What does some pitting in Damascus barrels that have adequate barrel thickness mean to the ability to shoot light loads (like RST) through them? What further testing needs to be done?
That's a timely question for me. I've had a circa 1887 W&C Scott medium quality hammergun for several years. I bought it cheap because although the damascus barrels and the rest of the gun looked pretty good from the outside, the bores were badly pitted. There is no indication to me that the bores have ever been honed to clean up the pitting.
I've been shooting it with Polywad 2.5" vintager shells on the theory that it ain't blowed up yet and removing metal from the bores to clean up the pits was not going to improve the barrel strength. Lately though, I've been concerned about just how deep those pits are. I am also worried that although I've kept the bores as clean as possible, the cleanup is always a problem and I'm not sure I've "killed" all the rust at the bottom of the pitting.
Anyhow, (coincidentally) today before the appearance of this thread, I shipped the barrels off to Steve Bertram (SKB) to seek his opinion on the feasability of back boring out the pits, adjusting the chokes to the new bore diameter, and leaving enough minimum barrel thickness to keep shooting the gun. I'd like to hear the opinions of others on this topic...Geo
