I own a Winchester Model 1892 ( in 32-20) made in 1906, and a Marlin Model 1893 (in 38-55) made in 1901. Neither rifle states “black powder only” on the barrel. At some point Winchester and Marlin must have switched over to smokeless barrels in their “nineteenth-century” Models, like these two. But when? My question, in other words, is when does it become safe to fire smokeless ammunition in rifle models dated in the 1800s but actually manufactured in the 20th century? For instance, could I safely fire smokeless 38-55 in the Winchester Model 1892? (A secondary question:Since I do reloading, could I sidestep the problem by loading smokeless cartridges with the very lowest pressure shown in the loading manuals?)
Smokeless powder in black powder rifle models
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See https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=562997
https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=159
Consensus seems to be stay at BP levels/cast -- not so much for safety -- just general wear & tear on smokeless "transition" materials
https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=159
Consensus seems to be stay at BP levels/cast -- not so much for safety -- just general wear & tear on smokeless "transition" materials
PRD1
Member
The best policy is to use loads recommended for the arms which do not exceed the ballistics (or pressures) of the original BP loads. Modern factory ammunition for BP cartridges is loaded to those specs, and should be safe in those arms in good mechanical condition. No arms of this vintage were marked for black powder only, but both Winchester and Marlin did mark some later barrels as intended for smokeless. Modern smokeless loads in both calibers should be OK in your rifles if they are in good condition.
You would have a tough time loading .38-55 cartridges into your .32-20 Model 92 Winchester...
PRD1 - mhb - MIke
You would have a tough time loading .38-55 cartridges into your .32-20 Model 92 Winchester...
PRD1 - mhb - MIke
If the original firearm was made for smokeless powders, you can fire smokeless powders, as long as pressures are less than or equal to the cartridges of the period.
Now this assumes a whole bunch of things.
1) The firearm has not been fired with overpressure ammunition since it was built.
2) The firearm is mechanically excellent condition
3) The metals in the gun are of high quality.
The last one is going to be unproveable unless you conduct a destructive analysis of the metallurgy of the rifle. What I can say is, the metallurgy and the technology of the period, where just awful. People today have zero idea of the primitiveness of the process controls, and the inspection techniques at the turn of the last century. I encounter posters all the time that think the Kaiser had a cell phone. I don’t even know if the Kaiser had electricity. Many of the factories of the period were still using steam engines, driving a ceiling shaft, which turned leather belts, which extended down to pulleys, to run the equipment. Illumination was natural lighting, or gas lights. Which was better than nothing, but it was not a lot of light.
A local hardware store had been in the family, at the same location, since 1917. The attic is used for special item storage and I have been in the attic. The pipes for the gas lights are still in the walls and ceilings. And the rafters have real 2 X 4 studs:they measure two inches thick and four inches wide! And they look like walnut! The current owner, who worked in the store as a teenager, end of WW2 and early 50’s, remembers seeing the gas lights (had mantles) being lite from the floor with long lighters. Moderns project today’s technologies back to the past. But it was not so.
Wrought iron was purchased by reputation. Material certifications and property tests were not conducted, and I don’t know why. No one was using chemical analysis from what I read, that early wrought iron was highly variable because neither the manufacturer, or the buyer, had the technology to conduct quick metallurgical analyses. Until the open hearth process became widely available and used, steel started with wrought iron from a foundry.
This is of interest, right in the same time frame as your rifles.
The Royal Mail Ship Titanic: Did a Metallurgical Failure Cause a Night to Remember?
https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/9801/felkins-9801.html
Notice the percentages of copper and nickel in the period and modern steels. It is higher in the Titanic steel, and lower percentages in the modern. I am surprised to see any in the modern, but this is a cheap steel, so maybe the modern maker was not particularly careful about the scrap put in the kettle. Back then, steel processes could not remove non oxidizing metals, such as copper and nickel, and the stuff tended to accumulate within the steel foundry, as local scrap was put back into the kettle. These impurities, because they are uncontrolled, decrease all of the major properties unpredictably.
