v,

I suspect that when you shoot your Luft rifles, you'll be quite pleased. Both of my friends still shoot/hunt their rifles. I've had the pleasure of shooting one of them several times. I totally agree; the Luft's built first class guns. The tang safety conversion, and trigger on these rifles are just superb. 

Jeff

westerner wrote on Feb 5^th, 2007 at 2:44am:


Joe, 
I've nothing against old actions (especially Borchardts) being restored  to shooting condition, provided it is done with respect for the age and strength of the action, and they are not pushed into accepting cartridges they weren't designed for.

Todays shooters now have the advantage of buying Borchardt actions from two current U.S. manufacturers who make them of modern steels. These should be capable of taking most modern (white powder) rounds.
(the manufacturers will probably advise on the range of cartridges they will be suitable for). 

Given the current price of an original Borchardt action in good condition, and the amount of money some people are willing to spend on their customisation or restoration projects, the modern reproduction actions are not all that much more expensive, and could, in some instances, be even cheaper.

I sincerely hope your Borchardt holds together for as long as you can use it, it's a beautiful looking rifle. My own Borchardt copy when it's finished will be chambered for the 45/90 cartridge and it will be BP only despite being made of modern steel.

Harry

Hello Harry, old steel, new steel, They can all be wrecked.

I sat down with pen and paper the other night. I know of eight rifle's wrecked In my area in the last twenty two years. One low wall, one Hepburn, one Sharps, five Ballards. 

All were chambered for blackpowder era cartridges. Two were made of modern steels.   

One of the more interesting failures was a new made Ballard . The cause was never detemined. It was chambered in 45/70 or 90. It was never shot with smokeless.  Black powder and lead bullets only.

I believe new steels are better than old steels. 

I dont know how modern manufacturers determine grain structure in new steels before machining. 
 
I do know however the grain structure in a vintage single shot rifle if it was forged. In some rifles it can be seen.   
The design of the action is what determines strength to a greater degree than the steel used. 

People make mistake's it's a fact we live with.  People learn by making mistakes.   
I prefer to trust people and live with the mistakes.   
                                                           
                                                                            Joe.

Harry, 

Of the eight rifle failures, only the new made ballard remain's a mystery. All the other one's were human error. 

Three failed with smokeless, five failed with black. 
Three overcharges, four barrel obstructions and one  unknown.

A tool and die maker or anyone with experience in drop forging can tell the flow of metal before it is even forged. I mean flow, or grain. as in stress proof steel that has a known grain direction. Martensite cannot be seen. Except by Superman, He could do it.

I dont know if modern billet steel is marked at the rolling mill to indicate it's grain, or rolled direction. It would be easy to tell at the mill. A different story once its cut into pieces and shipped. I dont know if heat treating modern steel changes that.                                                                                                 Very good steel was being produced in Germany England and the US when the Borchardt was made. 

Modern steel's should be better. Manufacturing techniques can effect the steels performance. ( forged vs cast or billet ). I have in the past, ordered steel that required a spec sheet. I alway's wondered if I really got what was ordered. Some supplier's comply with a snear. With steels's coming from all over the world and the low bidder system at work, well, I just wonder sometime's.   

Mistakes are also made in modern manufacturing.  

It makes no difference, new or old it can be wrecked. 
                                                                                 Joe.

All else being equal, a drop-forged part is generally considered to be noticeably stronger than an identical piece machined from a billet. At least that's what they atttempted to teach us up at the state cow-&-chicken school back in the '60s. Seems that I remember something about the grain structure being aligned and compressed, with the fibers tending to bundle together to strengthen one another instead of being cut in the machining process. But, I'm certainly not a metallurgist............

Specification sheets are available for most any steel made in the US and I'm sure that's true in other parts of the world as well. The reason I say this is because of my experience in the nuclear business, where each and every component in the Power Block must have these proofs on file and available for inspection & signoff. We called these records 'mill certs' (certifications from the various manufacturers) and all nuclear component had to have these proofs available for each and every stage of the manufacturing process no matter how many stages there were. IOW there was a piece of paper from the mine, another (several, usually) from the railroad(s) or barge line(s), another from the smeltery, another from the rolling mill, another from the heat treater, another from........but you get the idea.

