Introduction
This page features information about the old ways of making barrels for muzzle loading firearms. The information comes from an 1800s Reading, Pennsylvania newspaper article and a 1924 gun collecting book.
L. Dietle
1800s interviews about gun barrel manufacturing
The date of the original newspaper article is unknown, but the dates of the interviews can be approximated reasonably well:
A puzzling interview statement
The article "Henry E. Leman, Riflemaker" in "the American Society of Arms Collectors Bulletin" (51:12-20) indicates that around 1850 Leman abandoned a water powered rifle mill along the Conestoga River at what eventually became known as Oregon, and built a new steam-powered factory at the intersection of Walnut Street and Cherry Alley in Lancaster — a building that was reportedly still standing when the article was written. The article also reports that Leman moved his operations into a larger building at the intersection of James Street and Christian Street in 1873, and that factory remained in operation until the death of Leman in 1887. The article also indicates that Leman increased his use of barrels produced by other manufacturers after 1875.
Since it appears that neither the circa 1850 rifle factory nor the 1873 rifle factory burned down in Leman's lifetime, I wonder if some barrel manufactory that Leman owned or relied on burned down in the mid-1870s. If you have information about a fire damaging or destroying an eastern Pennsylvania rifle or barrel manufactory in roughly the 1870s timeframe, please let me know.
A first-hand account of gun barrel manufacturing
Another barrel making description from the 1924 book
Go to the Gunsmith Project Index
Although the following article is from the May, 1937 issue of "HOBBIES — The Magazine for Collectors", it is a reprint of an 1800s Reading, Pennsylvania newspaper article. The article begins with a history lesson, and then incorporates interviews with barrel manufacturers Franklin and Nathaniel Schnader and gunmaker Joseph H. Faust. The article is interesting because it describes how gun barrels were manufactured in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and how they were marketed and sold.
One thing that puzzles me about the Franklin K. Schnader interview is the following reference to a fire at the Henry E. Leman factory: "His business flourished and he was soon compelled to build a larger factory. This new building which was an immense structure, was destroyed by fire a little over ten years ago. That was the end of the Lancaster firearms factory." I have not seen such a fire referenced anywhere else. For example, the fire is not mentioned in the extensive obituary of Henry E. Leman that was published in the May 13, 1887 issue of the "Lancaster Intelligencer" newspaper. I wonder if the interviewer may have somehow misunderstood his interview notes, and conflated two different factories.
The following excerpt from Dillins 1924 book "The Kentucky Rifle" provides an outline of "the methods used in the Whitesides factory at Abingdon, Va." as "told in the words of Milton Warren, of Abington, who was apprenticed to John M. Whitesides, of Abingdon (then Wolf Hills)..." The excerpt describes barrel making and other aspects of old-time gunmaking, including a bit about percussion lock making.
The following excerpt from Dillins 1924 book "The Kentucky Rifle" provides a description of old-time barrel making that was provided by Walter M. Cline of Tennessee. Walter Matson Cline was a Chattanooga gun collector who wrote the 1942 book "The Muzzle-Loading Rifle Then and Now".
