I have little doubt that considering the number of doubles produced over the centuries that some amount of those have gone out with "Bent" barrels. As of yet I have seen nothing to definitely indicate they were bent on purpose. There is Vast evidence extant that indeed great effort was applied to have them as Straight as possible. The fact that Joe's gunsmith checks a barrel for straightness prior to doing choke Work on them simply indicates he is most likely a competent Smith, does not on any way prove any of those barrels were intentionally Bent
The Rule of Three was of course meant as a bit of Sarcasm, in actuality I have had One Wife for a bit over 54 years now, though she does have Three Sisters, well Half Sisters to be totally accurate.
I do distinctly recall that several years back 8-Bore did state that barrels on a double ended up parallel at the muzzles for a short distance. I had thought that between several others as well as myself we had educated him beyond that belief, but when you stated that yourself & 8-Bore subscribed to the "Banana" configuration of the barrels I thought perhaps you were also subscribing to That Theory. The "Preponderance of the Evidence" certainly indicates otherwise.
It is true of course that a barrel can be bent by hand pressure without a press. It is also equally true that upon release the barrel will return to its original configuration. The reason the old time barrel makers used the press to straighten barrels was they had to be pushed to their yield Point so they would Stay Straight for assembly.
After Acquiring the L C Smith plans book & seeing the barrel assembly drawing I carefully measure barrel diameters & widths across their outsides at regular intervals. Even though of other brands they were all real close to that .011" per inch of convergence. I was also at that point already familiar with looking through the bore at the Rings as Stan mentioned here on this thread. All appeared as straight, "None" showed any signs of a Banana configuration.
Don't take My Word, Don't take the word of Joe's Gunsmith (which I think has been cleared up as being a mis-interpretation of what was actually said). Examine every set of barrels you have available to you. If you can find a set in which the barrels are indeed curved & placed Back to Back, Please do post the evidence, but no more Hear-Say.
