UK Proof houses, a useless (and expensive) anachronism?
Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2015 7:06 am
We are legally obliged to have our firearms proofed in this country if we wish to sell them.
All proofing is is a 10% over maximum charge being fired through the barrel and action.
This an exceptionally crude and potentially damaging way to treat firearms in the 21st century.
In days gone by when guns were produced locally from local made metals it was a way of ensuring there were no weaknesses in the metal like voids of slag pockets.
Things have moved on a lot since then and surely there have to be better and less crude and damaging ways of testing a gun metal safety than the current brutal and ineffective method.
Even in the early 20th century they were using magnetic analysis to check the integrity of metals to be used in firearms.
The US which has to be one of the worlds largest firearms producers and users, both military and civilian has no requirement for compulsory proofing of guns and seems to see no need to introduce it either.
I doubt that the current system we have proves anything about the safety of a firearm other than at that single point in time when it was proofed it was able then to take an over pressure load.
If we are truly interested in proving the safety of firearms there has to be better methods with the technology available to us today.
Please discuss.
All proofing is is a 10% over maximum charge being fired through the barrel and action.
This an exceptionally crude and potentially damaging way to treat firearms in the 21st century.
In days gone by when guns were produced locally from local made metals it was a way of ensuring there were no weaknesses in the metal like voids of slag pockets.
Things have moved on a lot since then and surely there have to be better and less crude and damaging ways of testing a gun metal safety than the current brutal and ineffective method.
Even in the early 20th century they were using magnetic analysis to check the integrity of metals to be used in firearms.
The US which has to be one of the worlds largest firearms producers and users, both military and civilian has no requirement for compulsory proofing of guns and seems to see no need to introduce it either.
I doubt that the current system we have proves anything about the safety of a firearm other than at that single point in time when it was proofed it was able then to take an over pressure load.
If we are truly interested in proving the safety of firearms there has to be better methods with the technology available to us today.
Please discuss.
