I have a similar story...twenty odd years ago ,my brother wanted a 10 gauge hammer gun for geese,saltwater birds etc I searched high and low to find one for him as a surprise gift....going through a local newspaper add one morning lo and behold was a 10 gauge hammer gun,I called the guy who was apparently the local gunsmith in the town he lived ....I drove the two hours to see the gun ,it looked great to me at the time ,he had painted the metal with some sort of proprietary finish (see bbq paint ) and he told me he had opened the chokes to shoot steel ammo,just as he had done with his Fathers gun which was the same model ...the gun was good and tight great bores ,good wood so to my uneducated eye perfect for the intended purpose ,I bought it and made my Brother very happy.
We shot lots of birds with that old gun ,Federal and Winchester steel BB ,3 1/2 inch shells, but man it kicked ,being a light weight ten gauge it would stumble you if your footing wasn't sure.
When the Canadian registry came into effect ,the gun had to be verified in order to be registered ,and as there were no makers name it was done by proof marks ...you can imagine our astonishment when the gun had only Belgian black powder proofs ,and as we later discovered Laminated steel barrels under the paint ,this started my quest for info on the old doubles and had me ultimately end up here and on other similar minded forums.
So do I have a fear of composite barreled guns?...not really .
But in saying that ,about a year before it was bought I lived in Calgary Alberta ,during one of my regular killing time visits to the local big box hunting store I noticed a rack of about 15-20 old doubles in the corner,some were absolutely beautiful .there 16.12 and 10 gauge guns there were a bunch of English doubles in the mix as well, one was a crystal indicator Scott as I recall...I went back week after week and looked them over ,and listened to the clerks warning of wall hanger and black powder only ,you can't shoot them etc ...but I couldn't take my eyes off them ...how many times did I stroll in with the intention of buying the whole lot but just didn't,because I was scrimping and saving for the house I would build back home in Newfoundland ,that was my mission .
When I did leave Calgary it was a quick decision ,basically I woke up one morning packed my bags and went ...But the $50-$100.00 price tags on those guns has literally haunted me to this day
