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.
No way I could strike barrels and polish for a week straight, my hands, shoulders and back just would not take it. I tend to prep two to four sets of barrels at a time and blue in small batches as well. I constantly have stuff heading out for engraving pick up, that dictates my bluing schedule more than anything else, thankfully my engraver is darn quick which helps keep work flowing.
