After spending many hours watching barrel straightening at Perazzi, Piotti, Beretta and other factories I can state that barrels are straightened several times during their manufacture.
The method used is not the concentric circles but by pointing the barrel, while in the press, towards a window edge and using the shadow/light lines in the bore. It is a more accurate method than the concentric rings.
No maker has talked of "banana" bending, all of them insist on absolute straightness.
If the barrels were bent, then there would be machining and jointing issues with either chopper lump or monobloc construction. You cannot fit a bent barrel in a monobloc while having parts hot. As for chopper lump, refer to the Holland video to see the braze flow at 750 degree centigrade and the barrels straight and relaxed, held only by wires at the breech ends while the muzzles are LOOSE and outside the kiln which they would not be if they were bent.
Personal observation of dozens of unribbed barrel sets leads me to concur with 2-Piper on this one. Barrels are geometrically convergent by design and not by bending. At least in good guns they are.
Last edited by Shotgunlover; 05/11/14 09:35 AM.
