Whether or not the various tiers of barrel steels with makers were of some strength or quality difference was also a question we were interested in addressing in the barrel steel testing project that was started but never finished a half dozen yrs ago or so.
My opinion is that there is not much if any business or engineering justification to have actual different strength steels as the material itself is probably the cheapest aspect of a barrel. Even today, barrel quality steel is cheap, probably less than $5/lb.
