Paul Harm's ruptured Remington is in Ed's book at p. 119 and is accurately reported as the result of a substitution of smokeless for black. Other authors may not be so constrained and may have reported it only as what happens when you put a smokeless powder load in a damascus gun.

Maybe the point I have been trying to make, maybe somewhat inartfully, is that Parker damascus barrels are stout and if a person wants to know what he can shoot in one, detailed information is available and goes far beyond " you have to use low pressure shells and you get them from RST." You don't have to use low pressure loads, and you can buy shells from local sources that meet the Parker load requirements for the gun, if he wants to find out for himself. But I shoot moderate to low pressure loads at clays because I like to be easy on my shoulder and the gun. If a person hears that he can only use low pressure loads, seems to me that he may think that the gun is somehow weak, or inferior, or not as good as others and maybe I'm trying to put that notion to rest.

I think the "low pressure" caveat is in order for those who don't actually measure the wall thickness of their barrels. Some fluid steel barrels come from the factories with wall thickness that would seem to indicate the use of low pressure ammo.

Drew: Long day on the road to Montana and back. The only issue with the lifter acquired is some pitting in the bores. The rest of the gun looks pretty nice for 1881. The wood is very good. Action is very tight. The first surprise is it sits on a 1 frame, with those 32" barrels Cyl and Imp Cyl. Should be a sweet pheasant gun. The side plates, under the right light, are still holding some irridescent colors. I'm pretty pleased so far.

Back to the GHE BNP. Here are a couple quick shots. If you need better let me know and I will spend some time with it after getting some sleep.

Cheers,
Jack

Calvin: Bill pretty much says it all. I agree for computer purposes anything beyond the 3MP is more than needed and everthing out there is way beyond 3MP now anyway. If you mastered the SLR, all the concepts remain the same for a DSLR but you can do a bit more with the camera that might have been done later in the film processing, like enhanced color saturation. I agree fully with Bill, if you have good lenses with your film camera, try to see what you can find that will accept those lenses or see if there is an adapter that could make them fit. If you want control (f stop/shutter/iso/white balance/dof/manual focus etc), you won't want a point and shoot, although there is plenty you can do with them and they are convenient for their ease of carrying anywhere. Looking forward to seeing some pics.
Cheers,
Jack

Don't see what the big deal is. If you are worried about your barrel shoot rst or roll your own. Most of the time when you miss it aint because you didn't have enough power its because the shot string went by the target. killed phesants with dove loads when thats all i had and missed with them as well. I'm sorry I get off subject at times. good day ch oh i shot a lot of black at doves works dandy but clean up sure gets old.

I don't either "anymore" :)

My main concern in shooting damascus guns is to keep my head down and follow through.

16ga

Hey Federal, still waiting for a reply. :rolleyes:

Any idea as to pressures of any of these old rounds?

https://docs.google.com/View?id=dfg2hmx7_333g89dwqg8

I have quite a few catalogs from WRA Co., Eley and Kynoch. They date from 1881 to 1928. No pressures are given in any of them. I wonder how they came up with velocities. It would be interesting to see what was used as a 'chronograph' 100+ years ago. Testing pressure was probably done with lead or copper slugs in a special chamber. Even so, where did they come up with the standards. In other words, .xxx" squish equates to x,xxx LUP or CUP. Mike and Calvin, I agree with you. I don't handload shotshells (yet), but use Polywads in my non-fluid steel barrels. It does not take but 4 or 5 pounds of energy per pellet for taking a Ruffed Grouse. Cheers!