I posted this some time ago on the Damascus explained thread. Thought it appropriate to repeat it here:

This is from "Fire-Arms Manufacture 1880", U.S. Department of Interior, Census Office. They are discussing barrels - Truing or Straightening of Barrels. I thought the reference to a "twisted barrel" significant.

Quote:
"English workman Thomas Smith... 1822.. Harper's Ferry armory... His blows upon a twisted barrel (to quote Mr A.H. Waters) followed each other like the taps of a woodpecker, scarcely leaving a square without the marks of his copper hammer."


Originally Posted By: The following was posted by Robert Chambers in the same thread
More sources of American made, hand hammered, twist/skelp barrels are...any guns made by, or with barrels made by, A V Sill of Buffalo NY, Miller brothers of Rochester NY, Losey & Lull of Mott's Corners NY. but mostly Levi Coon of Ithaca NY. The site, where in 1883, W H Baker established Baker Manufacturing>Ithaca Gun Works>Ithaca Gun Company, is a particular site on Fall Creek known as "Triphammer Falls". This site was once he site of (gun barrel maker) Levi Coon's triphammer untill about 1830. This site had been named after Conn's triphammer. By 1834, Levi had re-established himself at Mott's Corners only about 3 miles east. Coon's barrel making continued on, later to become Losey & Lull, until one by one most of their skilled employees went over to work for Baker at the very site Coon had left 50 years beforehand, Triphammer Falls. But it was not the loss of the skilled labor pool that ended Losey & Lull's barrel making business, it was Remingtons new "Cast Steel" barrels being manufactured only about 60 to the miles north.


So, there is evidence for at least some limited American made twist or damascus barrels from as early as 1822 to as late as possibily 1880.

Pete