Some of them were. However, your grade of barrel as Brian mentioned was half the vost of the gun. Getting a Vulcan steel barrel was cheaper than a Damascus barrel or a fine damascus, or a bernard, or in fluid steel terms a parker special steel or titanic barrel etc but more expensive than Trojan steel which is sometimes seen as a replacement barrel.
At a certain point many did choose to exchange damascus for fluid steel. Some paid to get the appropriate steel others did not.
However, as gun writers of the time Askins etc, wrote many were reluctant to trade in for or trust the new fangled fluid steel barrels.
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"The Parker gun was the first and the greatest ever." Theophilus Nash Buckingham
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