Why did they use octagon barrels so much?

[uscra112]

I've been to the Williamsburg gun shop. I first heard there that most of the steel cutters were made from worn-out files, annealed, cut, forged, filed to shape, then re-hardened and stoned. Files in colonial America were almost always imported from Sweden or England. I've since read that same thing in several places. The steels used for making these files are said to have been pretty good, from the hardness standpoint.

I've always assumed that the old handmade barrels were octagon because that was easier to hand-forge and hand-finish (by draw filing) than a round barrel would be.

[Flinchrock]

Right interesting thread fellows.

[MBTcustom]

I spoke to my father about this, and he said that he had heard from an old gunsmith, that the earliest gun barrels were made by hammering a piece of iron flat, then wrapping it around a mandrel and welding it together. They had problems with the welds breaking, so they wrapped the barrels with wire to improve the strength a little, (I have seen an example of this before in a very old Indian flintlock). Then, they figured out that it was better to pierce the bore into the blank as that produced no weak spots from the welds. At this point, I called BS and told him that "there was no way in heck that they were going to pierce a 40" hole in a piece of iron". He gave me that "don't be stupid" look and told me that they started with a lump of iron, pierced a hole in it and drew it out from there on a mandrel between a hammer and an anvil. The really high end guns were finished round, but most of the time they just left them with the flats that were hammered into the metal in the drawing process. This squares with how I was taught to draw metal into round shapes. You hammer it square, then you hammer the "corners" voila, eight sides. I just never thought of it as a barrel making process, more of a way to make pins and rivets. I can easily see how this would be done, and it definitely explains why they are all eight sided barrels. This makes total sense as a practical solution from a blacksmiths standpoint. Couple that with all the other information here, and it has been one heck of a read.
By the way, here's a picture of one of the cappers that I made with handtools when I was a kid. Tools used were a hack-saw, fieriers rasp, hand drill, drill and tap for the nipple, and a whittling knife. Believe it or else, I shot this pieces several hundred times! It was fairly accurate at close range with semi-wad cutters. (at least they started that way, I stole them from dads guncabinet and would dig them out of the ground and smoosh them back round with a pair of pliers, and shoot 'em again.) Good times.

[Bret4207]

Back tot he original question of why so many turn of the century guns had octagonal barrels- If you read any of the writings of the old timers of the day, say Ned Roberts "The Muzzle Loading Cap Lock Rifle" or "New England Grouse Shooting" by Frank Forster (IIRC) you'll see tradition played a major part in what people used and bought. If you had the $$ to go and buy a gun you bought status too, if you could. Same as the people today that buy $50K pickup trucks or $2500.00 ARs. If you could do it, you bought what appealed to you and for the most part, based on surviving examples, catalogs and writings of the day, the octagon was just considered "correct" in most centerfire arms. Military rifles of the day seemed to have gone for round- the Trapdoors, early bolt guns, etc. That might have been a manufacturing expedient, or maybe for weight reduction. But for the most part, what I've seen says the tastes of the day leaned towards octagons for looks as much as anything else.

[Wayne Smith]

Barrels were long made by welding a piece of metal around a mandrel. Research how Damascus shotgun barrels were made even in the 1880's. In Williamsburg the last time I talked to the gunsmith (years ago) he was not making his own barrels but did have a demonstration of how they were done. For what it's worth, swamped barrels were made with a piece of metal that was thicker on the ends than in the middle. This saved weight and allowed a reasonable sight plane, according to him.

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

To resurrect an old thread . . .

I realize that the octagon shape could not be any advantage in indexing with a 7-groove rifling tool.

But, could the flats serve as an aid to hold the barrel in place while the rifling is cut? It seems that to cut the rifling you are putting a lot of torque on the barrel. Smoothbores don't have this issue.

If there is no advantage in having an octagon barrel while cutting the rifling, then I can't imagine there would be any practical advantage whatsoever. Which is what Wallace Gusler claims in "Colonial Gunsmith" (search Youtube).

Roundbarreled guns were common during the same time period - the only correlation seems to be that rifles were octagon, and smoothbores were round.

[freebullet]

I have never picked up an octagon barreled gun and not wanted to take it home, have you?

[starmac]

Just thinking, but could it be that the thinking was more weight out front was better to hold steady off hand.
Scopes were pretty much nonexistant, probably glasses were not as popular either, could the flat have been percieved easier to sight down? What was or is the thinking of the ventilated rib on shotguns?
I like them for the looks, but I am sure that was not the thinking in the early days.

[oldred]

Whatever the reason I'm sure happy that someone thunk of it!!!

[bob208]

as some one said a lot of tradition. 7 groves for the 7 days of the week. a fish inlay is a christen sign and they old guys wanted all the luck they could get in the rifle. in the muzzle loading era it was to save work they only had to finish the top 3 flats. in the center fire era it was to make a heaver barrel. if some one ordered a rifle with a heavy barrel they got an octagon if they wanted a lite rifle they got a round barrel. look at Winchester carbines all have round barrels

[oldred]

Winchester carbines all have round barrels

That's another good point, seems as if by far most of the octagon barrels were long barrels and it was hardly ever used on a carbine. I know it's just a matter of taste but as much as I like the octagon style it just doesn't look right to me on a short barrel (except for some pistol barrels).