I cannot find the post, but somewhere I have the post from a metallurgist who conducted a materials property test on a British WW1 aircraft steel billet. He claimed it was weaker than any modern steel due to the impurities and inclusions.
And this might be of interest: in 1936, Phil Sharpe was warning shooters about early firearms:
There has been a great deal of improvement in steels, whether they be ordinary soft steels or various forms of nickel steel. No attempt with be made here to describe steels, as the subject would require and entire book. Thirty years ago, very little was known about heat treatment..
If you had a Winchester Model 1892 manufactured in 1905 and an identical model manufactured in 1935, assuming the original gun to be in perfect condition inside and out, you might place them side by side and notice absolutely no difference at firs glance. Careful study, however, will reveal that the later gun is manufactured better, with a minimum of tolerance, slap, looseness or whatever you may choose to call it. That, however, is the minor part of the of the whole thing. There will be little laboratory resemblance between the material of which the two gun are manufactured. Changes and improvements are being made constantly, and where changes in the quality of steel or the strengthening of certain parts through heat treatment are made, the factory rarely, if ever, makes any announcement. If these same Model 92 rifles were fired with a Magnum .38/40 load, it is quite possible that the earlier gun might go to pieces, while the later one would be perfectly safe. These facts must always be considered in handloading.
Complete Guide to Handloading by Philip B Sharpe. First Edition 1937, Chapter XXX, Magnum Handgun and Rifle Possibilities. Mr Sharpe was born in 1903, died 1961.
Phillip Sharpe knowledge of metallurgy is even more superficial than mine, it is obvious he knows very little about metals, metal compositions, and metallurgy. There is no doubt he has heard about enough blowups of old, vintage rifles, that he is trying to warn shooters.
So after all this gloom and doom, I cannot prove that your rifles are made from low, or high quality metals, but the technology of the period was not up to modern standards and was highly variable. Therefore, don’t push the pressures. Those cartridges, 32-20 and 38-55 were blackpowder era cartridges, and, unless you can find something from the period approving smokeless use, I would be very careful about a choice of powder. I don’t even know if you could use jacketed bullets, it might wash out the rifling.
I have used AA5744 in a 45/70 black powder era Martini Henry action, and that powder was made so that the reloader could use a smokeless propellant at blackpowder pressures.
Now this assumes a whole bunch of things.
1) The firearm has not been fired with overpressure ammunition since it was built.
2) The firearm is mechanically excellent condition
3) The metals in the gun are of high quality.
The last one is going to be unproveable unless you conduct a destructive analysis of the metallurgy of the rifle. What I can say is, the metallurgy and the technology of the period, where just awful. People today have zero idea of the primitiveness of the process controls, and the inspection techniques at the turn of the last century. I encounter posters all the time that think the Kaiser had a cell phone. I don’t even know if the Kaiser had electricity. Many of the factories of the period were still using steam engines, driving a ceiling shaft, which turned leather belts, which extended down to pulleys, to run the equipment. Illumination was natural lighting, or gas lights. Which was better than nothing, but it was not a lot of light.
A local hardware store had been in the family, at the same location, since 1917. The attic is used for special item storage and I have been in the attic. The pipes for the gas lights are still in the walls and ceilings. And the rafters have real 2 X 4 studs:they measure two inches thick and four inches wide! And they look like walnut! The current owner, who worked in the store as a teenager, end of WW2 and early 50’s, remembers seeing the gas lights (had mantles) being lite from the floor with long lighters. Moderns project today’s technologies back to the past. But it was not so.
Wrought iron was purchased by reputation. Material certifications and property tests were not conducted, and I don’t know why. No one was using chemical analysis from what I read, that early wrought iron was highly variable because neither the manufacturer, or the buyer, had the technology to conduct quick metallurgical analyses. Until the open hearth process became widely available and used, steel started with wrought iron from a foundry.
This is of interest, right in the same time frame as your rifles.
