“Twopenny” or “Wednesbury skelp” is almost too bad to be used in making an article which may endanger the limbs of our fellow creatures, and is now little used, fortunately. It is made of an inferior scrap to the former, in precisely the same manner; and in point of strength is still lower. The bar is generally 1 and 1-16th inches in breadth, by 3-16ths thick, the solid contents 2 inches and 25-64ths, and will bear a weight of 7,840 pounds; consequently the strength will be 2,840 pounds to the inch of tube.
This is a great falling-off in strength; and I would ask any one who values the safety of his hand, if he would like to risk it, by using a gun made of iron possessing so low a degree of strength, as compared to the force of the charge it has to bear? Let him recollect that the force of the charge may be increased by a variety of circumstances. The pressure of a certain quantity of powder, on which a certain weight of shot is placed, is so many pounds to the inch; and if you double that weight of shot, you nearly double the pressure. In estimating the force of pressure, the opposing friction is also to be taken into account. If the gun be allowed to get very foul, then friction is increased, and of course a still greater pressure is thrown on the tube of the barrel. All these circumstances being taken into consideration, I repeat, that no barrel is safe, whose power of resistance is not more than double the strength of a charge of sufficient force for general shooting. Every bad gun should be thrown aside as unsafe, or used with the greatest caution. Bad and inferior guns are made from the foregoing material; and not many years have elapsed since it was thought good enough for military arms.
“Sham damn skelp” is made from the most inferior scrap. I should not have mentioned this description of iron had I not seen hundreds of barrels made of it, all which are utterly unfitted for the use of any person who cares at all for his safety. I have met with them frequently under the dignified name of twisted barrels. Guns that are fitted up at from ten to twelve shillings each are not of course patent breeched, but are made to appear so by staining them generally blue, and by having a couple of bands to imitate platina, across the squares. A projecting part is welded on to the side, into which the nipple is inserted, and the lock joints neatly under it. Many of them are good imitations; but only take the barrel out of the stock and the deception is instantly apparent, as it is rarely carried further than the outside. The beautiful way in which the barrels are painted to imitate fine twist, catches the eye of the simple countryman, who is generally the dupe of this artifice; and the persuasive eloquence of the itinerant hardwareman, seldom fails to extract from the pocket of his unsuspecting purchaser sometimes thirty or forty shillings of his earnings for what the modest trader rarely pays above fifteen shillings. Many are the anathemas vented, when the deception is found out by some one more knowing than the dupe, who not unfrequently purchases his experience at the expense of a finger or a hand. It is astonishing what a quantity of this rubbish is disposed of by hawkers who infest market towns and villages with guns for sale.
But the English peasant is not the only dupe of this species of knavery. Thousands of these guns are sent monthly to the United States, to the Brazils, and South America; where they are disposed of, among the poor Indians, in exchange for skins and furs.
They are all understood to be “proved.” How many are so who can tell; but that some of them are not, there can be no doubt.
It is said that the manufacture of these guns is a great support to the gun trade of Birmingham. In one respect it is, certainly; yet would not the interest of the trade be advanced, if we were to manufacture none of so inferior a quality? “But then,” it will be urged, “we could not compete with our rivals in Germany and the Netherlands.” True, we should not be their rivals in the production of rubbish; but the superiority of our guns would then command a better market. By sending to the market an article no better than theirs, we have made foreigners indifferent about the purchase of ours: they say “The English guns are no better than the Belgian or German; we may as well purchase one as the other.” The force of this remark is illustrated by the state of the African trade. The base kind of articles we supplied them with some years ago, has produced a distrust of our manufacture, which will not easily be removed; and a similar distrust is engendered by the same cause in the minds of our present customers. It is much to be deplored that the eagerness for present gain, should render men blind to the consequences of their conduct, and lead them to prefer the immediate gratification of their avarice even to their own future prosperity; to say nothing of the welfare of the trade of the country.
The method I suggested of testing all iron in the bar would go far to destroy this trade. I have not thought it worth while to test this iron. But twist barrels are made of it. Should the reader meet with a double gun so made, let him avoid it: it is unsafe, unless it be so heavy as to be unmanageable.
A great many long rifle barrels are made of this iron, principally for the American trade; but from their immense weight, and the small charge of powder required, there does not exist the same danger from their use.
Fowling-piece barrels made of it may be generally recognised by the smallness of the bore and the thickness of metal. As the charge of powder used in proving is very small when compared with the charges for proving guns of a wider calibre, we need not be surprised that many of those that are proved stand proof.
“Swaff iron forging” is a profitable branch of forging carried on in Birmingham under the above title. It is a metal which is composed of iron and steel filings, chippings of breeches, pieces and cuttings of the ends of the screws, lock-plates, cocks, the rough borings of barrels, and all other small scraps found in gunmakers’ and other workshops. These are collected by the boys in each shop, and when they have accumulated, are sold to the “swaff-forger,” the proceeds being considered as drinking money. They are forged into bars of iron by attaching them together and immersing them in diluted sulphuric acid; then, after draining it from them again, and placing a large iron pan full in a hot situation, they become cemented together by the action of the oxide. The compound is then taken from the pan, by turning it upside down, and is put into an air-furnace heated to a welding heat, being thence removed and beaten into a bar: three men with light hammers beating it as quickly as they do in welding a gun-barrel. This iron is sold to the gun-work forgers, for the forging of the patent breeches, lock-plates, furniture, and other parts of the gun which they think worthy of good iron; but since cheapness has become so much the order of the day, the use of this iron is confined to the forging of best gun-work, cast iron being thought quite good enough for common gun-work.