I dont know who owns this gun or the picture so please forgive me I am posting it without permission. I believe this barrel set came from a Lefever.
Growing up in an old gun shop that had accumulated about 65 years worth of scrap barrels from both shotguns, rifles, and pistols, Ive seen a lot of damaged barrels. We had them all - badly dented, bulged, blown out, split, some damn near perfect bird cages, and cracked similar to the pictured set above.
If I had to bet on it I would say that 99% of them were caused by "operator error" or poor safety practices, most likely from a round being fired into an obstruction. Even though the shooter was likely at fault, in their mind there was something wrong with the gun. Old damascus barrels were, and still apparently are an easy target so to speak because they were obviously different then other modern barrels.
I saw this mentality somewhat when I worked in another gun shop during college. Every year we would get Winter league shooters wearing thick gloves demanding repairs are necessary on their O/Us because their gun kept doubling. I would say 9/10 of them were unintentionally pulling the trigger twice, but the first thing they always pointed at was the "problematic" gun.
