Proofing

landkeeper

would you like your pride and joy remington action embedded in the side of your skull !!or your truflite barrell added as an extra digit to your hand the reason that guns are proofed after being 'worked on ' is to prove that they are safe just in case some numpty riflesmith/gunsmith has done something silly to your pride and joy that could actually kill you

tomcat220t

If proofing was a requirement tomorrow in ireland and a proofing house available here ,im sure dealers and gunsmiths would gladly use this service .As it stands ,its not compulsory but im sure if you wanted an irish built rifle proofed @ an additional expence and time it could be sent to the uk .People who are concerned about not having a proofed rifle and want it done ,its simple really ,imo.I personally wound not bother ...i happy with the system the way it is !

tomcat220t

landkeeper wrote: »

would you like your pride and joy remington action embedded in the side of your skull !!or your truflite barrell added as an extra digit to your hand the reason that guns are proofed after being 'worked on ' is to prove that they are safe just in case some numpty riflesmith/gunsmith has done something silly to your pride and joy that could actually kill you

Is your new build proofed ?

landkeeper

not yet but it will be

tomcat220t

landkeeper wrote: »

not yet but it will be

I rest my case landkeeper :(:(:(:(How can you judge posters (tack inc) on dangers of not have his rifle proofed but you yourself are in the same boat :eek::eek:.Your blowing hot air ,sorry bud .

323

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

Would you want a rifle that someone

Inserting a steel casing into a brand new polished chamber, loading the shi*e out of a round and firing it?
:eek:

Woooh................, Sorry, not my intention to upset anyone, really getting away from this thread but.

A proof cartridge, though steel, is also plated and polished.
Would not say the shi*e is loaded out of it, mearly enough to produced pressure a certain percentage higher than the SAAMI pressure for the given cartridge. Like the BS test pressure on an Oxy/Acetelene bottle.

Personally, I would like to know i was safe, if were in an area of high altitude or high temperature where chamber pressure is likely to be much higher than normal.

rowa

The reason i said remington proof their rifles is i seen a video of a remington 700 being made from the wood and steel coming through the door to the completed rifle being packaged and dispatched, and they did have a dedicated proofing area and also an area where the accuracy of the rifle was tested.

As for proofing taking the good out of a barrel tackleberry , i'd rather that then it detonating in my face , i know two people badly injured with bursting barrels , one lad lost the sight in his right eye and it was a disaster for his life , lost job, couldn't get another , motor insurance increased premiums etc etc and this was on top of the physical pain and distress he suffered, another chap lost three fingers off his left hand and he too found it f***ed up his life to a huge degree.
Saying a mechanical device does not need testing is daft, a lot of things need testing and certification In ireland and world wide, steam boilers , compressor receivers , hydraulic hoses and they all work at far lower pressures then gun barrels.

landkeeper

yeah whatever tomcat :rolleyes: i did say 'yet' didn't i


just because you have issues with a certain rifle builder why jump on anyone who uses him or eludes to using him 'bud' did you check to see if the barrel fitted to your .204 was proofed when you bought it ??

tac foley

323 wrote: »

Know next to nothing of proofing shotguns, but as far as rifles go, you do not buy proved barrels. The rifle should be proof tested as a complete system action & barrel, after the barrel has been threaded, fitted, tightened & correctly headspaced for the given action.

Here in UK [sorry to mention the UK again, but it's almost inescapable in this thread so PM'ers to me with your death-threats please note that as ever, I'll be ignoring them], a rifled barrel is NOT subject to proof. As an item it is currently unusable as a firearm, and could, in theory, actually be bought as a bit of fancy tubing.

HOWEVER, a CHAMBERED barrel IS subject to proof, since it can be used in a firearm as such.

