Food for thought

[Kensal Rise]

Originally Posted by Rick Losey

those are unfinished tubes - new old stock he found somewhere

Greener just did some new guns with recently discovered original tubes

Last time I visited Greener's David Dryhurst, he told me he'd found a trove of "NOS" Damascus blanks up in Scotland. They were well over a century old. Maybe Dyson's hoard is related to that treasure...

[Kevin McCormack]

Originally Posted by John Campbell

Last time I visited Greener's David Dryhurst, he told me he'd found a trove of "NOS" Damascus blanks up in Scotland. They were well over a century old. Maybe Dyson's hoard is related to that treasure...

On a driven shoot in Scotland in 2004, our host invited David Dryhurst to dinner as our guest. The opportunity to talk to a real gunmaker was one of the most informative and enlightening evenings I ever spent. At that dinner, David alluded to the most recent discovery of these Damascus barrels mentioned in this thread.

He likened the event to the exploration of the treasures of King Tut's tomb - "...wonderful things!". Later we found out that our host, a Greener fanatic, had contracted David to build the first 'post-modern' 28 ga. Greener game gun with Damascus barrels. It is a thing of beauty and a true work of art.

[Drew Hause]

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.”

Courtesy of Vic Venters (Dec. 2008), who 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...They are not lined. The guns are being made in 28-ga up through 12, and maybe in 10-ga. At least 25 of these damascus-barreled guns are made or are under way, and I believe more have been ordered since I last asked. At the time of my writing, none had failed English proof. The guns are proofed under standard CIP pressures per the particular gauge.
Most are on sidelocks; some are on reintroduced “G-Guns” - Facile Princeps actions with Boss ejector work. Greeners are a small best maker - but demand has been so great that I am told they have again closed their order books. They were the last British maker to manufacture their own damascus tubes, and are the first to again offer them in commercial quantities.”


New Purdey hammergun with old 3 Iron Oxford tubes, offered by Griffin & Howe 2013

[Bill Murphy]

Purdey is also back into the Damascus business too.

[Drew Hause]

I choose to believe what Parker said

Parker Brothers 1893 Catalog
“Our guns are bored on the latest improved system for shooting Nitros, or Smokeless Powder, and all our guns are tested with some one of the most approved makes, and a tag accompanies each gun, giving the results of such a (pattern) test.”

1902 Sears catalog No. 112
“THE PARKER GUNS: ALL ARE BORED FOR NITRO OR BLACK POWDER”



More mythology, and myth busting here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...hIiY62Hx4/edit