Unfortunately then, as now, words mean simply what the writer intends for them to mean, and once an opionion or statement is made, it is repeated thereafter over and over until it is established as 'common knowledge.' Dig's statement about laminated steel being made with charcoal iron is a new one. It is very likely that production techniques changed significantly through the 1800s. Certainly Greener thought damascus was weaker than Stub Twist in 1835. Some form of Laminated steel seemed to be the barrel of choice for high grade guns in the 1860s-1870s, then English Three Iron Crolle (at least by Purdey), then Whitworth steel by the 1890s.

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