Solid Barrels
Since 1827 under the Joseph Brazier name the company has been making parts and components for the Gun Trade. Its gun locks, stamped with the Brazier Ashes name, are found in most quality firearms ever since. Joseph Whitworth, who also used Joseph Brazier locks on its firearms, invented fluid steel barrels in about 1880 rendering prior gun barrels obsolete. In 2004 Joseph Brazier invented single Solid One Piece Barrels of vacuum arc remelt steel making other forms of gun barrel manufacturing since 1880, now obsolete.
But aren’t most barrels made the same today? Doesn’t a Chopper Lump barrel on a fine Purdey, Holland or Westley Richards suffice as a quality barrel?
Suffice? I don’t know as that is a matter of choice. One can have brazed barrels with dovetail lumps of various kinds, “Chopper Lump” of various designs. I would say that Quality of a Chopper Lump and even a MonoBloc today is very good. The point is evolution. In 1880 we saw James Purdey maybe first on the scene with the Joseph Whitworth fluid steel barrels for the first time. My serial number 11,188 Purdey made in about 1882 had these new steel barrels and was shooting modern loads in the 80’s. But I think Damascus steel barrels were still being made as late as 1914. Were Damascus barrel not good quality? Yes they were. So how then can one say they are “obsolete?”
Well, obsolete is when a better, stronger, or faster method of making something comes to the forefront. That has clearly happened here. If a Chopper Lump barrel takes 2 years to make for your Wilkes and you can’t shoot your old Joseph Lang because it might not stand the new proof rules and there IS a solution to the problem what do you call that? Fortuitous or an evolution in barrel making?
There are a lot of points to be taken from the previous statement and the first paragraph. The discussion can range very wide and far. But to get there I think we need to come to some understanding of the complexity involved in the new technology and a basic understanding of what goes on in barrel making.
The main areas of consideration begins with the boring of holes. As there is a Patent on that process pending I think we can avoid that directly except to say it is a matter of accuracy in the boring that makes the manufacture of say an Over Under Barrel….difficult.
The second, and more serious in difficulty is the angle of convergence. As both O/U and Side x Side are different, lets address the O/U for this discussion.
A) We need to know about the projectile, how much it weighs. B) how fast it travels and C) where that projectile IS at a given point in time. Often missed D) is something else I call “Time in recoil”. And then there are external influences. Is the barrel arrested or influenced by another? Is the recoil during firing consistent? Meaning: Is the platform consistent? (That would be your shoulder)
The third has been mentioned as velocity x mass x radius squared applied to Newton’s Law of Orbiting Bodies. In other words, gravity. Newton theorized that if a projectile was projected fast enough, that it would continue indefinitely. And of course if it did not, it would fall relative to its velocity, mass radius coefficient or: Projectile gravity drop calculated for every 1000 feet forward a weight drops 16 feet. Thereafter calculated by the square of 16 in increasing amounts. 1000 =16 ft., 2000 = 2×2x 16= 64 ft., 3000= 3×3x16=144 ft. in progression. A rusty memory here but that is about it. So you have the projectile data, and I assume the answer of the distance you want. Can you not triangle your trajectory now? Lets hope so or Pythagoras just rolled over. So now you have that information the final adjustment is “Time in recoil”. Where IS your barrel at the moment of exit? Is that it? Not exactly. We do have another barrel over it that is influenced differently.
We have two things going on with superposed barrels relative to line of recoil. While the center line effects felt recoil, it also effects the movement of barrels relative to their placement in space to the platform of resistance: Your shoulder.
But lets suppose you have calculated all the above accurately, bored your holes within a quarter of a degree of axis tolerance, you still have a block of steel to contend with remaining in need of profile…..Huuuum?
I’m afraid you have come now to patent data (which I hope in future tells you nothing by the way) and at this juncture my remarks close.
Lets look at the problems associated with the Side by Side barrels. (SxS) Well we now have the same influences as above but a little worse. The barrels now do not recoil in a straight line one “over the other”. Nor is their platform situated in semi direct alignment either. In fact, we know for a right hand shooter the Right barrel recoils to the right and generally speaking the Left barrel recoils sort of to the left. So we have X, Y, and Z axis involvement.
