re: concern for barrel strength
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cvqRzkg0wEjhAAcFWr8gFi7aPFRsSIJ_hahfDxmrNAU/editTo quote John Brindle's summary of the 1891 Proof House report:
“Thus steel had proved stronger than Damascus in this test, but the strength of both was such that this did not matter one bit, such was the margin of safety in a barrel of either material of suitable dimensions and without flaws. And it was the purpose of regular proof tests to find those flaws if they existed.”
A reassuring comment in
Sporting Guns and Gunpowders regarding an additional study published in
The Field June 6, 1891 by Horatio F. Phillips, a “staff experimenter” with
The Field, comparing brazed and unbrazed Steel and Damascus barrels:
http://books.google.com/books?id=inQCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA14&lpgThese experiments serve to show what a very large margin of strength there is in a good gun barrel, when ordinary charges are used. The (Damascus) barrels which gave way earliest...had withstood the strains of…about four times as great as the regulation proof; while the steel barrels (Siemens-Martin and English “Superior Barrel Steel”) were tested…with charges averaging nearly five times as much as the ordinary proof-charge.
Although the steel barrels showed the greater amount of endurance,
the strength of the Damascus was so much in excess of all ordinary requirements that no fear need be felt of their giving way when the work is properly done.
