Last time I went duck hunting with Keith Kearcher, he used a damascus Parker and he was shooting steel. Now Keith knows a thing or two about damascus bbls. This gun did not have tight chokes.
Back to my original question, IS THERE ANY SCIENTIFIC DATA or even empirical evidence that steel shot will ruin a set of damascus bbls with light chokes? Any gauge, I don't care. If so, what is the mechanism? Greg up above has confirmed what I thought about pressures...commercial steel ammo is loaded to the same pressure as lead. And the DGJ study showed that even the humble Parker damascus was able to digest huge overloads. As far as scoring, I don't buy that, the plastic shot cups are very tough and contain the steel. As far as recoil, I have shot this stuff through my Centaure and it doesn't seem to kick any harder than a 12 with lead shot.
Or is this whole thing just a commercial ploy on the part of gun makers to get us to all go out and buy modern shotguns?
We are not talking about some dainty English gun here that has been bored out and restruck five times. It has 3" chambers and .400 chamber walls.
