Winchester Steels

Colt1849 · Post by **Colt1849** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 11:39 am

A while back I posted a brief synopsis of Winchester Steels, thought it might be a good time to repost, unless I can talk Jim or Hobie into making this a into Mini Article and permantly posting.

Any additional information would be greatly appreciated

Mike

At around the turn of the century, Winchester had four major steel suppliers: Crucible Steel Co, (New York), Illingsworth Steel Co. (UNK), Midvale Steel Co. (Nicetown, PA) and the Carpenter Steel Co. (Reading, PA).

As far as I can tell, all these companies supplied Winchester with the following six different steels: 1) Bessemer Soft 2) Open Hearth Soft 3) .45 Carbon 4) Nickel
5) Spring and 6) Vanadium.

1). The Bessemer process for making steel came to being in 1856 as an improved material for guns, and around 1865 the process was refined enough for use by industry. Carbon content for Bessemer steel is .10-.13%.

2). Open Hearth process came into use around 1864 as an adaptation of the Bessemer process, Carbon content for open hearth steel is .15-.25%.

3). .45 Carbon coincides nicely with what was referred to as ordnance steel in use at the time for high powered â€œsmokelessâ€

Post by **Hobie** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:25 pm

Mike,

Many thanks for this information. We can work on creating this as a "mini-article" as we get things settled. Please, don't let this slip my mind.

engravertom · Post by **engravertom** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:59 pm

Thanks for the good info!

I can vouch for the nickel steel barrels being a pain to re engrave. If the markings are only partially removed when the polishingis done, I often re cut and fill in the gaps, instead of having all the markings removed and re rolled. I have to re sharpen a lot when cutting the nickel steel barrels. Not so on the earlier ones.

take care,

Tom

Mike D. · Post by **Mike D.** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:05 pm

Thanks for the great, very informative post, Mike. How do you tell if a gun has the .45 carbon steel? Aren't the majority of smokeless barrels marked "nickel steel"? All of the ones I have owned or inspected are so marked.

Colt1849 · Post by **Colt1849** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:08 pm

Mike D

Yes the smokeless barrels are either Nickel steel or Winchester Proof Steel, and are usually if not always marked. I just cut off a chunk of Winchesterâ€™s Proof Steel, weâ€™re going to try and get a breakdown of the itâ€™s components.

The .45 carbon steel would be in the 1886 with smokeless frames, 1892s and 1894s, donâ€™t think that the ever made the 92 and 94 with 1018.

The higher carbon content is one of the reasons that Winchester got away from Color Case Hardening the frames. .45% carbon is a bit high to try and add more carbon to the steel.

Mike

KirkD · Post by **KirkD** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:50 pm

Very good info. It should be archived as a permanent article. It might be helpful if someone could provide the yield strength of the various steels that Colt1849 mentioned, preferably in psi. I expect that chambers fail in hoop stress. It would be useful for someone to correlate chamber pressures with the maximum hoop stress that can be tolerated before yield strength is reached.

Colt1849 · Post by **Colt1849** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 4:24 pm

Well Kirk,

Funny you should mention that. I do have Winchesterâ€™s (1909) Elastic Limit, Breaking Strength and Elongation data for the steels,

BUT...... Winchester used different heat treat methods (Time, Temp, quench etc) for different applications ieâ€¦ heat to 1500 deg, quench reheat to 600 deg will give you XXX results . Which is nice, but it is not broken down by â€œbarrels made out of xx steel will be heated to XXX deg F quenched reheated to xxx etc. Itâ€™s just broken down by to get X properties with Y steel do this.