Quote Originally Posted by Mike Blue View Post
I looked at the ad. Strike One: it's not twisted pattern as the ad states. Strike Two: despite listing two very good, common steels used in pattern welding, they admit it's Rockwell 52-53.

Strike Three: the person who buys this...
... doesn't know what Rockwell 52-53 means?

Damascus or twist shotgun barrels are delightful enough to make my toes curl up, for they really did have a lot of point in their day, before near-liquid steel billets were hydraulically pressed to remove any seams or gaps. Even the best modern Damascus billets described as twist mostly don't show anything like their tight knotted pattern, although raindrop pattern may. The term Damascus in barrels was used only for the better grades in the English Midlands, and the quality descended through twist and Wednesbury skelp to such awful things as sham damn, for sale to ignorant savages who would mop up the blood and reflect that it was fine until a devil got into it.

Actually I don't think a technical tour de force with no practical purpose does look good, and few of the original users of laminated steel, in barrels or blades, used steels of different textures and etched it to make it piebald, with a texture you can feel. It had a far more subtle appearance. If it is a technical tour de force by whoever the maker bought his billet from (and clearly they have made the process a lot easier than cheaper than it used to be), it loses all point in my view.