The Myth is strong

[Dean Romig]

Actually, Sherman Bell was inspired to perform his destructive experiments and subsequently write his "Finding Out" articles by the ongoing feuding between the two polarized camps of the pro and con folks regarding the safety or lack thereof in shooting composite barreled guns with nitro powders. At the time of Bell's first article there were a great many shooters who wouldn't give a second thought to shooting a composite barreled gun with nitro powders as long as the pressures were moderate but there were times more shooters who were absolutely horrified at the thought. The ratio of believers vs non-believers has changed as a result of Sherman's articles but not by much I suspect.
Long before Bell conducted his experiments I was advised by Dr. Oscar Gaddy that shooting my 16 0-frame sixteen with .064" wall thickness at the front of the chambers would be fine with loads under 7,500 psi. Even before that I was shooting My Damascus 12 gay with 'off the shelf' ammo, and I know a lot of others who were as well. But we do owe a lot of thanks to Sherman Bell for popularizing the shooting of our composite barreled guns and for helping to elevate the value of these guns.

[edgarspencer]

Armbrust and Bell are the guys who dispelled the myth, in my eyes, but I was loading very light smokeless 16 ga. ammo many years before they did there tests.
What I feel was most significant in their testing was not so much the closeness of the pressures, at failure, of steel vs. composite, but that the pressures were nearly double any ammo you can get off the shelf.