doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Damascus barrels and pressures

Of the tens of thousands of shotgun rounds that I have witnessed
being shot by both Damascus-twist and steel bbls, I have only seen or witnessed three barrels burst. All were steel.
One Browning, One mossburg and one double 20 ga Stevens.

I've been shooting a restored 12 gauge REMINGTON 1900 with Damascus barrels. I load low pressure 1 oz. handloads in the 5,000 psi range using IMR 7625 powder. Seems to work fine.

Also shoot a restored 1890's LC SMITH hammerless with twist barrels using the same load. The previous owner used regular factory
1-1/4 oz. loads in it regularly, to hunt squirrels.

Another fellow at the range shoots an old hammer Elsie, using a light load of PB powder.

I don't think I'm taking any undue risk, with these moderate loads.
JERRY

"Beefy and good condition", as Lowell notes, factors into any evaluation other than the whistling past the graveyard sort. Below is the breech end of a SAC Hollenbeck. I think anyone who has tossed around a few damascus doubles will agree that the wall section looks robust and the fairness of the barrel exteriors in raking light suggests an absence of impact dents.





Below are the wall thickness nos. for the Hollenbeck. I believe they suggest some surplus material and wgt. in these barrels and an overbuild from both an engineered safety and certainly from an upland gunning point of view. The interior of bores are also unblemished by pitting or corrosion rings in chambers. I suspect that they have never been honed. I have what I think is a reasonable expectation they will be capable of shooting 1 oz. loads with modest charges of smokeless powder long after I have the desire to do so.



I also have Lefever FE with a less than reassuring average wall thickness of .085" ahead of chamber both barrels and honed to minimize the "stress riser" factor of considerable pitting. Lighter barrels, higher comb. A greater pleasure to shoot and the results in the hits/misses column are better for me with this gun than with the Hollenbeck. Am I on the edge of a bit soft whistling with this one? I believe so. I have shot one round of skeet with smokeless reloads, one round 68 gr. bp reloads in a plastic hull. I shot by myself early on Sunday morning; the puller was as far from me as the cord and hearing would allow.

If you decide to trust your left hand, brain and eyesight to damascus barrels, consider that you haven't any right to ask others to share the risk. On the other hand, I've shot both the Remmy hammergun and the other Lefever at Millbrook with never a look askance. Maybe we are all crazy as bedbugs!

jack

Sherman Bell's articles are very well done and well written. What he has taken the time and trouble to do "proves" a lot, to me. Proof, to some, only occurs when the test contains the answer they wanted to see. If you want to shoot Damascus guns, use the light loads(meaning less shot), at lower velocity(1150-1200fps), at lower pressures(7-8000psi or less) that are repeatedly recommended here. If you don't want to shoot Damascus, DON'T.

1. There is no doubt that one has to look at each gun and make certain as much as possible that there are no defects to increase the risk of accidents.
2. There is no doubt that one should use the lowest pressure load that does the job, like in any shotgun or common situation.
3. Even so, accidents will happen.

What I propose is a study.
Can we gather enough info to put together a database to predict rate of accidents and to discover/clarify causes?

End goal is Probability of accidents. We have to define accidents, but it would be something like barrel burst or bulge, etc.

Population: our damascus guns. THis could be further specified in measurements of chamber/bore/wall thickness, condition, etc.

Events: how many rounds we have shot through and what ammo do we use.

Prospective study: designed between today as a starting point and next years April 20th.

Retrospective: Maybe shooters like Stallones and Bonehill can gather data from their experience.

Double Blind study: Impossible. However, the bad events can be/should be reported as cold info.


Are these data hard to achieve?

We're all risk-takers here, and from the posts on this forum over the years it seems we've got a good grip on the risks of the shooting sports and the risk of damascus or twist barrels within them. I don't see how any study can come up with anything more definitive. Nothing is "safe" and nothing is certain.

What you are looking for is an absolute assurance that what you are shooting won't blow up in your hands. You won't get that, statistically or otherwise. There is risk in life, but you try to manage those risks. With damascus barrels you manage the risk by shooting lower pressure, lighter loads, after you have satisfied yourself the barrels are sound. Also, I think people are fooling themselves if they think shooting modern guns has no risk attached to them. We think that since they are new they are failsafe. Wrong. Most of the bad things in life that hurt are of our own doing anyway, so always look down your barrels for the stuck wad. That will get you before an overcharge, more than likely. Bell's article are not an absolute, and he says that, but they are an aid in managing the risks in shooting composite barreled guns. That's all.

I agree with eeb. I shoot damascus barrels on a regular basis but do feel safer with steel even though I am positive that the risk is just as high since I will use hotter factory loads. I often go to steel barrels when I get tired of making my own low pressure loads. Stallones observations may confirm my feelings.

I think I am a pretty careful guy but one day I loaded my gun, pulled the triggers and had one barrel not fire. I opened the gun and saw that in the heat of a skeet game I forgot to load one of the barrels. Most of you know what happened but I did not realize it. Fortunately, the reading I have done here made me suspicious and a wood dowel was called for and the 20 gauge shell was pushed out of the 12 gauge gun. I learned from that experience how easy it is to make that mistake and I always look down each barrel, often waiting for the smoke to clear, before loading again. I later realized the 20 gauge shell was left over from a different day and was sort of out of sight in one of the folds in the bottom of my vest pocket.

Be careful out there.

It was determined a long time ago that "proof" was what was required to make shooting an acceptable risk. The Europeans used the professional Proof House concept and the Americans went with self-certification by each maker. If you send an old gun to a European Proof House, it will get the same treatment as a new gun. If it passes, and most do, it will be almost as safe to shoot as when new. This system has worked for about 150 years now.

The issue with Slivers proposal/request is that the statistics will be so wide as to be meanigless to an individual gun. There will be no usable "average" for damascus construction or condition. There has been no meaningful "average" for damascus use. There will be so few failures that no meaningful projection can be made beyond what we already generally know.

Unless you are dealing on the ragged edge of the steel's strength, "n" is a very large number, large enough that it is not likely to be approached in shots fired in a shotgun barrel. Experience says that if no metal "moves and stays moved" in proof, the gun is vastly unlikely to fail in usual service.

Every time you fire a gun you take a risk of something letting go. Every time you take a breath, you risk inhaling something carcenogenic. The first is optional, the second is pretty much required. Both have a pile of experience that says they are risks worth taking in the greater scheme of life.

Experts on Guns and Shooting
George Teasdale Teasdale-Buckell 1900

http://books.google.com/books?id=4xRmHkr...ns+and+Shooting

On the subject of steel v. Damascus, Mr Stephen Grant is very clear, and much prefers Damascus for hard working guns. He related an anecdote of one of his patrons, whose keeper stupidly put a 12-bore cartridge into his master’s gun without knowing that he had previously inserted a 20-case, which had stuffed up the barrel. Fortunately, no burst occurred, but a big bulge, which, however, Mr Grant hammered down, and the gun is now as good as ever.