Interesting note about the bulk BP! To run a single damp patch is a no brainer; I'm doing that now in my 45-100 BPMC. Like you said, it may not be necessary as long as you can continue to reload. But it only takes one to show you a no-go. This is turning out to be fun project for me. My gun needs some cosmetic work but that will happen in do time. It is a 1889 hammerless gun that needs some TLC. Probably the first TLC it has seen in one hundred years.

Bill, I don't think he used a chronograph, just assumed what it might be. Kingston, you can get 1422fps with a 1oz load and 102grs of 2F GEOX and fiber wads - at least they did in the 1st Edition of the Lyman BP Handbook. Not sure what the pattern would look like. Hey, go for it and let us know.

I'm not willing to do 102 gr. of FFg in this old gun. Maybe once I chrono. but not before.

It's not about the velocity it's about the pressure.

The highest pressure at 102grs of 2F was 5980 LUP. That would be somewhere around 7000PSI which would be safe. I shoot nitro loads in all my Damascus guns with loads in the 8000psi range.

Go here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...UOZEFU/preview and see what pressures were. Even back around 1900 they were a lot higher than we'd image. I'd have to think your old gun was shot with shells that had pressures much higher than you'd ever reload. That link is from one thread over that Drew House posted.

Todd referred to page 17 or 18 down in Drews post about how Parker proofed barrels from a old Sears catalog. I realize it's a 1902 catalog and your gun is from the 1880s, but I'd have to think Parker Brothers put the same quality of work into all their guns. Drew has great post with lots of information that I always enjoy reading. I believe the 1902 Sears catalog info was from a reprint of that catalog, because I have one. I bought it because I like reading about how things were, and then to my surprise is the article about shooting Damascus barreled guns and how safe it is. I guess back then some gun companies were bad mouthing Damascus barrels as a sales pitch to sell their new guns with fluid steel barrels. I could be wrong but I think L. C. Smith was still selling Damascus barrel doubles around 1935 from old stock they still had.

It would be easy to bad mouth Damascus steel; it's difficult and expensive to make. Fluid steel would not nearly be as labor intensive to make. It's fun just to talk with unknowing people about old guns and to see how far myths can go.