The solid matted rib?

[rcmodel]

Another tread got me to thinking.
Oh Oh!
That never ends good.

Anyway, what do you think lead to the demise of the solid matted rib on hunting shotguns?

My old Browning A5 has always wore them on both IC and Full choke barrels.

I love them.
Flat sighting plain of a vent rib.
But no mud & water & blood stuck under a vent rib in the duck blind.

Or weed stems & seeds & blood stuck under them in the upland game bird fields.

You get home and wipe them down and you are done till the next time!
Vent ribs, not so much!

They were way too good to go the way of to DoDo bird on hunting shotguns.

Why, Oh Why did they become extinct on modern guns?

rc

 

[Jim Watson]

Fashions come and go, costs go up.

 

[rcmodel]

Yep!

Vented costs more to buy, but is way less utilitarian & harder to clean in the hunting fields!
And it costs the manufacture way less then to perfectly shape a matted rib to perfectly fit the barrel contour.

So, it's a Win-Win for the manufacture.

But not for the hunter that doesn't like cleaning under vent ribs with pipe cleaners every time the gun gets wet or muddy.

rc

 

[oneounceload]

Clean it with some hot soapy water and rinse under a hose then wipe down; or use cans of compressed air

My SxS wears a solid raised rib, the O/U has a vent rib - hunting upland birds doesn't seem to be as bad as anything in the waterfowl arena

 

[rcmodel]

Hot soapy water & a garden hose after spending half a day or more in a frozen duck blind at 20 degrees???
Or walking 15 miles chasing a hyper pair of bird dogs in corn stubble fields????

Nope!
I don't think so!

See, thats why I preferred the old matted solid ribs on hunting shotguns.
You can pretty much clean them with your shirt tails after you take your game vest off!

rc

 

[Bull Nutria]

Vent ribs have the very bad habit of falling against the boat gunnel or duck blind and being bent!! PIA looks like hell and hard to straighten--solid rib would not be nearly as bad!!

i am with RC bring solid ribs back!!

Bull

 

[Jim Watson]

Yes, a friend here took his visiting old pal skeet shooting and finished the day with a kink in the vent rib on his Superposed. I don't think he has shot the gun since, can't bear to look at it. I'd get it fixed and send the bill to the perp.

I think just a matted strip down the barrel would serve on a hunting gun. I shot Skeet about as (in)effectively with a Remington M58 like that as with a vent rib gun. Browning called that a "matted line" on the Superposed Lightning.

In the 1939 Stoegers reprint, you can see how expensive a rib was in those days.
Most makes, a solid rib was about $8, a vent rib $14... on a $50 gun.

The Remington M31 took it to the extreme, the rib was integral with the barrel. A neighbor had a 31 trap gun with vent rib all one piece with the barrel. Impressive machining.

 

[oneounceload]

I have unbent a bent vent rib on my target gun using clamps and wooden wedges and going SLOW and gently. It isn't 100%, but more like 97 and a lot better than it was

RC - you can keep the duck blind; I stopped doing that when they finally stopped us using lead. Corn stubble isn't too bad, now climbing a shale slope after chukar at 8000 feet - that hurts everything and everyone!

 

[bannockburn]

The only thing that has bothered me about a ribbed barrel is that I'm always worried that rust is going to find its way in there if I'm not extremely fastidious about cleaning and preventive maintenance with all those little openings.

 

[drcook]

costs go up

On the old Ithaca 37's, the solid rib was soft soldered (ie: not silver solder) to the barrel by hand. I would assume the other manufacturers used similar procedures.

If you look hard enough, you can find a solid rib gun. In fact there is a thread where we are discussing Ithacas going on right now

 

[oneounceload]

The only thing that has bothered me about a ribbed barrel is that I'm always worried that rust is going to find its way in there if I'm not extremely fastidious about cleaning and preventive maintenance with all those little openings

That is where a good spray solvent - whether you decide on brake cleaner or similar that removes everything right now - and then followed by a spray that penetrates every nook and cranny after can alleviate your concerns

 

[dak0ta]

Or you can just go with the JMB humpback design that requires no rib at all. When you sight down the Auto 5, there's a groove in the receiver, and if you are looking down the barrel right, the bead at the end just sits in the groove. No need for a rib.

 

[oneounceload]

Sorry, the A5 is over rated and there are much better guns to choose from

 

[Frostbite]

Is the vent rib not intended to disperse heat away from the line of sight when repeat shots are fired? If so, I would be led to believe that it is a superior design to accomplish that function. Otherwise, it the rib's only use is to offer a better sight plane, I would agree that a solid rib is more practical.

 

[Bullet Bob]

"Sorry, the A5 is over rated and there are much better guns to choose from"

And was for almost 100 years

I won't be here, but hopefully you will be 100 years after your flavor of the day favorite shotgun was sold, you can see if I have a point.

For the original poster: For hunting guns, I like just a simple matting of the top of the barrel, but people have refused to buy a shotgun without a rib since they became so popular in clay sports. Que sera.