and lugs under the barrels. They have to come off and the barrels must be proof tested before going to far into the process. There is no need to invest any more time than necessary in a set of barrels that may be unsafe. A set of temporary breech plugs is needed to proof test the barrels. An early breech loading chamber is typically 2 5/8" deep not including the forcing cone. This depth is excessive for our purpose and some of the breech end of the barrels must be trimmed off before installing the temporary plugs. The actual chamber depth must be determined before any cutting begins. The chambers must be no more than 1 1/2" deep for 10 and 12 bore barrels, 1" for smaller bores. This depth is critical to prevent creating an air space between the powder charge and the wadding with a smaller charge. A 70 grain powder charge (2 ? dram equivalent, a very light 12 bore load) fills a 0.298 cubic inch space completely. The powder chamber of the breech plugs when finished must be small enough to fully contain the smallest powder charge anticipated to prevent an air pocket from being formed between the powder and wadding when loaded. This is important as even a small air space can create a dangerous situation. Barrel rupture could occur. It is better to have some of the gunpowder spill into the barrel to prevent creating an air space between the powder and wadding. A simple gage is used to measure the actual chamber depth. Make the gage out of wooden

A

Barrel Bore Width (A)

Tap Size

10

0.841"-0.885" 15/16"-14

4"

12

0.798"-0.812"

7/8"-14

16

0.732"-0.746"

7/8"-14

20

0.685"-0.699"

3/4"-16

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0.614"-0.629" 11/16"-16

craft sticks as the one pictured to the left of the table above. Glue the pieces together and make width "A" to match the chamber diameter of your barrel set. The finished length of the handle of the gage should be no less than 4". Next, we trim off the lugs.

Nix the lugs

We still have these things sticking out of the bottom of the barrels. What to do? Cut them off. Any method except a cutting torch is acceptable. The thing to remember is to avoid nicking or gouging the barrels. A bit of care exercised here will save a lot of work later. We'll start with the forearm lug. The complete forearm lug is typically a dumbbell shaped piece brazed in place between the barrels. It is best to not try to remove it completely, as this requires separating the barrels. To begin, remove the hook with a hacksaw then grind the remaining portion down to within a few thousandths of the rib and barrels. Work the rest away by hand using a chisel or a file following up with sandpaper. Be careful not to go too deep. Going too deep will create a trough in the rib or barrels and will mar the otherwise clean lines. When properly worked down and polished the remains of the lug is invisible to the untrained eye.

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In the example above, the hook was first trimmed off using a hack saw. More was removed as seen in the middle picture using an angle grinder. The rest was removed with a hammer and cold chisel. Yes, the top barrel is gouged from the chisel. Sometimes the author has trouble following his own advice.

Now for the lugs at the breech. These are easier to remove than the forearm lug due their straightforward accessibility. Be sure to save the parts after removing them, as one will be used later in the trigger assembly. Start by removing the extractor if there is

The lugs at the breech are easy to remove due their straightforward accessibility. Start by removing the extractor if there is one.

one. Set the barrels up on the band saw lengthwise keeping the flat parallel to the blade and perpendicular to the table. Make the cut a few thousandths above the flat. Use guide blocks clamped into position onto the saw table to help keep the barrel set

Set the barrels up on the band saw lengthwise keeping the flat parallel to the blade and perpendicular to the table.

After removing the lugs, work the remains away by hand the same as the forearm lug.

from wobbling about as the cut is made. This prevents nicks in the barrels from the saw

blade during cutting and provides a smooth, even cut. If

you don't have access to a band saw then carefully

remove the lugs with a hacksaw. After removing the lugs,

work the remains away by hand the same as the forearm

lug. This barrel set is taking shape. Remember the gage

we made earlier? Go get it. We'll cut the chambers to

length next. Slide the gage into the chamber of one of

the barrels. The gage should fit snugly but loose enough

Remember the gage we made earlier? Go get it.

to move easily. If it is too tight then file one side slightly to remove the excess. If it is too loose then throw that gage

away and make another. Once the proper width is set,

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the gage will stop at the beginning of the forcing cone. Measure the chamber depth of the right barrel. Place a pencil mark on the handle of the gage to indicate the true depth of the chamber. Repeat the process for the other barrel. Measure the distance of both lines from the wide end of the gage. Write down the measurements, as you will need them. If both measurements are with 0.050" +/- of each other then no special effort will be needed when making the breech plugs. Check each chamber twice and average the numbers. Now subtract 1 1/2" from the shortest average chamber depth and compare the minimum and maximum side to side. If the difference between the two is greater than 0.050" then the chamber end of one breech plug must be made longer.

