Mystery Damascus Barrels

[Tom Flanigan]

Below is a picture that Drew included in an earlier post. The gun was mine and one I restored. One thing that always puzzled me was there was a section of the right barrel that finished much lighter than the rest of the barrels. I have no idea why this happened. Does anyone have any suggestions? I’m at a loss to explain it.

Note to my many friends on this board……..I don’t post that much anymore but I plan to become more engaged. I am now retired and living in my home town of Pawling, NY, in the house that my grandfather had built in 1905. I hunted every day (the property I hunt is 15 minutes from the house) from 10/1 to 12/23 except for six days. Mornings I spent bird or duck hunting and evenings bow hunting for deer. I take mostly pictures of the deer since I am very selective on what I’ll shoot. I did manage four deer, the biggest being a very large eight pointer that I saw numerous times before I took him.

Retirement has been wonderful and seeing so many of my old friends still posting makes me very happy.

Here are the mysterious barrels……..

[Dean Romig]

Tom, the only thing that makes any sense is that another ribband was spliced in and the splice joint is hidden under the ribs between the barrels. That's all I got....





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[StubTwist]

Thanks to Drew Hause your answer is found here

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...iINdQP1Ss/edit

[Andy]

I know nothing about the barrels. But I am envious of almost three straight months of hunting.

[Breck Gorman]

Just guessing, but maybe the iron and steel billets were mistakenly mixed up, and too many iron billets were used to make that ribbon.

[Bruce Day]

P and G grades often had mismatched composite barrel segments. Each segment can be of differently spiraled Damascus or Twist and each can be of segments with different compositions of iron and steel. Sometimes a single barrel can have several different segments, other instances each barrel is uniform but differs from its pair. I have seen a P grade having one barrel of twist , it’s adjoining barrel of fluid steel. In that specimen , both barrels were blued.

One significantly mismatched G grade I saw was blued and in my opinion it was Parker factory blued. It was refinished by Damascus browning and the owner was unhappy with the previously concealed mismatch.

G grades can vary widely in quality. Some will have beautiful wood, barrels and engraving. A minority of others , not so much. D’s , the next higher grade were much more consistent.

I posted many photos of these examples several years ago.

[Drew Hause]

Here is a close up of Tom's barrel segment. I suspect there was some carburization at the butt weld causing the loss of detail in the contrast



Pattern welded barrels were fabricated with (usually) 3 tube segments; thicker at the breech. The butt weld is clearly demonstrated, and my only guess is that the mid-barrel section had different iron and steel (and therefor different coloring.)

Picture Trail is ceasing operation in 6 weeks and I have to replace every image on the DamascusKnowledge site but for now more examples are here
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/18015717

One of Bruce's examples of mis-matched tubes segments



Ken Marburger refinished these barrels. The pattern is pretty close but the coloring is a bit different.

[Dean Romig]

Drew, please explain the terms “carburization” and “butt welds” - thank you.





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[Drew Hause]

Google butt weld (flat end-to-end) and scarf weld (beveled ends overlapping) for illustrations

re: decarburization - 'splained by Steve Culver



In this photo of the defects in the barrel pattern, the condition was caused by decarburization of material that had been exposed to the fire for an extended period of time. Decarburization would have occurred over the entire surface of the barrel tube during the forge welding and shaping process of the tube. The decarburized outer material would be ground away during the finishing process on the tube. In the area of the flaw however, the exposed edges of the material extended below what would become the outer surface of the finished tube. Once the welds were closed on the decarburized material, there was no possibility to grind them away in the finishing process.

Another example which looks somewhat like Bro. Tom's barrel; at the tube segment weld

[Dean Romig]

Perfect! Thanks Drew.





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