doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Modern Damascus makers....your thoughts?

A friend of mine sent me this link, though some of you Damascus fans would find this somewhat interesting..I think its pretty cool http://www.damasteel.com/firearms.html

What are you thoughts? Anyone here ever seen anything done by this company?

Dustin

Dustin,

Very aware of damasteel. The metal is not damascus in the traditional sense. They are a Swedish corporation that started in 1995. They use a process involving rapid solidification metallurgy, which they did not invent. It was invented at Northeastern University in Boston in the early 1980's.

There have been forays into firearms using this product, most notably was Caspian who produced damasteel slides for semi-automatic pistols. Zbrojovka Brno had some barrels made up in addition to traditionally produced damascus, they went out of business before either was ever produced in quantity.

It is possible to produce some very colorful products using damasteel. Again this does not even come close to the traditional methods as damasteel uses extreme cold to produce colors.



Pete

Ya Pete, I remember those Caspian slides from back in the day. I did not know that there was anyone making barrel blanks out of the stuff though. I would like to see a doublegun with these tubes. I think it would be pretty cool. I'm with you, this process is no where near what the traditional methods were to make the tubes...but neither is CNC, wire EDM, Spark Eroders, etc. that are being used to build todays best guns. Do you know of any shotguns, custom or commercial that have been built with these tubes?

Dustin

Dustin,

To my knowledge, no one has used damasteel to produce shotgun barrels of any type. Oscar Gaddy and I had many discussions on this topic. We eventually decided to take on the project. Oscar had a M21 that had been through a fire. He was going to retemper the action. It was left to me to find the barrels. After many attempts, we had to give it up. I could not find a supplier for the blank tubes. The American supplier was unable to acquire stock of the correct dimensions. I even called Sweden and spoke to some one at Damasteel about this. They were not interested in a "one of" type of project at the time.

Originally the goal of forge welded damascus was to reproduce the inherent strength of Wootz steel. The early fluid steel was plagued by imperfections and was not very capable of handling the pressures of gun powder. Eventually forge welded tubes came into use. They provided a cheap alternative to the hard to acquire Wootz. They were able to handle the pressures if the barrel walls were thin. They were light enough that carrying a sxs was not an exercise in brute strength and stamina.

Bessemer and then Whitworth found ways to decrease imperfections and increase strength. Despite this damascus remained a popular choice.

The knowledge and skill to produce forge welded damascus was never really lost. It did fade, being left mostly in the hands of a very few gunsmiths and a few zealous aficionados. It has been "rediscovered" a great many times.

In Europe there have been and still are some individuals who can produce forge welded damascus. Some are able to reproduce the old patterns at will. Some can not produce those patterns. I know of English, French, German and American gun / blade makers who have done it.

Pete

Damasteel (as has been observed not pattern welded) 20g shotgun barrel from http://www.crandart.co.uk/damasteel.htm



Modern damascus rifle barrel manufactured by Zbrojovka Brno, unfortunately out of business
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl...NUS279%26sa%3DG



.270 Damascus-Twist laminate rifle barrel by Stefan Gobec Messerschmiede
http://www.gobec.at/index.html

Interesting. So some one produced the barrels. Where is the rest of the gun? They all appear to be single barrels.

Pete

I think Flodman is offering damasteel as an option. Regards

Check Flodman Guns. They have used Damasteel as an optional barrel material for years. Of course you need to like stainless steel and titanium guns.



http://www.flodman.com/

What he said!

Thanks for the link. Learn something new every day....

Pete