Measure the chamber depth of the right barrel. Place a pencil mark across the handle of the gage to mark the true depth of the chamber. Repeat the process for the other barrel.

If this is the case then make note of which chamber is deeper. This special case is addressed in detail in the Breechplugs section. Now measure 1 1/2" from the wide end of the gage. Draw another line on the gage handle at this point. The difference between the two lines is the length to cut off.

Measure 1 1/2" from the wide end of the gage. Draw another line on the gage handle at this point. The difference between the two lines is the length to cut off.

Referring to the photo above, notice that the original chamber depth is 2 5/8" as determined by the gage. Since we want our new chamber depth to be no greater than 1 1/2" for the 12 bore barrels, 2 5/8" - 1 1/2" = 1 1/8". So, the breech end of the barrels must be cut back 1 1/8" to provide a 1 1/2" chamber depth.

The breech end of the barrels must be cut back 1 1/8" to provide a 1 1/2" chamber depth. If needed, slip the extractor back into position to get an accurate measurement. Remove it before making the cut.

As shown in the photo above, a line is scribed 1 1/8" back from the breech end. Make the cut on this line. The breech end of the barrels may be cut any number of ways but a band saw always does the job quickly and cleanly. A chop saw with a jig made to hold the barrels perpendicular to the saw blade and level to the saw base

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also makes a quick, square cut. The more square this cut, the less work has to be done later to true up the barrels at the breech. After the cut is made, save the cut-off part as the rib may be used later. Remove any burrs from cutting and lightly file the cut edge of the barrels to smooth things up. Finally, use the gage to verify that each chamber is the correct depth.

The barrels can be cut any number of ways. A horizontal band saw and a jig made to hold the barrels perpendicular to the saw blade and level to the saw base makes a quick, square cut. The more square this cut, the less work has to be done later to true up the barrels at the breech.

You may be wondering "Why do all that measuring and math stuff if the chamber depth on most old hammer guns is 2 5/8"? Why not save a few steps and just measure back 1 1/8" and make the cut?" The answer is simple. The operative phrase is most old hammer guns have a chamber depth of 2 5/8". Shot shells grew in length over time. The chambers of many favorite old doubles was deepened to accept a longer shot shell. Or, the barrels may have deeper chambers from the factory. The only way to judge the actual chamber depth is by measuring it to determine where to make a precise cut with a resultant 1 1/2" chamber depth. It's also important to make sure that the chambers are the same depth +/- a few thousandths. If they are not the same depths then the breech plugs require special attention during fabrication to assure the proper fit in all aspects. It is critical that the breech plugs fit correctly.

Breech end trimmed to the correct chamber depth. After the cut is made, save the cut-off part as the ribs may be used later. Remove any burrs from cutting and lightly file the cut edge of the barrels to smooth it up.

Use the gage to verify the 1 1/2" chamber depth.

Tapping the chambers

A 7/8"-14 plug (second) tap is used to cut the 12 bore chamber threads.

Tap the chambers using a tap size shown in the table above. As it works out, the taps indicated result in better than 80% thread depth without doing any boring or reaming of the chamber. Since we are working with a 12 bore barrel set, a 7/8" -14 plug (second) tap is used to cut the threads. Make sure the tap leads in centered to the bore. If tapped off center, the breech plugs will sit crooked in relation to the bore resulting in a poor fit to the forcing cone, barrels and false breech. Crooked plugs make for a difficult time when fitting the false breech to the breech plug hooks and barrels. Work the tap slowly and use plenty

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