I have to believe the era when both bulk and dense nitro powders were available led to some barrel blowups when a bulk powder dipper was used with a dense nitro powder. The two kinds of powder were available at the same time and in an era of less efficient communication and higher illiteracy.

What Pete stated and that at the time of the early "dense" or second generation smokeless powders a simple powder scale was very expensive and not easily available to the common shooter/reloader.

Mike, I think you should go back and re-read Mr. Bell's articles on blowing up the damascus And steel Parkers. No placing a 20 gauge shell in a 12 gauge chamber was used or done. It was only continuously higher pressures from specially loaded ballistic lab shells. Both damascus and steel barrels finally blew at pressures in excess of 30,000psi, with no barrel obstructions needed.

Sherman Bell's tests were interesting, and informative, but as science goes they represent far too small of a sample group to be of real substance.

As far as a scientifically valid sample goes, you are correct. As far as empirical evidence goes, not so much. Bell and Armbrust tested a small range of guns/barrels they had on hand. Their results fairly well validated those of the Birmingham Proof House. The results also underwrite practical evidence in the real world. A famous British barrelmaker I know has a drawer full of ruined Damascus, Twist and fluid steel barrels. All of the composite barrels failed via bulges and minor splits. The fluid steel barrels simply blew open violently.

Is this scientific proof of anything? Certainly not. But for my part, I'd rather be behind a composite barrel when it fails rather than a fluid steel one... slip-and-fall lawyers aside that is.

hows this for science..there are a few thousand of us parker owners and we as in most of us guys shoot our damascus guns reguraly with no problems..my self i shoot a lot of damascus and differant types of composite steel like stub twist-plain steel-laminated steel -wire twist- and the list goes on..some of these old barrels are pitted and i have shot some heavy loads thru them in smokeless powder with 3 oz of shot..so i say mr bell and mr arbrust and all of us shooters of all these old guns have proven a scientic fact that these old barrels still shoot ok.. charlie

Right Charlie

Bill I think you should read page 26 of Vol 18, Issue 1. Here's a pic of that page so you get the gist of it :whistle:

Mike, I stand corrected on the use of the 20 gauge shell but that was not the point of Bell's testing, I am not sure why he bothered. That particular test was not required. Anyone who has been around guns and fired them knows what will happen when you plug a bore and fire off a charge. Without going back to check my back issues, did't the 20 gauge shell thing happen after he "prooved" the Parker steel and damascus barrels and went on in a later article to test a bunch of "wall hanger" Smiths, Remingtons, etc to show that they all easily handled blue pill proof loads?

Sometimes what doesn't happen is surprising.





but then again when it does happen, disaster.