....Bill made damascus barrels, by wrapping a damascus steel strip around a solid steel rod and then forge welding the entire mass together. The edges of the damascus strip were overlapped and scarf welded together, as the damascus material was at the same time being welded to the solid rod. The barrels bore is then drilled through the solid rod in the center of the welded assembly. There is absolutely no issue with this process, as it creates a very sound barrel tube. But, it is impossible to accurately recreate the old damascus barrel patterns by this method.....
....Below is one of Bill's barrels. I heard about the H&H and Bowen dealings, but not from Fiorini. Bill and I never discussed it, so I dont know much about what happened there. Ive never seen photos of any completed functioning weapons built with Fiorini damascus barrels. Would love to see pics, if any exist....
Thanks Steve. Only fun conversation here. The picture of Bill forging, might imply that he could've replicated an accurate recreation of a traditional pattern, if not in exactly the same spirit. What I'm getting at is he is forging a rectangular cross section, a 'ribband' so to speak.
In his videos, he explains why he came up with forge welding to a solid core. He explain his interest and research was based on classic British Gunmaker writings, but he couldn't get any machine shop to clean up the 'meandering' rough bore because it would catch and break whatever boring bits or reamers they were using. The solid core was intended to allow normal deep hole drilling.
He also explained that the core could be completely drilled out and the bore finished in the damascus. But, he intentionally left the 4140 core or fitted a modern liner for higher pressure rifle and pistol cartridges. I believe if the mono steel muzzle ring appears uniform, it was likely an intentional liner.
On the Bowen website, there are pictures of three completed revolvers under the 'gallery' and 'workshop' sections that were supposed to be Bill F.'s, and the style looks to be similar to one of the finished barrel pictures that you showed. It kind of looks to me like he used a four iron ribband approach. My only unfair criticism is that it looks to me like he had to exaggerate the damascus just for the sake of being damascus, where I believe pure barrel making might have called for much tighter and finer twist.
It came to my mind that there's a dvd out by Ray Rybar called 'Scripture Damascus' that explains his way of how to construct billets and uncover words that get forge welded in the middle somewhere. But, I don't mean to take anything away from and I'm looking forward to your comments. Thanks for the time, knowledge and experience that you're willing to share.