The Royal Mail Ship Titanic: Did a Metallurgical Failure Cause a Night to Remember?
https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/9801/felkins-9801.html
Notice the percentages of copper and nickel in the period and modern steels. It is higher in the Titanic steel, and lower percentages in the modern. I am surprised to see any in the modern, but this is a cheap steel, so maybe the modern maker was not particularly careful about the scrap put in the kettle. Back then, steel processes could not remove non oxidizing metals, such as copper and nickel, and the stuff tended to accumulate within the steel foundry, as local scrap was put back into the kettle. These impurities, because they are uncontrolled, decrease all of the major properties unpredictably.
I cannot find the post, but somewhere I have the post from a metallurgist who conducted a materials property test on a British WW1 aircraft steel billet. He claimed it was weaker than any modern steel due to the impurities and inclusions.
And this might be of interest: in 1936, Phil Sharpe was warning shooters about early firearms:
There has been a great deal of improvement in steels, whether they be ordinary soft steels or various forms of nickel steel. No attempt with be made here to describe steels, as the subject would require and entire book. Thirty years ago, very little was known about heat treatment..
If you had a Winchester Model 1892 manufactured in 1905 and an identical model manufactured in 1935, assuming the original gun to be in perfect condition inside and out, you might place them side by side and notice absolutely no difference at firs glance. Careful study, however, will reveal that the later gun is manufactured better, with a minimum of tolerance, slap, looseness or whatever you may choose to call it. That, however, is the minor part of the of the whole thing. There will be little laboratory resemblance between the material of which the two gun are manufactured. Changes and improvements are being made constantly, and where changes in the quality of steel or the strengthening of certain parts through heat treatment are made, the factory rarely, if ever, makes any announcement. If these same Model 92 rifles were fired with a Magnum .38/40 load, it is quite possible that the earlier gun might go to pieces, while the later one would be perfectly safe. These facts must always be considered in handloading.
Complete Guide to Handloading by Philip B Sharpe. First Edition 1937, Chapter XXX, Magnum Handgun and Rifle Possibilities. Mr Sharpe was born in 1903, died 1961.
Phillip Sharpe knowledge of metallurgy is even more superficial than mine, it is obvious he knows very little about metals, metal compositions, and metallurgy. There is no doubt he has heard about enough blowups of old, vintage rifles, that he is trying to warn shooters.
So after all this gloom and doom, I cannot prove that your rifles are made from low, or high quality metals, but the technology of the period was not up to modern standards and was highly variable. Therefore, don’t push the pressures. Those cartridges, 32-20 and 38-55 were blackpowder era cartridges, and, unless you can find something from the period approving smokeless use, I would be very careful about a choice of powder. I don’t even know if you could use jacketed bullets, it might wash out the rifling.
I have used AA5744 in a 45/70 black powder era Martini Henry action, and that powder was made so that the reloader could use a smokeless propellant at blackpowder pressures.
Jim Watson
Member
My 1892 .44-40 and 1885 .38-55 are a bit newer, 1906 and 1911; and have shot a good deal of smokeless - although not in the 1885 since I discovered BPCR.
Loads are factory equivalent but always with cast bullets.
Sears was selling smokeless .32-20 and .38-55 ammo with jacketed bullets at that in 1901 and I bet Grandpa shot it when he could afford it, a whopping $3.49 per hundred rounds, 97 cents more than black. Of course the rifle only cost $10.85, $11.70 for octagon barrel. More for .30/30, $13.25.
The .38-55 was loaded with 19 grains of something, maybe Sharpshooter, which would also have worked in .32-20.
Bear in mind that Marlin 1893 was also made in .30-30 and I find no mention of any difference in the action, just the "smokeless steel" barrel.
Loads are factory equivalent but always with cast bullets.
Sears was selling smokeless .32-20 and .38-55 ammo with jacketed bullets at that in 1901 and I bet Grandpa shot it when he could afford it, a whopping $3.49 per hundred rounds, 97 cents more than black. Of course the rifle only cost $10.85, $11.70 for octagon barrel. More for .30/30, $13.25.
The .38-55 was loaded with 19 grains of something, maybe Sharpshooter, which would also have worked in .32-20.
