What were the Damascus Options in 1883
 

I would like to know more information about the Damascus patterns and options in 1883. I have three guns from this year and on the barrels there are two different types two of them have Premier and one is labeled as Finest.

Those are the A grade guns. The barrels are all the same on those guns. They are the finest Damascus offered by Parker at that time.

The names you refer to are the rib legends. In the Parker catalogs, the A grade was referred to as the “Premier” grade. And that is how 7 of the 8 guns in the conservative Meachum order have their ribs marked, “Premier quality”. But for some odd reason the first of the 8 guns is marked “Finest Quality”. Why? Who knows. It is a curiosity.

Just like why did the 4th one have an engravers signature, and the others not? Why did that one have a solid steel buttplate and the others skeleton steel buttplates?

Along with other oddities as the hammers on two of the guns being mixed up at the factory in assembly. That is right. They were made by Men.

Damascus was considered higher quality than laminated and twist steel. Which is “stronger” would really be a subjective opinion. Some may say twist is weaker. But I would say that Damascus has more forge welds than twist, so why would that not be weaker? Ultimately they are both composed of two different materials forge welded together around a mandrel in order to form a tube.

Harry, we have seen other types of composite barrels on higher grade 8 gauge guns.
The grade of the gun is what generally determined which barrel steel to use on it. The various Twist barreld were used on grades 1 and below, regardless of the gauge.





.

A grade Finest Quality 6 Iron "Turkish"

https://photos.smugmug.com/Damascus/...ga%20001-L.jpg

A grade Premier Quality 6 Iron "Turkish"

https://photos.smugmug.com/Damascus/...0%282%29-S.jpg

Both guns were part of the Meachum order

https://photos.smugmug.com/Damascus/...ga%20012-M.jpg

re: pattern welded strength the winner of the Birmingham Proof House Trial reported in 1891 was English Best Laminated Steel. This is not the same barrel as Parker's Laminated Steel.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Damascus/...aminated-L.jpg

This includes actual tensile strength testing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...hfDxmrNAU/edit

The sample size was limited (getting back to finding Zircon's 30 barrels :( )
Pattern Welded mean psi after discarding the highest and lowest numbers:
Twist - 53,333 psi
Crolle - 54,700 psi

Thank everyone. The information was definitely helpful