By Eye

[CINDERS]

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.

Information

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[tbonesmith]

I believe AX marked barrels were manufactured at Lithgow.

[browningautorifle]

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.

[CINDERS]

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

[Surpmil]

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?

[mike1967]

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

Or done by a "hack"

[Richard Hare]

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)

[CINDERS]

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.

[Peter Laidler]

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!

[CINDERS]

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.