Considering all the steps necessary for the making of a damascus bbl, I would seriously doubt the price being brought down anywhere near a homogenous steel bbl. I know not how many makers adopted it, but according to Ithaca input to a machining magazine (Not!! Sporting ones) their roto-forging method brought the price of manufacture for a shotgun bbl to a new low. By this method a short thick walled tube was placed on a shaped mandrel & literally beat, Cold, down around the mandrel to it's external shape, by hammers rotating around the blank. The hammers hit opposing blows of equal intensity so there was virtually no tendency to deflect the mandrel, which as I recall was made of some type of carbide. "If" a damascus bbl was finished by this method a non-uniformity of pattern would be the result. Even if this were deemed acceptable the number of steps to prepare the damascus blank for forging would add considerable to the cost. All steels are not necessarily conducive to the type of welding necessary for producing the damascus pattern either. Knife makers do not have to concern themselves with producing an item which will hold up to explosie forces, thus do not have the negatism to overcome. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on a mass produced damascus in modern times. Incidently in the later days of damascus many of the operations were mechanized.
