No wonder we were afraid of Damascus

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Drew Hause

Havilah Babcock “Fallen Lady”
Tomorrow I would give those New Englanders a lesson in the art of eye-wiping, but right now I would gloat over my beauty alone. I'd doll her up just a bit. Later I'd remove the old black paint from the barrels and have them reblued, of course, but right now I'd merely hit the high spots, like that paint smudge on the left barrel.
Daubing it with a little paint remover, I waited a moment, then brushed the paste off. The exposed metal didn't look quite right; it seemed to have a spiral pattern. I stopped dead still, a chilling suspicion at my throat. Removing the forearm, I went to work vigorously with an emery cloth. Again the telltale spirals leaped at me.
The sickening truth was irrefutable: the barrels of my precious gun were visibly, unmistakably, and irreparably Damascus, made in the old black-powder days by twisting strip steel around a mandrel, then heat-welding it. For unnumbered years Damascus barrels were highly regarded, but the coming of smokeless powder doomed them. In simple fact, nitro loads blew many of them apart, with resultant damage to the shooters.

“Fallen Lady” first appeared in Field and Stream in the late 1940s (the “Lady” then may have been a Lefever), was re-published in May 1962 (now a Parker), and is included in The Best of Babcock, published in 1974.

One of my favorite Babcock stories. Thanks for the reminder.

[Double Lab]

December 24, 1898, Denton Journal, Denton, Maryland, “Sheriff Rice’s fine Parker gun burst while he was shooting partridges on Wednesday last. The powder used was the smokeless kind and thought to be very strong. A large piece of the left barrel was blown off, and Mr. Rice was badly burned about the face.” [Author’s Note: Another blown barrel. These articles serve to illustrate that the transition to smokeless powder could be a hazardous one.]

If the good sheriff was hunting in Denton, MD the partridges had to be quail. I'm sure there were plenty of wild birds back then.

BTW- Parkers in Pulp is the first thing I read. Keep up the great job John.