Of course these elaborate record-keeping requirements are much more stringent in the nuclear business but similar mill certs are generated for each batch of steel made in any civilised country, for ease of tracking and proof of responsibility in the manufacturing process in case of liability. I know from personal experience that the suppliers charge an extra fee for supplying this paperwork and I don't think that they specify the direction of grain flow if any, the user is assumed to have enough sense to be able to determine this for himself based upon the method of production and the shape of the billet. It ain't rocket science.

In my experience the grain flow of a forged part is visible under three curcumstances: the first is when it is red-hot, almost white-hot, just out of the forge blocks; another circumstance is when it is being torn apart since it usually tears in the longitudinal direction, that is, aligned with the fiber flow; and the third circumstance is when some sort of oxidation has altered the surface finish of the steel and thus served as contrast for the fibers. Not saying these are the only three curcumstances, only saying that this is what I've observed personally.
FWIW, regards, Joe

There are a couple of conditions that will create or cause grain to show up in metals. One of the most common in forged material is improper or incomplete anealing or normalizing. In this case the material is in a phase change and has not completed going thru it and is cooled either too fast or improperly. When hardening carbon steels the carbon goes thru a change from martinsite to pearlite condition. (Now I may have these two terms backwards as I tend to do this) In any case if the material to be hardened has not  "Soaked" at the critical temperature long enough to be completely changed, or it is not cooled properly for it's chemistry. Air hardened, water hardened, oil hardened Etc. The carbon can get caught in both stages of phase change. The Carbon does not like this condition and tries forever to go one way or the other. This can and will show itself as stress lines or strain growth. I have observed this in Hiwalls that cover the whole range of manufacturing, from early first year production to late Winder Musket recievers. Usually it shows as a gentle curve line in the reciever along the length on the side and sometimes both sides just above the Lower Tang screw holes. And it won't polish out. Sometimes you can disguise it by Surface Grinding. But it may show up again when case colored or blued. I also have seen it on a Sharps Borchardt Military. I own. The Stress lines are so deep and pronounced as to make you feel it has been hacked at with a coarse tool of some type. But examination under a Microscope shows it to have just "Grown there" I worked in the Mold making business for twenty seven years making Optical molds for camera's. We found that the best steel for the optical surface was Carpenter 420F. it is a fine grained free machining material that will heat treat to 50-52 Rc. It also will take a really fine optical surface using optical generating and polishing methods. BUT, it must be cut across the grain of round diameter bar stock. If the part is made from stock where the grain is not at 90 degree's from the optical surface the rolling mill forge lines would jump right out at you. And the component would be junk, not fit for use. As to heat treat strength of mild or low carbon steels. When i was going to school we did a material strength test on low carbon (Cold Rolled) steel. I made a bunch of test samples all out of the same bar. some we heat treated by taking them up to 1550 Deg Fareinhieght and quenching them in water. We then set the sample up in a Universal Testing machine designed to pull, push, squash things to destruction. We calculated the ultimate strength of the unheat treated samples at 110,000 Lbs/ square inch. and when tested they yielded and necked right at those figures. The heat treated sample that still were the same hardness as the others  (About 25 Rc) were significantly stronger. Their yeild strength was up around 130,000
Lbs/in squared. The instructor said this was a result of the grain structure being aligned as a result of the heat treat.
On another note as to the strength of actions. Most of our better Single Shot rifles derive their strength not so much from the material as from the robust Design. If you look hard at the Hiwall, the Borchardt, the Rem Hepburn and maybe even the Stevens 44 1/2 you will see that they have as much or even more surface area supporting the breech block than many modern Bolt guns. The Rem Hepburn may be the strongest as many of them were built with some very sophisticated materials. Well enough for now, Regards, FITZ.

Brent, FITZ & notlwonk have described what I mistakenly attributed to oxidation. All the cases I've observed were guns that had rusted to some degree, and so I assumed...........But the condition FITZ detailed is an exact description of the condition I've observed, and so I figure that his explanation is the correct one for what I've seen.

It's been my experience that a good rust blue job will hide a lotta imperfections, that's one reason that folks acid-etch damascus bbls to better show the contrast.

(to digress for a moment, I'm consulting with the hammer man even as we speak so just be patient.....)
Regards, Joe

Brent, it's all in your mind, Harry Pope didn't need no stinkin' high-tech hammer! 'Course I did hear that he practiced 50 rds/day.........
Regards, Joe