A smith I know pretty well would devote an entire week doing nothing but barrel prep. He said by the end of that week his arms were about to fall off from striking barrels. I think he did them in batches of 8. Did excellent work and fantastic polishing all by hand. I think most of what he did was fluid steel barrels. Could be wrong. He found that was the best way to do it, but indeed it was a long wait between batches. He now works for G&H.

foxes rule