In any event, it is incumbent on the builder of the gun here in UK [whoops] to have his worked proofed, as it is illegal to sell it without it clearly stamped up all over the place with -

a. the calibre.

b. the length of the chamber in inches.

c. the pressure test to which the arm was subjected [for a typical .308Win - 19 tons - [long tons, NOT Tonnes or metric tonnes] per square inch.

d. the proof house inspection stamp and date as a cypher.

e. the proof house view mark.

f. the type of proof ie, Nitro proof [N] or black powder proof [BP]


Purely as an aside, note that in the case of a revolver, every chamber in the cylinder is proofed individually, and each chamber bears the proof stamp on the back end nearest the recoil shield - this naturally includes BP as well as nitro revolvers, and yes, there ARE modern nitro cartridge-firing revolvers, and single-shot pistols, here on mainland UK - they just look a little, well, odd, that's all.

tac

tomcat220t

landkeeper wrote: »

yeah whatever tomcat :rolleyes: i did say 'yet' didn't i


just because you have issues with a certain rifle builder why jump on anyone who uses him or eludes to using him 'bud' did you check to see if the barrel fitted to your .204 was proofed when you bought it ??

Whats up ?Sturr not working out they way ya taught ?Im not the one making statments about the probability of gun failure to one guy over his rifle not been proofed(built by gunsmith A) and you happily shooting your own newly built (unproofed aswell) rifle (built by gunsmith .The only one with the issues is yourself !The barrel on my .204 may have been proofed under German firearms Law but the .204 itself is not proofed .

Tackleberrywho

It's touching that so many here worry about my personal safety.

In regards to firing ammo outside approved spec to see if the barrel bursts?

Does anyone have any actual experience of the Quality of truflite barrels?
I looked down my barrel and chamber with a borescope prior to any round been fired out it, and all I could say was WoW.

The quality and strength was far in excess of the factory proofed barrel that came off it.
In fact my barrel is ~1/4 thicker than the factory barrel made out of much higher quality steel.

So I'll ship it over to UK to have some Bozo blow a round in excess of SPEC Just to prove my barrel will not blow; I don't think so.....

Mr.Flibble

rowa wrote: »

i know two people badly injured with bursting barrels , one lad lost the sight in his right eye and it was a disaster for his life , lost job, couldn't get another , motor insurance increased premiums etc etc and this was on top of the physical pain and distress he suffered, another chap lost three fingers off his left hand and he too found it f***ed up his life to a huge degree.

Had those guns been proofed?

Mr.Flibble

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

Does anyone have any actual experience of the Quality of truflite barrels?

Yes.

vixdname

I done my range test for the Hcap in May of this year in the Midlands range and they told us on the day that no rifle that had be threaded after it left the factory and hadnt been reproofed could be used on the range under any circumstances.

rowa

Mr.Flibble wrote: »

Had those guns been proofed?

One barrel was blocked by snow/ice and blew just forward of the fore end and not the chamber end which probabily saved his life, the other i simply don't know. I just mentioned those two instances as an example, because you will have people trying to tell you that modern guns simply don't rupture.

rowa

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1968/en/act/pub/0020/index.html

Cass

rowa wrote: »

One barrel was blocked by snow/ice and blew just forward of the fore end and not the chamber end which probabily saved his life, the other i simply don't know. I just mentioned those two instances as an example, because you will have people trying to tell you that modern guns simply don't rupture.

Thats somewhat of a different situation to having a rifle/firearm proofed. No info on one, and the other with a blocked barrel. Even a proofed firearm with a blocked barrel can rupture. So seems kinda moot in relation to the theme of the thread.

rowa wrote: »

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1968/en/act/pub/0020/index.html

Am i wrong in thinking that this was repealed? I believe there is a re-instatment of the Act underway, but it has not been done yet, nor has it been commenced as an SI. Am open to correction on that as my legal skills are amateur at best.

However if it is re-instated there are obligations upon the DOJ to provide facilities for the testing. In the 1968 Act section 2, and 3 state;

2.—As soon as may be after the commencement of this Act, the Institute shall provide or procure under its control such facilities as shall be approved by the Minister for the proofing of firearms for the purposes of this Act.
Duties of Institute regarding proofing of firearms.
3.—Upon the provision or procuration by it of the facilities referred to in section 2, the Institute shall— ......................................

Meaning the dept. authorised to proof rifles must provide the facilities for proofing along with trained competent staff members, etc to provide the services described within the Act.

So until they are established this Act is irrelevant and stands unworkable IMO.

rowa

Its not really a moot point as i said in the post , i related the instances just to show that accidents can and do happen with firearms , they are mechanical devices and there is always a possibility of failure.

