No wonder we were afraid of Damascus

[Woodcock survey]

As i wrote earlier, the timing is suspect. I do not recall dates but the advent of smokeless powder was in the early 1900's when the majority of guns were composite barrels and the warning did not come about until the late 30's. If it were as dangerous as later stated many guns would have failed in that time but we only see warnings to load by weight not volume as black was loaded.
Remember an article by Jack O'Conner calling them bombs ready to explode and saying you were playing Russian roulette using them. Ad's for rebarreling by makers who a few years before advertised their guns as smokeless proofed suddenly reversed course and said they were not fit to use.
It was depression times and new gun sales were down. Marketing at its best.Along with the collusion of the press and ammo companies