Here's the scoop on the barrel. Few are as knowledgeable as this guy on barrels, especially damascus. Bores are perfect in condition and dimensionally. .725 BD top to bottom, both barrels. Chokes F/F with full choke length. Here's the bad news. Eightbore you called it... Chambers and forcing cones have been lengthened. Chambers to 2 7/8" and forcing cone the length of the dark area. The tooling marks start about 1 1/4" from the breech and end at the end of the forcing cone. It appears as not to be a reamer job, maybe a hone on a drill as it is uneven and gouged. That is the cause of the tooling marks. The dark area is the crudely lengthened forcing cone. NOT PITTED, just discolored,tarnished and easily polished out. No indication of pitting in or outside the chamber area. Right barrel discoloration is the worst, but slightly shown in left barrel. No indication that the discolored area had anything to do with the barrel coming apart. He measured the far edge of the burst and it recorded .090" and the back as I indicated was .112". He felt ballistic pressure for what ever reason was the cause of the burst. He felt the barrel integrity was solid and no indication it would give way under normal shooting even with the chamber/forcing cone hack job. His wall thickness gauge is broke. Randy
