The Guns of Degenham, Part 2

[Peter Laidler]

I'm glad that you spotted that Vince. A little known point.............. That ring was pressed into the tube in order to allow a very slightly smaller diameter rear barrel diameter to be used. This was because if the exact diameter was used, even the smallest knock to the casing would/could prevent the barrel being removed or inserted. So slightly smaller inside diameter at the point where the rear barrel seating sits. If you look carefully, it doesn't go right around. Just a small squeeze from the top and bottom.

This feature didn't appear on the drawings that Fazakerley had acquired. Whether they were reverse engineered or pirated, nobody ever established - and it was a feature of the copyright trial too! But Fazakerley thought that this was a small groove cut around the casing and copied it. Alas, it proved wasteful and costly because the first several hundreds of guns (no figure known but probably 1000 or so) simply bent or broke in service at that point simply because the casing material thickness had been reduced in diameter