It is most encouraging William that you now appear to comprehend that (crude) composition analysis was available even in the 1860s, suggesting that when the General Manager at Hunter Arms, or Ithaca, or Lefever in 1900 ordered from Belgium a rough forged tube of barrel steel with specific characteristics, that is what they received, rather than whatever happened to appear out of the pour.
Although I admire your perseverance, your ongoing attempts to delegitimize the results of the composition studies ignore the fact that I did my best to document the DOM of the barrels tested. And since tubes were received in batches, it would seem quite reasonable that tubes used over a period of time (or at least until the General Manager changed the specifications of the order) would be quite similar.
As stated, I did tensile test Bro. Potter's Krupp barrel segment, but did not composition test the sample not knowing the source or DOM.
My class in statistics at MU SOM as a MS1 was in 1974, and I get that a sample of one does not a statistically valid study make. We don't know everything; however I do believe we have learned
something from the effort, both on my part and that of Dave Suponski's Parker barrel study. I'm particularly gratified that we now
know the composition of Model 12 Nickel Steel and (1937) Winchester Proof Steel.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dnRLZgcuHfx7uFOHvHCUGnGFiLiset-DTTEK8OtPYVA/edit So please feel free to send me a chunk of whichever Lefever you wish to contribute to (junk) science