Cass

It is a moot point when you try to link mechanical failure due to abuse
(accidental or otherwise), and mechanical failure on a firearm that is unproofed when even a proofed firearm would fail the same test. One is down to ignorance on behalf of the operator, the other failure by the manufacturer.

If i'm driving down the road and the wheels fall off my car because of an impurity in the metals used to make the studs then its the manufacturers fault.
If i'm driving down the road and the wheels fall of because i overtightened the nuts when i put the wheels back on and wrung/sheered them then its my fault. So matter how well tested they were leaving the manufacturer it cannot prevent or account for my abuse of the product.

Sparks

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

I looked down my barrel and chamber with a borescope prior to any round been fired out it, and all I could say was WoW.
The quality and strength was far in excess of the factory proofed barrel that came off it.
In fact my barrel is ~1/4 thicker than the factory barrel made out of much higher quality steel.

Er, tack, you can't measure the strength of a barrel with a borescope. Read the accident report on US Flight 232 (the one that crashed at Sioux City a decade or two ago) and specifically the part relating to why the turbine blade failed to see exactly why.

That said, I don't think proofing will pick up those kind of failures either.
Frankly, I don't think you're really any safer with a proofed firearm than with an unproofed one.

323 wrote: »

the BS test pressure on an Oxy/Acetelene bottle

I don't think that's really comparable 323 - they ramp up the pressure far more slowly in that test, and oxy/acetelene and diver bottles all have a weak point built in for safety, like modern pressure cookers and water boilers (a pressure vessel without a built-in weak point to fail well below the tensile strength of the material it's made from, is more commonly referred to as a bomb...)

BTW, this is something that concerns air rifle and air pistol shooters a bit because if you look carefully here:



The pellet may not be enormously dangerous, but that silver cylinder under the barrel is a small compressed air tank running at 200 or 300 bar of pressure (depending on the rifle - that one's 200, walther's are 300). Same with modern air pistols. In terms of explosive force, that's the equivalent of one or two hand grenades suspended about two feet from your face.

You tend to look into accident statistics, inspection times, design lifetimes and failure modes when you realise that

rowa wrote: »

Saying a mechanical device does not need testing is daft, a lot of things need testing and certification In ireland and world wide, steam boilers , compressor receivers , hydraulic hoses and they all work at far lower pressures then gun barrels.

Yeah, and while they're tested with overpressure, they're not tested with the same level of an overpressure pulse as firearms are. You might run a hydraulic hose 100% overpressure to test it, and a rifle barrel at only 10% over; but you can spot defects in the hose caused by the test, you can't with the barrel, and the barrel will have taken more of a beating from the test because the pressure builds up so fast relative to that in the hose.

Tackleberrywho

With the borescope I could see the magnified lands and rifling of my barrel, and see the uniformity and lack of burrs and other common tooling scratches.

If you ever looked down a factory "proofed" barrel with a bore scope (I have) one would wonder how it even fired a projectile straight.

My Main point is the Steel is of a much higher grade, and simply more of it than the previous barrel.

So why in the name of belelzebob would I want to hand it over to some guy to ruin it :eek:

Glensman

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

With the borescope I could see the magnified lands and rifling of my barrel, and see the uniformity and lack of burrs and other common tooling scratches.

If you ever looked down a factory "proofed" barrel with a bore scope (I have) one would wonder how it even fired a projectile straight.

My Main point is the Steel is of a much higher grade, and simply more of it than the previous barrel.

So why in the name of belelzebob would I want to hand it over to some guy to ruin it :eek:

I myself would hate to go to the expense of having a custom rifle built by a man I trust- to then send it off to Birmingham to have them pressure test it with a hot load!

It's not even cheap! It would be silly to bring it in here. We don't have to copy the same mistakes people make in England...

tac foley

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

So I'll ship it over to UK to have some Bozo blow a round in excess of SPEC Just to prove my barrel will not blow; I don't think so.....

I'm sure that any of the 'Bozos' - skilled firearms technicians and ballistic forensic examiners in either Birmingham or London - would be very happy to hear your opinion of them.

