Barrel Wall Thickness Guage

The guage, alone. The guage, measuring a set of shotgun barrels.

A shotgun's barrel wall thickness can be measured at nearly any point, between the probe of the dial guage and the bead at the top of either of the rods. For stiffness and accuracy of reading, one should use the thickest rod allowable by the size of the bore.

Barrel Wall Thickness - The thickness of the walls of a shotgun barrel tube. It is reasonable to assume that guns built by responsible manufacturers are safe to shoot, when new, with the loads for which they were intended. As the decades go by, however, as barrels are drawfiled or buffed for rebluing and as occasional pits are honed out of the bores, steel is gradually removed from the barrels. The barrel walls, already built thin for lightness, become thinner still. At some point they become too thin for safety. It is important to know the minimum barrel wall thickness of an old, well-used shotgun before shooting it. While no substitute for an actual proof test, a useful rule of thumb states that the minimum barrel wall thickness should be .020" in a 12 gauge gun.

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