That Smith is a beauty. Stepped lockplates are beautiful when done that well, IMO. It is a carryover from the muzzleloading building era. I have observed the same treatment on original flintlocks.
Concerning laminated barrels ....... I have an Isaac Hollis with, what I have been told by two barrel refinishers, English Laminate barrels. When I acquired the gun the barrels had been rust blued, but you could tell that they were pattern welded. Both barrel refinishers struggled greatly to get any contrast with them. Both expressed that this type laminate is the hardest to get any contrast in that they had ever worked with, and both felt that it had to do with a higher percentage of steel, as compared to iron, than in most pattern welded tubes.