Bear in mind that Marlin 1893 was also made in .30-30 and I find no mention of any difference in the action, just the "smokeless steel" barrel.
People just don't remember that the Government has been delibrately debasing the currency ever since the origin of this country. Just like people today think the Kaiser had a cell phone, people think a $10.85 rifle was cheap. Well back then, the dollar had a lot more purchasing power than today.
It took work to find a inflation calculator that went back to 1901, but the one I used claims that a $10.85 rifle in 1901 would cost $338.11 in today's money. Not a bad price, but not a give away.
Average yearly salaries in 1900 per occupation can be found on this web page, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002738212&view=1up&seq=609
If you were a farm laborer, the average annual salary was $400. The laborer made an average of $7.69 cents for a more than 40 hour workweek. I would think an $11.00 rifle would be pretty expensive to that person.
Jim Watson
Member
Right, smokeless ammo was a considerable extravagance, and that hundred rounds had better last a lot of hunting seasons. Not that many people were buying a hundred rounds; more like 20 at the general store. Or less; I remember when a local dealer would break boxes and sell you just enough ammo to load your gun.
It is a bit surprising how many customers paid the premium for an octagon barrel; 85 cents here but more than that at different times. Yet we see more octagon than round in some models.
It is a bit surprising how many customers paid the premium for an octagon barrel; 85 cents here but more than that at different times. Yet we see more octagon than round in some models.
I read an American Rifleman article from the 1920's or 30's. The writer had gone to Alaska with a 30-06 bolt gun and went walrus hunting with the local "Eskimos". All the Eskimos were armed with 30-30's from the hardware store, and made fun of the writer's round barreled rifle, telling him that their octagonal barrels shot harder. The point of the article was the 30-06 was more powerful than a 30-30 and of course the Eskimos were all impressed with the writer's modern round barreled rifle, and the superiority of the 30-06 on game over their old fashioned 30-30's.
Hard to believe now, but the 30-06 was considered a powerful, leading, state of the art cartridge. But then, the leading writers of the era came from the Army Ordnance Bureau, or benefited from their association with the Army Ordnance Bureau. So, to be part of the in crowd, you had to unconditionally embrace Army Ordnance Bureau propaganda about Army Ordnance Bureau products.
But, there were these nut case ideas around, that octagonal barrels were more powerful than round barrels, and you can understand how such disinformation could be spread by factory salesman, as octagonal barrels had a higher sell price, and thus were more profitable. One important characteristic about marketing and advertising is they know what that you only want to hear, what you want to hear. And if marketing tells you what you want to hear, you will buy their products. Even if your wants are delusional, or are contrary to the known laws of nature.
Eskimos did not have chronographs, and any claims about the power of an octagonal barrel were un measurable. But they believed the claims, and saw what they wanted to see, on game, that proved their beliefs. We all lived through the great Wildcat era, each new Wildcat ballyhooed as the fastest that every was, and great claims made about the power of the things. The parent cartridges were all vastly inferior to the "Improved" version, you can read the nonsense in vintage magazines. The thing was, marketing works best in the areas of consumer ignorance. Everyone in print believed the claims, but once cheap chronographs came on the market, shooters did not see the great velocity increases, that they had read in print. In fact, factory cartridges often turned out to be disappointing compared to the advertising. The Army Ordnance writers claimed 3000 fps with a 150 grain 30-06. That's pretty darn hot for that cartridge, and someone with a 24 inch barrel is only going to get there by blown, pierced primers, and expanded case heads.
The great Wildcat era came crashing down, but we are in a new era of ignorance: the low drag, high ballistic, bullet. Over the horizon shots are being ballyhooed, as marketing claims these low drag, high ballistic bullets are capable of retaining their velocities at distances that formerly, only artillery was effective. Marketing is able to do this, because the cost of measuring velocity at 700, 800, 1500, yards, is beyond the ability of the average consumer. But, the consumer wants to believe they can plink away at creatures more than a half a mile away, and marketing knows, feed delusions, and they will buy.
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