[country gent]

It was also thought that the octagon barrels were stronger and stiffer than round barrels. Another thing to remeber is back in this time period most machines were made in house by the shop. An octagun profile that looked good and symetrical to the eye was easier to produce with simple tools. Alot were profiled by hand after being made with files by hand.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I don't think there is any question of octagonal barrels originating in the shape of blank rods supplied from the steel mill. Both in Europe (fro the days of the wheel-lock) and in colonial America, barrels were forged and draw-filed or planed octagonal when iron and steel simply didn't come in long, thin billets, and an ingot or a heavy part-rolled billet was about as much as you could hope to buy in.

Yes, metal-cutting lathes existed surprisingly early. But they were expensive and rare. While the small gunsmith might well have a lathe, it would be about as simple as modern wood-turning lathes, and probably without any kind of screw-operated slides. It would be quite a difficult job to turn a long barrel round that way, without noticeable transitions and ripples. so a draw-filed octagonal barrel was just as easy.

The sights weren't the only thing that were dovetailed into the barrel. So were the loops through which the muzzle-loader forend was keyed to the barrel. Fitting these was probably easier with an octagonal barrel. I know it was when I did it. Another consideration of which I don't think we have heard anything was that a long, thin forend was probably more liable to twist around a round barrel than an octagonal one. It is possible to make an octagonal channeled forend so tight as to be quite difficult to remove when the keys or screws are removed.

An octagonal barrel is indeed heavier than a round one of the same minimum wall thickness. I think we can assume that carbines are made for maximum portability. and round is best. But for a rifle, steadiness is better. Some military pistols were made of very large bore, and must have kicked viciously. For these an octagonal barrel's weight was probably useful, and likewise for dueling pistols, which required the greatest possible steadiness of hold. Just like a dress with vertical lines on it, an octagonal barrel, although heavy, probably didn't look as large as a round one.

I think all this turned into mere fashion in due course, when technological facilities made one about as easy as the other. But the simplest of facilities were all the early backwoods gunsmiths had. The wooden guide drum for rifling, for example, could have numerous points on the curved line marked out with pins, around which a thin wooden lath could be aligned to show where the guiding groove had to be cut.

Damascus originated in the softness of iron, and the tendency to have flaws in the ingots available in the 18th and early nineteenth century. If you simply hammered or rolled a barrel rod from the ingot and drilled it (which even a few backwoods gunsmiths later did by hand), that flaw would also be drawn out to considerable length, and the barrel might open up along that line. Draw it out into a strip and twist it into a spiral barrel, and the risk was lessened. But twist those thin strips before welding together, and bad metal would end up in such a complicated mix with good, that the strength would be extremely high. Steel, stronger than iron, could also be incorporated into the mix. Early improvements.

Then came Whitworth's Fluid Pressed Steel. High pressure applied by hydraulics to the partly-solidified ingot didn't really squeeze bubbles into nothingness, as was said, and some flaws aren't bubbles, but slag. The process, however, squeezed out the carrot-shaped hollow pipe, with lots of impurities etc., which had previously extended well into the interior of the ingot, due to contraction on cooling.

The first barrels made from this steel, such as Whitworth's drawn steel tubes, were at least expensive as good Damascus, which isn't a bad barrel material for shotguns. So this continued in use for its extraordinary beauty, long after solid steel was available. Conversely the cheapest non-suicidal barrels were twist, made mostly in Belgium, where labour costs were low, and more iron was used than in the UK. Virtually all US Damascus shotgun were made from imported tubes.

It has to be understood that Birmingham and Liege had no gold-rushes and no Western lands. I've got a Belgian shotgun, by the Anciens Etablissements Pieper, which was made in the 1920s, but unless they were extraordinary copyists, has engraving done by the same man as in their 1911 catalogue - and a lot happened in Liege in those years. If you Google "Congo Free State", which later became the Belgian Congo, you will see how little appeal it had for any Belgian capable of honest poverty back home. European workshops constantly used skilled labour where the USA had to substitute machines.

The reason barrels so often had an odd number of grooves was quite practical. The groove can be cut most smoothly if there is a land backing up the cutting head on the other side of the bore, rather than a land. Other than for cannon, I don't think anybody makes paper thin enough for the passes that had to be made in cutting rifling. Later rifling heads raised the cutter by means of an inclined plane, and I think this was probably done with the simpler ones of earlier days, adding paper as the end of the incline was reached, or if a wooden-backed rifling head wore smaller.

[Ragnarok]

My thoughts are that at least in the cartridge rifle era..the octagon barrel is just a up-grade. Like Winchester lever-guns. Carbines are more or less a utility gun and as a rule have round barrels...rifles usually have octagon barrels however you see quite a few round barreled rifles.

The rifles with octagon barrels handle nice..and have a flat sight-plain to sight down. So it's 1902..and you need a hunting rifle..you stroll into the hardware store and look at all the pricy rifles on the rack...some are beyond your budget of $20...however they have Winchester M1892 rifles in .44-40...but..but..the one with an octagon barrel costs a buck and a half more than the same thing with a round barrel! So what do you do?...You handle both M1892 rifles and decide the octagon barreled M1892 handles just a bit better and definitely looks cooler. So you buy the octagon barreled rifle huh?...But your lady came to town with you(this the family's once a month supply trip to town)...the kids need shoes...so you buy the cheaper round barreled rifle and a couple pairs of patent leather shoes..and get the heck outa town...