They might not be doing what YOU want, by testing your gun. But they DO test every one of the hundreds of thousands of guns and moderators sold here in UK, by law. They probably test more guns in a week than are sold in the entire RoI in a year, so let's put it into perspective without invective, eh?

Delving the depths to insult them is beneath you, and I'm surprised and disappointed to read it.

tac

tac foley

Glensman wrote: »

I myself would hate to go to the expense of having a custom rifle built by a man I trust- to then send it off to Birmingham to have them pressure test it with a hot load!

It's not even cheap! It would be silly to bring it in here. We don't have to copy the same mistakes people make in England...

Dear Mr Glensman - a couple of points here, if you will.

1. You appear, from your title line, to live in Northern Ireland. The gentleman who builds your gun - if he has his business in Northern Ireland, is required by law to proof his product - it's not a matter of 'copying the same mistakes people make in England'.

2. Please expalin what 'mistakes are made by people in England'. Your comment makes no sense to me.

Many other countries in the world proof their firearms, as you may have read in the previous pages - are the gunmakers of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, Austria, Belgium, et al, all 'silly', too?

Please remember that every time a soldier in the PDF squeezes the trigger on his AUG he is trusting the veracity of the test applied by 'silly bozos' in the proof-house in Steyr...

tac

tac foley

Mr Sparks, Sir - TBH, this thread has become so convoluted now that I'm not sure whether you are for or agin proofing. But just to clear something up - the barrelled action [or chambered barrel] is subjected to an over-pressure cartridge charge, not a gradually built-up over-pressure. I'm not sure whether you said that or not, sorry 'bout that.

From my own experience of building boilers for small locomotives [the kind you ride hehind], the increase in pressure to a level of retained over-pressure is applied gradually, as this is prezackly how pressure builds up in the real deal. Our small boilers have to be tested and certificated every two years for insurance purposes. If you look carefully at your air rifle/pistol cylinder, you will see that that, too, has been proof-tested - at least, my three Feinwerkbaus have - all six cylinders. A gun barrel is tested explosively, since that is how pressure is applied to it in use, just once in its entire life, unless it is an old gun that is out of proof, and needs re-proofing to be sold on.

Anyway, I think I've made my opinion clear on this thread. The law - in UK and all the other countries that have compulsory proofing of firearms - is the law, and in my opinion, THIS one, in place here in the UK since 1834, makes sense to me, and to every other conscientious and responsible shooter I know.

Whether Ireland adopts the the requirements imposed by having its own proof house [and joins in the rest of the EU [and Russia] in that respect] is neither here nor there to me, unless, of course, I somehow become rich overnight and decide to have one of Ireland's custom gun-builders make me something nice for the weekend.

Since both situations are very unlikely to ever take place, I'm leaving the thread at this point.

tac

Glensman

tac foley wrote: »

Dear Mr Glensman - a couple of points here, if you will.

1. You appear, from your title line, to live in Northern Ireland. The gentleman who builds your gun - if he has his business in Northern Ireland, is required by law to proof his product - it's not a matter of 'copying the same mistakes people make in England'.

2. Please expalin what 'mistakes are made by people in England'. Your comment makes no sense to me.

Many other countries in the world proof their firearms, as you may have read in the previous pages - are the gunmakers of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, Austria, Belgium, et al, all 'silly', too?

Please remember that every time a soldier in the PDF squeezes the trigger on his AUG he is trusting the veracity of the test applied by 'silly bozos' in the proof-house in Steyr...

tac

The mistake that was made was in pandering to the proof houses and leading people to believe that a barrel being threaded for a mod 'requires' proof.

As you have stated I live in 'NI'. Firearms here that are fitted for mods do NOT require proof, that is a fallacy. You require proof once you go to sell that rifle/barrel/mod combination on to a third party.

and on my point of pandering to the proof houses, this is not an idle statement. I have seen this point made in a number of British based shooting magazines and forums.

pedroeibar1

Ireland has the basis for a Proof House – rowa listed it above in his post http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=74477290&postcount=47


Threading a barrel is a modification; I’m not interested enough to wade through 18 Acts ++ to see if a ‘modified’ barrel needs reproof under Irish law, but my guess is that Irish law follows the UK on which it is based. Guns get sold - either by you or your executors, so it is splitting hairs as to whether a modified gun should be proofed or not.

