Barrel material

[Damon]

Were the 1855 series of arms manufactured with steel or iron barrels? I haven't been able to determine this from the few reference books I own. I know some Model 1841 and the Remington 1863 Contract rifles had "STEEL" stamped on the breech end of the barrel.

Thanks,
Damon

[satwel]

The model 1873 Trapdoor was the first rifle made at Springfield Armory with a steel barrel. Everything prior used wrought iron. I don't know if Harpers Ferry ever used steel.

[Blair]

Please, look at the breach area on a contract made M-1841? Also known as the Harpers Ferry Rifle.

[Southron Sr.]

Both Springfield and Harpers Ferry used imported "Marshall Iron." This was a high quality iron imported from England. American iron was considered inferior because American iron deposits had a high sulphur content.

[R. McAuley 3014V]

Though Remington began to use steel barrels in 1846, followed by Whitney and Simeon North in 1848, the Ordnance Department feeling against steel barrels was such that when Eli Whitney wanted to use steel barrels in his contract rifles for the Army in 1862, he was refused permission to do so. Experiments with welded steel barrels began at Springfield in 1866 but steel barrels were not adopted until 1873. The first Armory steel barrels were made from a solid billet drilled and rolled into an elongated tube, rather than by welding a skelp.

The only steel parts used on the M1855 rifle and rifle-musket was the tumbler, lock swivel, feeding finger, cover catch, sear, and all springs. One recent examination of two broken tumblers for a M1855 rifle-musket showed them to be made of cast-steel but improperly heat treated, leaving them too hard. Until it was learned how to use a magnetised tool (1930) to detect the point when steel loses its magnetism, the proper heat treating and tempering of steel remained a continuing source of difficulty in the production of small arms.