Octagon rifle barrels.

S

Savage99

New member
This statement was made on another thread about octagon barrels and I wonder how the writer came to this conclusion:

"Back in the day all barrels started out as octagon. It required more work to get them round. Many were left that way just to cut manufacturing costs."

From what know of metals machining and manufacturing I say round is easier!
 
What's the date of that manufacture?

I am asking:

"Back in the day all barrels started out as octagon. It required more work to get them round. Many were left that way just to cut manufacturing costs."

I don't believe that!
 
Round is only easier if you have a big lathe.
The smaller muzzleloader makers did not, the big factories did.

Even so, the 1873 Winchester was a lot more popular with octagon barrel than round, even though it cost $0.95 extra in 1901.
 
The statement is incorrect. Barrels were made in several ways in the old days, but the most common was wrapping iron/steel strips around a mandrel and hammer welding them. The result was a round barrel, which was draw filed to finish. Making it octagon required thicker strips, plus a lot more filing and more work; of course the product was very costly.

Octagon or hexagon barrels came into common use only when barrels began to be made by drilling, and milling machines came into use, c. 1860. While theoretical reasons have been advanced for its popularity, in reality it was mainly chosen for its aesthetic qualities.

Jim
 
I went browsing around the Web. Nothing definitive, but several discussions among blacksmiths and machinists. As near as I can tell, hammering a flat strip around a mandrel inherently resulted in a tube with flats. For a given diameter, an octagon is stronger than a hexagon. A flat surface enables easier alignment of the sights.

I know the 1853 .36 Colt Navy was octagon, as was the Jim Bridger 1853 rifle I sold to the museum in Cody.
 
Wrapping iron/steel strips around a mandrel and hammer welding them was/is a Damascus barrel. Mind you, very, very early cannon barrels were made this way. Early being 14th Century.
"...cost $0.95 extra in 1901..." Lotta money in 1901. Guy in a U.S. factory was making 24 cents per hour.
 
True, the difference between $11.55 and $12.50. But they still sold more octagons.

I read that the reason the rough forge welded barrel was finished out octagon was because it was easier to do with file and grindstone than round.
How was a Brown Bess round barrel made? Did the Tower have lathes? Or British craftsmen doing a better job of drawfiling round than the colonials?
 
A bit drifty, but speaking to modernity: Bo Clerke (now deceased) gave me a tour of his barrel-making operation in Raton. Mostly .17, .204 and .223 barrels; around 160 per week output.

He pointed to a box of barrel blanks. Maybe 50 to a box; looked like 24", maybe 22". But, all were octagonal billets.
 
Like others have said, there were no modern lathes back then so it was more difficult to make a nice round barrel. Most things were forged, sometimes with a hammer, so a flat hammer would be more suited to making the flat sides like on an octagon vs. the round sides of a round barrel. As for functionality, I'm not so sure there is too big of a difference, so I think the statement you read is likely true.

John
 
Anyone who says round barrels weren't easier to file than barrels with flats has obviously never draw filed a barrel. Believe me, round is easier.

The problem of course is that before roughly 1860, no one had been able to figure out how to drill a long straight hole in a solid bar of iron or steel. The long drills kept wandering and breaking. Finally, someone came up with the "spoon bit" and turning the barrel rather than the drill, and the problem was solved, though most barrels still needed straightening.

Yes, building up a barrel from strips or plates wrapped around a mandrel is what we now call "Damascus" and in later years was used mainly for shotguns. But prior to that, almost all barrels were made by that general method. Some military musket barrels were made by heating a long flat of iron and then wrapping it around a mandrel lengthwise, sort of like a hot dog in a roll. The edges were then welded together. That produced a barrel that was stronger than one built up. True, the seam was a potential weak point, but with a good overlap, those barrels were quite strong.

Another method, also used with musket barrels in the Civil War era, was to use a large (3" or so) round billet that was short enough to be drilled, then insert the mandrel and pass the billet through a series of rollers of decreasing size until the barrel was formed. IIRC, Springfield Armory used that system.

Jim
 
John Bivens showed flintlocks with lateral grind marks on the bottom flats of the barrels as were covered by the stock. They didn't file them octagonal, they ground them.
 
I once saw a woodcut of a lathe made of wood, with a gunsmith working on a barrel. Dated from the late 1700s or maybe early 1800s. I vaguely recall that he was cutting rifling. Probably turned by water power. The picture did not show whether the barrel was round or octagon.

From Wikipedia:

"The lathe is an ancient tool, dating at least to ancient Egypt and known to be used in Assyria and ancient Greece. The lathe was very important to the Industrial Revolution.

The origin of turning dates to around 1300 BCE when the Ancient Egyptians first developed a two-person lathe. One person would turn the wood work piece with a rope while the other used a sharp tool to cut shapes in the wood. Ancient Rome improved the Egyptian design with the addition of a turning bow. In the Middle Ages a pedal replaced hand-operated turning, freeing both the craftsman's hands to hold the woodturning tools. The pedal was usually connected to a pole, often a straight-grained sapling. The system today is called the "spring pole" lathe. Spring pole lathes were in common use into the early 20th century."
 
The lathe is indeed a very ancient tool. What was lacking before about the mid-19th century was not the lathe itself, but the power and the hard tools that could cut iron or steel. The first lathe used to turn cannon (gun metal) barrels came into use around 1780 but was not used in small arms production that early.

Hi, Art, I think the picture was probably of a rifling machine, which looks a bit like a lathe, but works differently, with the scrape cutter being pulled through the barrel. It is interesting that once the barrel making problems were solved, barrel production in factories outran gun production; barrel shops were semi-automated even c. 1900 and always had a stock of barrels waiting assembly.

Jim
 
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