Craig: here is the response from the metallurgical engineer at METL. Whether from the muzzle or the breech, the barrel will need to be machined to a standard thickness.
We'd be machining flat tensile specimens so we'd need at a minimum 3 inches of barrel length. Our machinist suspects the least taper of wall thickness at the (muzzle). We'd probably be making 0.250" reduced section or 0.160" reduced section samples.
There are two charges associated: the machining charge for preparing the samples and the testing charge for pulling them. We base the machining cost off of how hard the material is (how much it degrades the cutting tools) so I'm not really sure what to expect with this Damascus material. The low end charge for soft material (aluminum, magnesium, etc.) is $25/sample and the high end charge for hard materials (superalloys) is $55/sample. The cost of machining should fall in that range. The cost of testing is a flat $17.50/sample.
Last edited by Drew Hause; 03/15/14 10:56 PM.
