By Eye

I found this barrel for a No.4 that I had stashed away for a rainy day and was intrigued with the hammer marks on it when they used to straighten these barrels by eye the dints you can see as flat spots. It must have taken some very good skills to do this. (The muzzle is not rusty it is just lighting)

Any clues as to when it could have been produced markings - B E 215, A X 13 814, broad arrow J, *, could not see any date stamp funny thing is it was hidden inside my 5" naval shell casing must have forgotten about it.
I had stored it with the bore oiled with Balistol it is still nice and shiny inside no pitting.
Thank you.

I believe AX marked barrels were manufactured at Lithgow.

I've seen this straightening done, it was done with a large maul like a dead blow hammer...a few drastic strikes and another eyeball check. All done by eye as that's the most accurate instrument.

Tbone do you know the approximate date it was made post WWII perhaps!
Thanks for the replies chaps.

I believe the film taken a Long Branch shows this being done with a flypress of a particular type for the purpose, the barrels being held at close to eye level and inspected by the straightener while still supported in V blocks in the press. The RSAF(E) method at the turn of the last century is reported to have been one of allowing the barrel to fall with the force of solely its own weight onto a hardwood 'anvil' block.

The number of marks on the barrel shown seems excessive; a training piece perhaps?

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Originally Posted by Surpmil

The number of marks on the barrel shown seems excessive; a training piece perhaps

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Or done by a "hack":)

I don't think these marks are from official straightening methods, Cinders.
I have straightened a good few, and a mallet works and doesn't bruise the metal.

Worst I ever did was a shotgun barrel. ...fell out the door of the tractor whilst it was moving and got run over! (Banana shaped)

Sadly the WWII armourer that was a good friend passed in Dec last year so I really have no way of getting to a conclusive answer about these marks as I know they did do them by eye looking at the way the light was reflecting down the barrel. Thanks for your replies to date chaps I appreciate all your replies.

We were taught barrel viewing by the late gentlemanly Mr Ayley at Carlisle. We used a wooden frame that you could adjust for your height against a straight blacked-out line against a clear window. We used to rotate loads of numbered barrels and barrelled actions of all sorts of weaponry and write down the faults; puckers, bulges, cord-wear, scratches, scores, metallic fouling and assess whether corrosion was still serviceable - on a scale of 1 to 10 etc etc. As for bends, we had to record where the bend was, distance over which the bloody bend was, direction of bend from 12 o'clock and if that wasn't enough, there could be two bends that would really fool you. Sometimes, these so called bends would JUST impede the plug bore gauge so you were left wondering whether there really was a bend or not.

The worst were those barrels (usually Bren and .300 Browning) where the bore wasn't concentric with the outside diameter. Rotating those barrels would change the half-shadow to give the usual concave or convex or any other combination appearance that we were all taught to recognise BUT that was because the actual BORE was changing/rotating eccentrically to the outside diameter of the rotating barrel. John 'big john' Hessell used to call these barrel viewing lessons 'concave, convex or just confusion.......'

Going off at a tangent now so all those not interested or already know this stuff, look away now........

To be honest, only a couple of the apprentices really got the hang of it in the classroom but I learned later that this was a good little wheeze for Mr Ayley and Mr Duffield or Mr Reilly, other instructors to fail 90% of the class so that we'd have to come back after tea time for extra lessons - and they got overtime! Could I still do it.....? Yep, like riding a bike!

Thanks Peter and in your experience would the so called out of shape barrel display the marks this one does I knew that the eye method relied on the shading/reflections inside the barrel to give the location of the affected area but would the hammer strikes show as such on this barrel.
Also with no date on it that I can find and Tbones explanation about A X barrels being produced by Lithgow I am wondering when it was produced.

We never straightened barrels but there does seem to be a lot of press marks on that barrel. To be honest, I think the AX and numbers is the serial number of the rifle. We didn't number barrels to the rifle when we rebarreled. It was an academic exercise with no value to man nor beast simply because once we'd breeched-up, it was there for life - or until it needed a new barrel again! Just like L1A1's and L85's.

Thank you for the reply Peter I guess it will get a clean up, gauge it then have a look through the bore put it away again my No.4's are going well with their barrels they have.

If it gauges up well still Cinders, it is still very nice to have such a spare barrel, and once fitted the marks won't show.
I think the marks are from a lump hammer, rather than a press. To crush the surface in a press would surely do the same to the inside of the tube. Hopefully it is still true inside!

As Peter said, an "S" bend is the worst. Did one like that on a 44-40 Win. Horse ran away with it and wrapped it around a tree. Owner tried to straighten it and put the 'S" in it. hard, but we got it right.

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

We never straightened barrels

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I had occasion to straighten a couple of barrels in our armorer's shop in Gagetown and it was something of extreme interest to them. All hands were transfixed during instruction. I did a 742 Remington and a Galil that had a bend in the last inch of the muzzle(dropped out of a truck from height on it's F/H). I'm not even sure the Canadian school covers the subject.

Now that guys is a real skill,

I would love to watch a barrel being manipulated back to true again Jim.

The 740 or 742 Remington, whichever it was, had been warped in the last four inches at the muzzle by a front sight being silver soldered on by an amateur professional gunsmith. It was cut to 18" and the warp was evident at a distance. I used the available C6 gauges and gave them a lecture and demo on the spot. The sight however still had to come off. The Galil was just enough the gauges wouldn't pass and again the lecture and demo... I was genuinely surprised that an Infantry WO was teaching something like this to weapon's techs... But then, they never used it again I think.

We had a C7 come back from Yugo in spring of '93 with a boomerang barrel, had been in a truck off the road and had a man fall on it. I'd have straightened it but they just change it. It would have shot about 30' left at 100 yds...really bad. No one noticed... I did a .22 once that had a little bend and prepared for hard work. Took hold and gave it a good bend only to have it stay right there...not very springy material in the old ones it seemed.

It can be a distinct hardship to do at times. If you don't get it right, you might as well not even start.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...standard-1.jpg

Barrel Straightening in one of the ROFs in WW2

For anyone interested there is a little book called " Making Rifle Barrels" by Lindsay publications, its made up of articles from issues of the Machinery Magazine, the first page is dated May 25, 1916....... very interesting read and you will find a finished barrel will be free of such marks as the pics in Cinders first post..... unless these were done long after leaving the factory......

One of the machines in the book is the same or similar as what Border barrels used for some of there work...... I often hear of " its a border barrel" obvious doesn't mean much now but back in the day some raved on about it, the fact is some of the rifling was cut on a 100 + year old machine, give them credit were its due, it was rebuilt IIRC by them, but think the credit goes to the original maker of the machine.... Pratt & Whitney.


Making Rifle Barrels: Author Not Stated: 9781559182805: Amazon.com: Books

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Originally Posted by Mk VII

Barrel Straightening in one of the ROFs

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This would be the picture I was thinking of earlier in this thread. Look at the baskets of barrels yet to do...or do they just examine them all for straight before they move on?

Bit of a posed picture, the odds of them all being in a eyeballing position would be pretty slim.
It could even be a training exercise where they are given barrels with known flaws and have to identify the problem spot and explain the method of correction............I remember those well.