Many years ago I bought an Army & Navy boxlock with what I thought were steel barrels due to the nice blacking, later I was pleased to find out they were damascus and had them returned to the browned pattern. I went back to the seller and he recounted that his father had them blacked to match all the other guns in his shooting syndicate when damascus barrels were frowned apon from a safety perspective. Cheaper than rebarrelling I guess.
Back in 2007, a doctor who I met through shooting brought me his father-in-laws 20 bore which he had inherited (a really nice little W. Richards ejector). I inspected the blacked barrels and they measured ok, couple of marks that would come out but nothing serious and still in current proof designation, which by the proof code showed a nitro-reproof in 1955.
I told him the barrels were damascus underneath the black. Much to his surprise as he showed me a very large bill from a Birmingham gunsmith in the case from 1955.
The bill was for a new set of barrels as the old ones were beyond repair! I explained that what really happened was the tubes were cleaned up, re-proved for nitro (as orginally black powder) and reblacked, giving the appearance of new barrels.
