Ten bore sxs Hammer barrel wall measurements

[muncher]

I am hoping in the near future to acquire a sxs ten bore hammer gun ,can anyone tell me what barrel wall thickness I should be looking for , especially in a Damascus barrel.cheers Jules

[demonwolf444]

Muncher - Nobody can tell you i'm afraid!

When guns are made there is no minimum wall thickness.

Often the barrels of guns were filed down in order to meet the customers desired weight of the complete gun.

There are no stamps or markings that can tell us what the wall thickness was when made.

With regards wall thickness there are a couple of things you should be aware of.

the "minimum wall thickness" is considered to be 20 thou, that being said that doesnt mean a gun with thinner barrels is inherently unsafe, guns have passed proof with barrels far thinner from new, thinner barrels really just mean they are more likely to dent or be damaged in the field.

While running your barrels in the wall thickness gauge you should look for areas where the wall thickness dramatically changes, perhaps dropping from 21 thou to 17 thou un evenly around the tube. While this is not necessarily something to be concerned about its probably a sign that a dent has been removed, this is worth knowing because now the barrels are thinner it might be more likely to damage again and less forgiving or even impossible to repair.

A gun with healthy barrels should have reasonably even wall thicknesses around the circumference of the tube, getting thinner towards the muzzle and then a bit thicker again at the choke.

That being said if you are going to be using heavy non toxic loads in, a gun with good stout thick barrels might be considered more usable and a better investment than one that's been honed and repaired after years in the field.

 

Proof status is more important. Wall thickness and proof status are just little numbers which give us some understanding of the life of a set of barrels but they cant promise us that barrel A is safe and barrel B is not. The difference with Proof over wall thickness is that in the UK proof status is enshrined in law.

It is illegal to sell a gun out of proof, the buyer should be equipped to make sure that he can check a gun for himself, i have had some well known dealers sell me guns that were out of proof. They seemed to be of an opinion that because they were making very little profit on the gun that that didn't really constitute selling the gun.

On the barrels the proof marks relate to the size of the bore 9 inches from the breech at the time it was proofed. In general the rules of proof allow this size to increase 10thou before the gun is considered out of proof. You need to be able to read and understand the proof marks, see what the original gauge was then use a shotgun bore micrometer to work out how comfortably in proof it is. ( or not )

[panoma1]

As said above there is no optimum standard barrel wall thickness......under a certain thickness the barrel is prone to damage dents etc....over a certain thickness they become heavy with no other real advantages......which is great in a fowling gun! I have an double 8 Bore proofed at .824 with barrel wall thickness at various points of 50/55 thou (thick, possibly because it was bored as a tight 8 bore, nom 8 bore being  .835).......it's heavy!......But the benefit are the swing is smooth and I don't even notice the recoil!

As demonwolf444 says anything over 20thou is probably ok providing it is a uniform 20thou.......30thou would be better! Lol!

[muncher]

Thank you ,I've seen a few that measures around 26,000 and I wanted to make sense of the data to make a informed decision.

[motty]

Don't do it, Jules.

[muncher]

Lincoln went back!