Damascus anomaly

[Aaron Beck]

If you follow the spiral around it may show where it was scarfed end on. In theory, it could have been jumped on like it appears in the photo, it wouldnt be any weaker than any of the other spiral welded ribbands. It might have been easier to control the location of the transitition to make it up in two pieces like that. I believe, one of the writeups on Drew's site mentions making barrels of three tube components of varying thicknesses all jumped together.

[Drew Hause]

What Aaron said - 2 different tubes are end to end butt welded/"jumped". Almost all damascus barrels were fabricated with 2 or 3 tube segments - thicker at the breech, and that usually changes the pattern apperance somewhat

Weld line between laminated steel tubes



This would be cool

[ArtS]

I couldn't get a good picture of all the marks. Most are understood.

At the fron are 8844, C 46, and 10x. Spacing varies between letters and numbers. There is a single B on the fore end loop.

At the rear are CANON DE GALAND, FABRICANT A PARIS, 17.8 and CHOKE. All pretty obvious. There is also a capital M with an asterisk over which is an 1877- Belgium inspector's mark and thePost 1853 Radio Tower proof mark. There is an oval cartouche that is essentially gone so no info. The only thing that looks like a maker's mark is a square punched field that contains a pair of interlaced semicircular shaped horns, or that is my take on it under a magnifier. I couldn't locate anything like it in the limited references I had on the subject.

I knowGaland was better known for revolvers, but I have seen several very nice doubles from him. This gun is marked Galand Paris on the top rib, and he had shops both there and in belgium. The bottom of the barrel would seem to indicate that it was manufactured in Paris in his Paris shop, but the proofs show that either it went to Melgium for proof or the barrel was proofed there. Probably late 1870's. The intertwined antlers may be the barrel maker mark.