James:
I'm having work done on a heavy gun now, with almost 4lb British laminated steel barrels It's purely for targets as my game guns weren't made for such a repeated hammering (& frankly, neither am I anymore). There's a place in my battery for both types of guns these days. When I started down this path, many years ago now, any shotgun I bought had to earn it's keep (as they were a luxury that was pretty hard to justify). In the early 1990s, there wasn't much credible information available to folks such as myself so...I delved into a bit of history, physics, and finally metallurgy. My earth science background helped, but only as a precursor. What finally made me comfortable with using a braided-steel gun was ultimately understanding the theory of "elastic limits" in steel. Dr. Drew was also providing information on this site about then as well, which helped immensely. Before that, the same concerns (which Keith mentioned earlier here) kept me from owning several lovely damascus guns (and they were pretty inexpensive then). Ed clearly still subscribes to the then more commonly-held belief that damascus guns are dangerous (as is his perogative). I have fully satisfied myself about their relative safey and about how such a campaign to sully their reputation was conducted in this country (by clearly self-interested propagandists).
Last edited by Lloyd3; 12/16/23 01:13 AM.
