There is a gun shop near me that parts out a lot of junk or broken guns. He disassembles these guns down to the molecular level and does not mark anything as far as make or model. He goes to gun shows with bins and boxes of assorted springs, hammers, firing pins, stocks, etc. and you have to know exactly what you are looking for. The guy has a lot of rifle and shotgun barrels he sells very inexpensively. I bought several junk sets of double barrels to practice rib soldering and relaying. I also found a few sets of good barrels from better quality guns like Ithaca and Baker which I snatched up for $5.00 apiece. Since most makers don't stamp their barrels with the company name, you have to be able to recognize a barrel by the underlugs, etc., and I wondered how many desirable ones I left behind.
The guy told me he had a knifemaker in recently who bought a bunch of Damascus barrels to forge weld over a central core of tool steel which could be tempered and hold an edge. Interesting, but I wondered how many nice Damascus barrels that could be used to resurrect a vintage double will end up being cut up and made into knife blades.