In conventional barrels of O/U and SxS, we have a lot of math cheating going on don’t we? They have a general idea of the direction of the bores to point, tack them at muzzle and do what? Ahhhh, they bend the barrels to converge to an “Eye” overlap distance. Oh Sweet. Very sweet. No math at all. And they want £16,000.00, $29,600.00, e30,000.00 for a set of bent barrels filed to fit? Is that not obsolete? Wow, I don’t know but I think you would agree that if there was a method as accurate as bending to suit, why would one want to go there? If I were presenting this method today opposed to the one NOW being proposed what credence would you give it? I don’t think if I had invented a “Chopper Lump”, “Dovetail” brazed barrel now that it would sell. Do you? Then it IS obsolete.
Now comes Rifles. I seem to be hit with low tech scoffs on them. “Oh, you can’t make them “Regulate” they say. ” What? Is math dead? Is my glass empty? What KIND of statement IS THAT? Horse manure I can’t “Regulate” double rifle barrels. Why not?
Well I can see this “technical article” could get long here and perhaps we will come back to taking these barrel technologies one at a time to digest, but let’s clear the air here just a little.
“Regulation” is another word for “Convergence”. Is there a math change from what I have discussed already? No. But what the comment “Regulation” supposes is that a “bullet” of a given size cannot be regulated to a point of impact “except by hand” when two or more barrels are converging. (Someone at NASA just laughed didn’t you? Or was that a petard?) Okay, lets look at the WAY it is being done.
Conventionally two rifled barrels are welded together pointing somewhat in a given direction. (I have about 60 barrels mapped that way mathematically) A load is selected, barrels are tacked together at the muzzle and “boom” there a round goes down to a piece of paper at a “given distance.” Say 50 yards. The barrels are pushed apart or pulled together until a satisfactory result is made. “They are Regulated.” So solder the barrels together, mark the sites for 50 yards, brush off your hands together and done right? Uuuuuh, not really. They also put 50, 100, and 250 yard flip sites on the barrel TOOOOOO. Hummmm, what’s THAT about? Oh, “that is regulated for all three”. Sure…I see. Do you?
We have two rifle barrels that cross (converge same as a shotgun) at 50 yards…..I am a simple man with poor math for sure, but don’t those barrels cross over maximus at 100 yards? Who wants to hold the target for me at 250 yards?
Let’s be kind. Let’s pretend to be stupid. Let’s overlook that MINOR regulation error of convention in a double rifle and assume “they” are speaking instead of “different loads won’t regulate from the same setting”! Welllll, they won’t regulate to something different in bullet weight, bullet design, type of powder, primer, or even brass; by hand OR machine…..That is unless they are a Joseph Brazier SolidSolid ™ “AI” barrel or “Adjustable Impact”. How is that again? Adjustable impact barrel? The Joseph Brazier barrels can be adjusted to impact while a conventional barrel must be split and soldered in place again just like all other double rifle barrels ever made……Well, I guess we better have a chat about that in some detail later.
So what we do at Joseph Brazier is push the “Newton”. (A metaphor of pressure: Newton’s.) With fluid steel barrels coming out in about 1880 invented by Joseph Whitworth, I thought it time we started using our heads and this wonderful technology the Space race gave us. Do something to push the “Newton” into the 21st century. And as most people think I am a little nuts anyway, why not put it right in your face with applied mathematics? Besides, it is fun. And who knows, someone just might….just might….get off his duff and step on Karl to new heights of the primitive art of gunmaking. We have as you have noticed pushed the “Newton” on the Wilkes action, also interchangeability of Wood, Parts, Components and Barrels while holding close tolerances too by the way. Can we do it the old way? Sure. Will we? No. I am of the position that “once a caveman is given a match he will throw down the flint.”
Except for demonstration making, the world has changed in gunmaking beginning with the John Wilkes O/U gun to my mind. It is the mark of a new era. It is a statement of thought that will be imbibed or those who fail to do so will perish. I salute the hand made gunmakers art. I am completing myself the last pair of handmade locks of the Holland & Holland back action design to end the era for Brazier in respect of my predecessors. What I have produced from my mind to machine is another art form that combines “thought to math” as my brush; replacing the “file, hammer and chisel” of a Trade whose art of the hand, like me, is fading fast.
As I said back in 1966 when I compared a new gunmaker on the scene with NC machine made firearm components, “In evaluating firearms for value and quality, (this company) could no longer be put into a gunmaking category as an unfair comparison. Their gun was largely made by machine in which man could not compete on the same level.” Many makers have moved to machine of course. Many parts are simpler and cheaper to make. Joseph Brazier has gone the other direction to sophistication and complexity. Once the difference is understood, then both sides of gunmaking can be equally appreciated. The level of complexity, is equal.
Karl C. Lippard, Managing Director