doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Could this be what Greener called 'Stub Damascus'?

HOmeless, there is a big reward for finding it .
I hear it is buried in Amanutjobs garden.

Thanks, guys for a most worthwhile thread. This is great stuff!

...and the only way to get there is on a flying Persian rug.


Pete I'm thinking there was allot of horseshoeing going on back then.

While we're on the subject of obscure and meaningless pattern welded barrels, I think this might be what Greener called 'Laminated Damascus'



c. 1880s C.G. Bonehill 12b





Note the linear rather than crolle pattern

Here is a nice Greener Laminated on my Greener "Trap Gun".
I shot a round of Sporting with it yesterday. This gun belonged to Mr. H.H. Crane of Syracuse NY and inscribed as such. He owned a large lumber yard there into the 1880's or longer

Thanks Leighton. Your barrels demonstrate a couple of interesting things. The thicker breech segment of the right barrel is apparent in the difference in the colouring. It is not Greener's 'Silver Steel' but the usual British Laminated Steel which is a "puddled" mixture of as much as 4 parts steel to 1 part iron, and produces a mosaic pattern rather than the linear pattern shown above.
Here is 'Silver Steel' that Craig refinished

Picked up Akehurst's Game Guns & Rifles from our library. Unfortunately, the images are not of adequate resolution to scan and reproduce (and it's still in Copyright ) But this helps

"Stub Damascus"...was made from a quantity of old files, heated red hot and rendered hard and brittle by quenching in cold water, after which they were pounded to the size of No 5 shot and a proportion of 15 lb of these added to 25 lb of stubs. The mixture was fused together on the bed of an air-furnace, hammered to condense the metal and rolled into rods 3/8 inch square. These rods were twisted and treated as for Damascus, the effect being of a mottled twist.

Despite W.W. still using the term in 1907, it certainly must have been an early English damascus product, and likely looks like laminated steel (with alot less steel!)

More pearls from Akehurst

"Wilkinson and Son, at the Great Exhibiton of 1851, showed a series of exhibits demonstrating the forging of barrels and including Damascus twist made from 21 alternate bars of iron and steel which were then welded, drawn out by rolling to a square rod, twisted and then flattened; two or three rods were then welded together, wound round a mandril and forged as before. They also showed a specimen composed of two bars of 48 alternations of iron and steel, a specimen called 'chain twist', and called 'steel Damascus' and a finished barrel composed of seven different kinds of twist."

SEVEN KINDS OF TWIST?!?

My knowledge of Damascus is twisted worse than ever...