Steve and others: I think you may be overestimating the time required to make a barrel if you are assuming that only one barrel was being forged at a time. I believe that more time is required for heating the metal to welding temperature than the time available for hammering before the metal cools below welding temperature, so I would expect that for efficiency, work would be carried out on more than one tube at a time, with one or two in the fire heating while one was being hammered. I was fortunate to heve grown up in a small town with an old time, 3rd generation blacksmith, and watched him for many hours, so I have a good idea of the processes, and that is what I base my comments on.
