Posted by SGT on February 7, 2008, 3:52 pm, in reply to "Steel Barrels"
Whitworth Fluid Compressed Steel was certainly more expensive than Nitro Steel; but the Whitworth steels may not have been any stonger. In the mid-1890's the process of manufacturing compressed steels was mastered in the US; but before that time such high-quality fluid steel barrel tubes had to be imported, and Whitworth enjoyed a tremendous reputation as a result. Some years before compressed steels were manufactured in the US, W.W. Greener recorded in his book the results of a bursting strain test conducted in England on all known brands of fluid and damascus steel barrel tubes available at that time. I recall that Whitworth steel withstood the greatest stain, but that the strain withstood by the Whitworth test tubes was only minutely higher than what was withstood by the best Damascus tubes avaiable at that time. As we presntly have no information that provides us with the alloy content/mix of the various types of fluid steels used in the manufacture of Smith guns, and therefore cannot tell you their strength/bursting strain properties; it would be impossible to rate the strength of the different type barrel tubes used on various grades of Smith guns. Besides Whitworth, Smith guns are found with the following barrel stamps: Krupp, Nitro, Crown, London, Royal, and Armor. Smith guns with Damascus barrels are typically never marked, but Hunter used the Finest Damascus tubes available in their highest grades, Chain Damascus on mid-grades (and upon request with special order higher grades), and various grades of Damascus and Twist on their lowest grade guns.