Those shot penetration and recoil tests were the only things I could find, too.
I'm starting to wonder if either the interviewer or Mr. Ern made a slight error and got the year wrong, as I cannot find the action strength tests they speak of.
As of 1882, the date he first published The Modern Sportsman's Gun & Rifle, Walsh said that action strength across the various makers was a "very delicate question, involving important commercial interests, ought not to be considered settled by a mere opinion, unsupported by a long series of exhaustive experiments, which are quite beyond the powers of any individual."
Evidently he wanted to avoid stepping on any toes, however he mentions in another chapter that "this weakness of the bar-lock action we proved by experiment, as published by the Field of May 25, 1878."