The Institute for Industrial Research and Standards (IIRS) cited in the Proof Act passed its function of Proof House to Enterprise Ireland when the various ‘enterprise’ agencies were merged. Were I to have a rifle built in Ireland it would be nice to have it proofed here. However, it probably would make economic sense for Ent. Ireland to send it to Birmingham.
I for one am delighted that the ranges are sufficiently safety-conscious to insist that all barrels are properly proofed/stamped.
P.

demonloop

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

With the borescope I could see the magnified lands and rifling of my barrel, and see the uniformity and lack of burrs and other common tooling scratches.

If you ever looked down a factory "proofed" barrel with a bore scope (I have) one would wonder how it even fired a projectile straight.

My Main point is the Steel is of a much higher grade, and simply more of it than the previous barrel.

So why in the name of belelzebob would I want to hand it over to some guy to ruin it :eek:

I have a Bleiker, with a Lilja barrel. As with your barrel, the quality of the rifling is superb.

There's 4 other Bleikers in the 'circle' I shoot with regularly.

They were all proofed in Germany.

They all shoot 11/12mm 10 shot groups at 50m, so to suggest the proofing somehow ruins the barrel/accuracy is a bit, well, wrong.

Sparks

tac foley wrote: »

Mr Sparks, Sir - TBH, this thread has become so convoluted now that I'm not sure whether you are for or agin proofing. But just to clear something up - the barrelled action [or chambered barrel] is subjected to an over-pressure cartridge charge, not a gradually built-up over-pressure. I'm not sure whether you said that or not, sorry 'bout that.

It was in fact, my entire point, made twice; that you can't compare an overpressure test on a compressed air tank or a hydraulic hose to a proofing test for a firearm because of the enormous difference in how fast the pressure rises during the tests.

If you look carefully at your air rifle/pistol cylinder, you will see that that, too, has been proof-tested

It's been tested, yes. And it has a design lifespan, after which I have to throw it away and buy new ones (you wouldn't even be allowed on the line at an ISSF internationl match anymore with out-of-date cylinders).

The law - in UK and all the other countries that have compulsory proofing of firearms - is the law, and in my opinion, THIS one, in place here in the UK since 1834, makes sense to me, and to every other conscientious and responsible shooter I know.

I'm sure it does; I'm just not sure that a law published three years before the very first scientific study of metal fatigue makes a whole lot of sense to metallurgists.

Like I said to Tack, you can't tell the strength of a barrel from surface inspection, not until it's already failed. And if the proofing charge just triggers the failure early, the shooter is no more safe than if it was unproofed - he or she is just going to get a faceful sooner rather than later.

Now if the law required x-rays of barrels to ensure there were no flaws in the metal, I suspect that would make sense to metallurgists, and since x-ray machines aren't exactly high-end research tools anymore (how many of them are there in the airports alone?), it's a feasible idea for a proof house to check barrels the same way we check welding joints in critical places...

Tackleberrywho

demonloop wrote: »

I have a Bleiker, with a Lilja barrel. As with your barrel, the quality of the rifling is superb.

There's 4 other Bleikers in the 'circle' I shoot with regularly.

They were all proofed in Germany.

They all shoot 11/12mm 10 shot groups at 50m, so to suggest the proofing somehow ruins the barrel/accuracy is a bit, well, wrong.

With the greatest of respect, a .22lr and a centrefire rifle SAAMI pressures are chalk and cheese.

Did you ever consider your Lilja may do 6mm groups had it not been proofed

The real accuracy of a rifle is not tested until after 50 metres. Several rifles can 1 hole @50 metres, infact my .223 can shoot consistently better groups than your Lilja at the same distance. Should I get that proofed to prove otherwise?
Custom centrefires are 600-1200 yard Rifles depending on calibre, things only get tricky after 50m;)




@ Tac Foley.
I'm not insulting any guy in London or Birmingham. They are only doing their job, as outlined by their laws........
I'm glad I don't live in England and don't need there help all the same.