Cracked Barrel!
 

I have/HAD!! a really nice graded Baker 12, with gorgeous damascus barrels. I was pulling a couple of guns out to wipe down this evening, and when I peered down the barrel, I discovered a perfectly straight crack, running the entire length of the left barrel from the forcing cone to the bore!! It lines up perfectly with the bottom rib. Wanted to cry!, hoped maybe it was a “left behind” from a swabbing, so I ran a bore snake a dozen times thru it,,,,,just made the damn crack seem cleaner and straighter!! First time I have ever seen a failure like this. I have never put more than RST lites 1 oz thru it!,

On the lookout for donor barrels. Martini time:cuss:...........

That stinks

i would be curious to know the wall thickness along the crack

or if its on the rib - as near as you can get

i am sure Drew will have something to say soon

Strange that it would run parallel with the rib . I would think it would stop on the next weld in line , do you know the barrel wall thickness in those areas ?

I dont....bought the gun before I was savvy about such things. The crack is either alon the bottom rib, or between the ribs. So it is fit some donor barrels, or stick a set of briley 16 bore tubes in the gun and move on down the road.....nice gun, but not nice enough to fix right.

A full length longitudinal crack in Damascus barrels? Just does not seem right. This will be an interesting discussion. It will not cost anything to measure the wall thickness and will certainly aid in the discussion. If you intend to scrap the barrels I bet some expert here would love to dissect them.

There is an OLD rib repair, just ahead of the chambers and look like they maybe put screws in rhar anchored in the forend lug. Maybe they suckud up on them to much, putting strain on the “roundness of the barrels....who knows. When I cool down, I will take some pics, and maybe send the tubes to someone here that can inspect properly. I agree, it seems counterintuitice taht welded barrels wouls crack in a straight line. This put a real damper on the arrival of the 1 frame VH 16 that showed up today!

By the way, I Can spell better than the above example....my ADHD kicks in when I am P&#@$$#D!!

Crack
 

Mark, Damn sorry to hear about your Baker but it doesn't make any difference what brand or model just hate to see old guns buggered up beyond repair.

Sounds more like a scratch left over from a steel or tungsten pellet that worked it's way through a shot cup. The fact it starts at the forcing cone is a tell tale sign. It really doesn't sound like a crack, but anything is possible I guess.

I wonder if somehow a non-tox pellet got dropped into a shell by accident? A light weight target wad wouldn't offer any protection to the barrel if that was the case.

Just a guess.