Drew,

I don't ever recall seeing a basic strength of materials analysis of damascus - e.g., things like tensile strength, toughness, break load.

While this would be a sample of one, it would be really interesting to see how the properties of damascus compare to common homogenius barrel steels.

This analysis would be different from the analysis of the barrel failure that oriignally prompted this inquiry, but I think would be interesting nonetheless. It sounds like you are working with the guys who could provide this pretty quickly assuming you could give them samples of the right dimensions.

Good luck,

Ken