Damascus chokes

Gerald McPherson · 02-18-2025, 07:49 PM

Anyone have good or bad results having very tight chokes opened up?

edgarspencer · 02-18-2025, 09:19 PM

Mike Orlen says he won’t work on damascus barrels, but Mitch Schultz did a set for me and says they hone just like steel barrels and didn’t understand why some smiths won’t do it. Unfortunately, Mitch just retired and Briley bought his machinery.

Researcher · 02-18-2025, 09:59 PM

My father had the chokes opened in his Damascus barrel Remington AE-Grade of 1896 vintage and killed a lot of pheasants over the next 28 years.

R.K., Rusty, Pheasants, October 1972.jpg

Jay Oliver · 02-18-2025, 10:15 PM

I would leave the chokes as is and use spreaders and/or brush wads. If its F/F you should be able to take it down to M/M. If you don't reload, RST sell spreaders shells. If you do reload you can use spreaders wads/inserts and brush wads. I have had a lot of luck with brush wads in full chokes.

That gives you a lot of versatility and you have tight chokes when you need/want them.

Cold Spring · 02-19-2025, 07:40 AM

I have sets of full-tapered choke reamers and tooling for 12-16-20g and have opened many chokes on damascus, twist and steel barreled guns using a drive rod from the breech end. Almost all of them done for myself and just a few for close friends. Sorry readers, I don't do commission work. My favorite combo is Light Mod and I-Mod. IME damascus and twist barrels are easiest to ream, with Parker steel next in line, then Ithaca and LC Smith steel, and AH Fox tubes are generally the hardest as regards ease of reaming the factory choke tapers forward. If that's what you want, I don't see any reason for not opening chokes on composite barrels that are otherwise in good shape with no heavy pitting and with sufficient barrel wall thickness as measured at the the choke leades. Alternately, good spreaders can be used for the relatively few shots taken while close cover hunting, but imo spreaders aren't a cost effective option for those that shoot volume sporting clays or skeet.

Again I say good spreaders, as confirmed by paper pattern testing at increasing ranges.

Of course a real downside of having a 'smith open chokes using a conventional parallel sided adjustable reamer (not tapered) is that it’s a dead giveaway of that work when trying to sell an otherwise high condition/all original vintage double-gun.

Drew Hause · 02-19-2025, 08:24 AM

Someone apparently figured out how to cut chokes in pattern welded tubes > 150 years ago

W.W. Greener produced new shotguns with damascus barrels in 2007-2008.
From the Greener website in 2007:
“Barrels - are made of the highest quality steel and bored to maintain the famous choke boring improvements, made by W W Greener in the 1870s, to optimise shooting performance, and to ensure patterns of shot guaranteed to meet customers' exact requirements whether for game, wildfowl or clay pigeon shooting. A few pairs of guns are being made with interchangeable steel and Damascus barrels.”

Vic Venters (Dec. 2008) wrote an article in the Sept/Oct '07 issue of Shooting Sportsman regarding the Greener guns:
“They are indeed newly made damascus barrels, built on vintage tubes that David Dryhurst - Greener's master gunmaker - has been collecting since the '60s and '70s. Some are old Greener stock, some are English and no doubt some are Belgian. A few of these sets came from Dyson..."

Vic shared that Dryhurst told him that cutting choke in crolle tubes was more difficult in that the metal would occasionally fracture.
Pattern welded tubes, related to the high heat hammer forging process behave as a monometal.
It would have been valuable to prepare photomicrographs of the micro-fractures to see if they occurred at the iron-steel alternee welds.

Stan Hillis · 02-19-2025, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edgarspencer

Mike Orlen says he won’t work on damascus barrels, but Mitch Schultz did a set for me and says they hone just like steel barrels and didn’t understand why some smiths won’t do it. Unfortunately, Mitch just retired and Briley bought his machinery.

He doesn't like to mess with damascus but he honed a set of Remington 1889 barrels for me several years ago to clean up the worst of some pits. But, he was definitely reticent to do so. He had kept my barrels for several months and I called to see why he hadn't honed them and the discussion centered around the fact that they are damascus. I asked him why he didn't let me know immediately that he didn't work on damascus and he agreed to go ahead and do them.

Anyway, they turned out fine, and it cleaned up roughly 90% of the pitting.

If I wanted to have another set honed, or chokes opened, I'd call Dean Harris and see what he says about them.

edgarspencer · 02-19-2025, 07:12 PM

Stan, as you may have surmised, Mike is a bit of an odd duck. I have the luxury of only being 45 minutes away, and while I forget who gave me the hint, it turned out to be a valuable one; Take them there, and wait for them. In a few cases, I've gone into town and had a cup of coffee, and come right back. He's not so good in the communications department, and despite carrying his house phone in his pocket, he never answers after 8 AM.
I was very unhappy with what I ended up with on the last set, and his answer was that my bore gauge must be off. I figure if I ever work with him again, I'll just tell him how much to take out, not what the final measurement I wanted.
I honestly think he's good, but a little awkward to talk to.

Gerald McPherson · 04-07-2025, 01:13 PM

I had the choke in the right barrel opened to improved cylinder and left the left barrel as was at very full. I'm happy with it for now as I can break a few clays without being so precise. Pattern looks good on paper. Very clean job by Bill Schwartz. I am now 80 years old so I have to pick good days when I feel stronger to be able to shoot decent. I'm thankful to be able to even shoot. I plan on shooting it for a while and then maybe have the left opened to light modified. It would be great for doves as it is but I don't know if I will be able to do that again. About all my friends have gone on or unable to hunt. Its getting kind of lonesome but we sure had a lot of fun didn't we!!

Dean Romig · 04-07-2025, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edgarspencer

Stan, as you may have surmised, Mike is a bit of an odd duck. I have the luxury of only being 45 minutes away, and while I forget who gave me the hint, it turned out to be a valuable one; Take them there, and wait for them. In a few cases, I've gone into town and had a cup of coffee, and come right back. He's not so good in the communications department, and despite carrying his house phone in his pocket, he never answers after 8 AM.
I was very unhappy with what I ended up with on the last set, and his answer was that my bore gauge must be off. I figure if I ever work with him again, I'll just tell him how much to take out, not what the final measurement I wanted.
I honestly think he's good, but a little awkward to talk to.

I may be the one who gave you that bit of advice Edgar. I have dropped off gthree different sets of barrels at Mike's and he suggested he'd have them done pretty quickly if I wanted to go into town foe a bite to eat and a coffee and the barrels would be done by the time I got back... and they were.

.