Most vintage guns had tighter chokes, with improved cylinder and modified being most common. It’s easy to remove dings from fluid steel barrels but removing a dent from twist barrels creates a soft spot and lessens barrel integrity. “The second reason Damascus guns fail inspection is because the barrels have been dented while hunting. Gunsmiths use micrometers to measure barrel thickness in a variety of places and then compare those measurements with factory specifications. When excessive amounts of metal is removed then the barrel integrity is compromised and is therefore weakened. If the bores have been reamed to remove rust and pits then the wall thickness is altered.
Pitting also can come from improper storage over time. Pitted bores are often caused by a manufacturer’s use of soft iron or poor welding techniques. Barrels typically fail inspection from one of three distinct issues. “Barrel integrity is the most important - and the least understood - element of shooting vintage Damascus-barreled shotguns. “Damascus-barreled shotguns in good repair are highly functional,” he said. One proponent of Damascus guns is Vermont’s Lars Jacob of Lars Jacob Wingshooting: If you’re in the market, a close inspection by a reputable gunsmith is necessary. What has been created, though, is an opportunity to acquire high-grade, vintage shotguns for more than a reasonable fee. With such a focus on modern firearms, sales of Damascus guns have plummeted. Americans shied away from Damascus guns starting in the late 1880s though British gun makers continued with Damascus-steel barrels through the early 1930s.ĭoes it make sense to let go of the past? Cell phones have replaced the telegraph as cars replaced stagecoaches. This change in shotshells caused American gun manufacturers to produce barrels from fluid steel that could accommodate those stouter loads. The various degrees of depth coming from the number of threads per inch determines the pattern, with some being simple chevrons or diamonds while others being more complex.Īmericans, eager to switch to smokeless powders - slower-burning but maintaining high pressures for greater velocities and longer-distance shots - moved into barrels that would accommodate the extra pressure. Those patterns form because when twisted, the outer layers move inward. Many know the Crolle Damascus pattern-welded barrels, for they are artistic and contain highly-figured patterns based on how the two different-colored metals were “piled” or layered while the rods were twisted. It normally took seven feet of rod to create one foot of barrel. The threads were connected, heated and hammer-welded, the mandrel was removed, and a barrel was formed. A thin-metal sleeve was wrapped around a mandrel over which the barrel ribbons were wound. Three of the rods were twisted with a right-facing thread while three of the rods were twisted in the opposite direction with a left-facing thread. The process was repeated until six such rods were made and then the rods were prepared for heating and twisting. The block was then heated and drawn to form a rod. To make these barrels, iron and steel metal was stacked on top of each other, heated and hammered to create one block of mixed metal. Jones, expanded on his work several years later with Jones patenting a new process of turning a bevel-edged band of metal into a spiral-twist with interlocking threads. Over a millennium later and in the mid-1790s, a Frenchman named Jean-Francois Clouet of Liege, was among the first Western gunmakers to experiment with Damascus barrels.
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