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Damascus barrels
MickC9129
Member Posts: 10 ✭✭
I'd like to hear some pros and cons on shooting low-base 12g shells in my double barrel Crescent shotgun. Obviously a prudent person would say "why chance it", but is there another side to this story?
Comments
What goes around comes around!
You are correct in that there are a large number of people who falsely believe that it is unsafe to shoot damascus barreled shotguns. However, I know a fair number of people who routinely shoot them... and without any safety issues.
The first thing that must be understood, is that damascus barreled guns were intended for black powder or low pressure smokeless powder.
The second thing that most people overlook, is that nearly all of those old guns were chambered for shorter than currently standard shells. Most old damascus barreled 12 guage shotguns were made with a 2-5/8" chamber. If in doubt, have it professionally measured.
The next thing to consider, is how well the bores were cared for over the past 100+ years (damascus was all but gone by 1913). If the bores are rough, pitted, or generally in anything other than excellent condition, it would not be prudent to shoot the gun with any load. However, if the bores are in excellent condition, and you stick to less than 7500 psi loads, have at it.
It has been claimed for many years that Damascus steel is weaker than fluid steel, but there have been tests conducted that proved otherwise. From memory (without going and looking it up), a test was conducted using an old Parker Brothers shotgun. When the dust settled, it took a smokeless powder load exceeding 40,000 psi to blow the barrel[:0]. That same load would blow almost any fluid steel barreled shotgun.
WACA Historian & Life Member
Corrosion is possible from voids during the pattern welding process.
Bores can look good, as well as exteriors-but barrels can weaken internally.
To me the biggest issue (among a few big issues) with black powder (bp) vs smokeless powder (sp) is one of shock.
Generally, bp is much, much slower burning than sp. This is not readily noticable when a bp cartridge vs. a sp cartridge is fired from a gun. This translates to what Bert just said: "damascus barreled guns were intended for black powder or low pressure (emphasis mine) smokeless powder."
When sp burns, it burns quickly, generally in an "explosive" manner. If you were to graph this, the ignition sequence would go from no pressure to a huge spike and then an immediate return to no pressure.
Comparatively, on the other hand and as previously noted, bp burns "slowly", so the increase in presure from ignition to return to zero pressure graphs more like a standard bell curve compared to the sp burn. In other words, the bp burn takes longer to reach its maximum pressure than does sp. So, less of a shock is created when using bp loads.
The sudden spike in pressure generated by the sp cartridge, even a low pressure sp round, is a huge shock to the firearm. Modern firearms (you folks can define "modern" to suit yourselves) are built from steel selected to continuously withstand the agressive "spiking" of the explosive sp.
The problem in shooting sp in damascus or any 100+-year-old weapons in general, is that even though the steel may be "upgraded" (to what standard...who knows?) to handle the "new smokeless powder", continuous improvement in sp technology could be creating pressures in excess of what the weapon was designed to or can handle. Additionally, we have no real way of knowing what quality control standards were in place for steel manufacturing 100+ years ago. Not only that, the continuous spiking of pressure from sp cartridges could be bringing, with each round fired, the poor old tired antique gun's frame, barrel, cylinder, etc. to the point of catastrophic failure. We just don't know how the old gun is taking these high pressure spikes without some kind of routine metallurgical physical examination.
Couple all the aforesaid with the fact that eventually someone will simply err, load and fire a "high powered" sp load, rather than a "low powered" sp load in the old gun by mistake. Who's to say what constitutes a "low powered" sp load? To me, this simply makes the risk of shooting sp loads in these old guns too high to both the shooter and the gun.
Many damascus barrels started life as a flat strip of steel. The steel strip is/was wound around a mandrel to create a tube, and the spiral seam is/was soldered or welded up to form a solid barrel. Corrosion has a nasty habit of attacking the weld/seam on pipe (the barrel) created in this manner if the finished barrel is/was not "normalized" via a normalizing heat treat process. Even then, you are dealing with a long spiral seam rather than a seamless piece of pipe (barrel). As previously noted, voids in the pattern welding process could be holding hundred-year-old corrosive elements just waiting (like the creature in Alien) for a shock to open a void to the atmosphere and give life to the corrosion. Also, if the welding of the seam introduced material of a different metalurgy than the actual barrel material, this can foster and enhance the corrosive process that even the normalizing process may not prevent, either to the barrel steel itself along the seam, or to the weld material.
Having said all that, I don't think it is any more unsafe to fire a damascus-barreled shotgun than any other antique in good condition. However, I would stick to using bp loads only. But, I know people who cowboy shoot all the time with low-powered sp loads in antique Colt's revolvers manufactured after a certain date and supposedly able to handle sp loads. While these guns are not made from damascus steel, they do see literally thousands of rounds go through them annually at the monthly competitions at one or more local clubs, during various out-of-town shoots and during practice sessions. So you'll have to decide for yourself. Personally, I would not take the risk with a nice old pre-1900 Colt's revolver, or a damascus-barreled shotgun.
ANYONE, PLEASE, IF YOU THINK I HAVE MISPOKEN HERE AND IF YOU THINK MY INFORMATION MAY NOT BE CORRECT, LETS HEAR FROM YOU.
AA loads and 7/8 & 1 oz loads are lighter than black and should be safe in a good condition Damascus barrel.
Lots of good advise here. Please be aware that you are dealing with older steel made in a time when some people took absolute pride in thier work and others simply made a buck!
I can certainly see Berts point of view and I can be concerned with the posibility of the "what if" senario!
So what would I do If I suddenly had a nice 120 year old shotgun fall into my hands? First I'd check on collecter value, cause 50 G's will buy a great shotgun!
If the value was not in the "Ozone Layer" I would have Briley make a set of tubes for it! if your guns a 12 it will now be a 20!
This would allow me to shoot it safely, give it modern screw in chokes and not reduce any value it might get in the future.
In the world of Salemanship we call this the "win win" senario![8D]
At one time Quality "twisted"* steel barrels were stronger than (the first) fluid steel barrels, and makers of cheap (fluid steel) guns would often acid etch their barrels to give them the appearance of a twisted steel tube. The OP may have a "fake" twisted steel barrel. It is a lot more expensive to make a twisted barrel than it is a fluid steel one, and the Cresent was designed to be a cheap shotgun.
* twisted is generic, Damascus is a specific region/methiod. IE: all chevy's are automobiles, but not all automobiles are chevy's.
What fingers or hand do you wish to get rid of?
Fire that old baby up and see what happens.
Just a friendly warning from someone who learned the hard way many years ago.