Jim and Bruce, it is certainly a fact that there were countless guns of inferrior quality, especially in the quality of the barrels, in the hands of the 'common man' in those days and certainly there were probably a lot of burst barrels as a result of the confusion over "dr. eq." of the new smokeless powders. And without question this confusion could have been cleared up to a great degree by the ammunition companies (which were largely subsidiaries of major gun manufacturers or in business agreements with them) with more widespread warnings.... BUT they didn't go as far as they could have - opting instead to do what they did - to blanket ALL Damascus or Twist barreled guns with the dire warnings they printed on all boxes of ammunition and cans of smokeless powders - and that, gentlemen, is fact.
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