Steve, this is really amazing stuff. Thanks a million for sharing it with us, and thanks again to Drew and Pete and all of the other researchers who have done so much to salvage the secrets of an almost lost technology. Does anyone have any idea how many man hours it took on average, for LLH or any of the accomplished makers, to make a pair of unfinished Damascus barrels for a shotgun in the late 1800's?
It's pretty sobering to think of how many times I turned my nose up and walked away from very nice shotguns in the past just because they had those nasty unshootable Damascus barrels. In fact, It was only a few weeks before I stumbled upon the Sherman Bell articles in back issues of DGJ that I passed on a very nice star Damascus Lefever in at least B grade at a gun show for a ridiculously low price.
