I own and shoot Damascus with low pressure loads. Early on when I became enlightened that they might actually be safe to shoot, I would first fire a few factory loads with the gun lashed to an old tire and a loooong string on the triggers. I stood behind a large oak tree. 2-Piper Miller was risking blowing shrapnel into a walnut tree during his testing. Actually, before that, when I only bought fluid steel doubles, I bought a reblued grade 2 L.C. Smith that sure looked like fluid even in bright sunlight. I discovered they were actually Damascus after firing some heavy factory shells in it. I wasn't terribly shocked that they held because I knew a guy who had accidently fed an H grade Lefever heavy 3" Magnum turkey loads. I have never had a problem. I don't bother with a test using factory loads any more mostly out of respect for the old wood.
I absolutely have bought Damascus guns cheaper just because the seller thought they were nothing but wallhangers. Regrettably, I passed up many very nice Damascus guns before I knew better. One was a B grade Lefever about 8 yrs. ago that I could have bought for well under $500.00. I still cry about that one. I almost prefer Damascus today just knowing the amount of hand labor and craftsmanship that went into making them, and what it would cost to reproduce today. I thank guys like PeteM and Drew for educating me.
To take a stab at Buzz's question about rusting between the welds, I seriously doubt there would have been any rust on the strands that went into the billet in the first place. It's unclear if fluxes were used during the rolling or forge welding, but at welding temperatures, scale formation would be the issue... not rust. Remember that slag and scale are two very different things. Scale forms very quickly as red hot steel emerges from the furnace and becomes exposed to air. This is why most annealing furnaces have inert gas atmospheres. The forge welding seems to have broken loose most of the scale as it was hammered. It is almost totally clean red hot iron and steel that are married together. Many bars of modern steel will have rolled-in scale inclusions. Those can be hard on drill bits and cutting tools, but they don't seem to appreciably weaken the steel unless extensive. There is very likely some scale within the I beams and welds of bridges you drive on and you haven't fallen into the river yet. Steel mills use mechanical scalebreakers and/or high pressure water jets to blast away most scale just before the product goes into the hot mill work rolls. This is done today, and it was done 100 years ago. Blacksmiths hammer or scrape off most scale just before welding, and they work fast to minimize new scale formation. So Buzz, if the welds were sound to begin with, there is no way that oxidation could form from within. There is no exposed surface for air and moisture to work on internally. The rust to worry about is internal bore pitting. That comes from neglect, and it happens to fluid steel barrels too. The welds in most Damascus are obviously sound, because we see fairly thin Damascus tubes containing pressures much higher than we use in our reduced loads. The fact that we all can see and have fingers to type is some proof as well!
