1873 and 1892 barrel hardness test

[Pat C]

Just for grins and giggles I lightly polished a spot on a piece of scrap 1873 barrel from 1888. And an 1892 barrel from WW1 era 1917 app.

The 1873 barrel is near dead soft app.at 13 - 15 RC as its below minimum scale reading.

The 1892 barrel is around 20 -22 RC. So its a little harder than the earlier 1873.

Tests were using Pacific Transducer Corp. PTC portable hardness tester.
Hard to photograph but you can see looking at these images.

First picture 1873

Second in the 1892

[gamekeeper]

I know nothing of metallurgy but would it have made a difference if the samples had been super heated in the past? Interesting post..

[piller]

Gamekeeper, steel can be softened by heating and then slowly cooling. Fast cooling hardens it. Fast cooling is a quench. What it does is locks the atoms in a specific arrangement that they move into as they get hot enough. Slow cooling allows the atoms to move into a different arrangement which is very soft. Those softer barrels might have been deliberately softened to be easier to drill, then not hardened. Drills have become better with steel technology. Modern barrels are harder than the older ones were.

[gamekeeper]

Thanks piller, I knew that proper quenching was necessary to maintain hardness but I very rarely try my hand at it.

[Pat C]

Those older barrels 1873,1876 etc. Were at the beginnings of steel production at Winchester .
Merely just a low carbon mild steel that's why they are softer.
By the late 1890's nickel steel was being used and lot better refinements to steel mixtures.

Some time I might send off some samples for analysis.
The prints I've seen Winchester barrels were from Forgings .