Ed: the short answer to this question is "maybe".
The potential for unstable chemistry within any form of steel shotgun tubes would reveal itself fairly quickly I should think. Within just a few years of their forging, this "instability ' would be tangible and dangerously obvious. In the case of the fair number of Damascus doubleguns that I have now owned (and then shot), this has never been a concern of mine. Mind you, nothing I've ever owned like this has been much younger than 100-years and any such "instability" would have long since revealed itself.
I'm more likely to suspect that this is just one-more of the many elaborate stories used (& very effectively I might add) to demean composite barrels in older firearms during the Great Depression. The only goal here was to help American gunmakers sell more of their "new" fluid steel guns.
The Brits never went down that road and still do not concern themselves with any "perceived problems" with composite gunbarrels. Unless you think that the British gun industry is anti-science or somehow technically inferior in some fashion then... the arguments for these type of issues are rather moot at this point in time.
Last edited by Lloyd3; 02/20/26 12:28 PM.
