rcmodel
Member in memoriam
I have seen, or had first-hand experience shortly after three Damascus guns let go.
Two of them resulted in severe injuries to the shooter & loss of some fingers on the left hand.
In one instance, the gun was a very nice old Ithaca trap gun, in very sound condition with no rust, and was used regularly by a trap shooter. Then one day it just let go and took off two fingers.
In another, the gun was in sad shape, but not as sad as the one in this thread.
A young man determined that he could safely shoot low-brass field loads by shooting a box of them with a lanyard & the gun tied to a tree.
And it let go on the first shot of his hunting trip using the exact same loads.
He lost his left thumb and two fingers.
The third gun was in reasonably good condition and was being test fired while tied to an old car tire with black-powder loads.
It blew a 6" chunk of steel out of the left barrel right over the forearm after several rounds had been fired.
Due to the nature of Damascus barrel construction, then is no way to predict when, or after how many shots a gun is safe to shoot.
The welds may have hidden voids or pits in the welds, and continued hammering from shooting even light black powder loads can eventually cause 100+ year old welded seams to fatigue & simply let go.
Shoot them if you want too, but it is bad form to tell others on the Internet it is safe to do the same.
rc
Two of them resulted in severe injuries to the shooter & loss of some fingers on the left hand.
In one instance, the gun was a very nice old Ithaca trap gun, in very sound condition with no rust, and was used regularly by a trap shooter. Then one day it just let go and took off two fingers.
In another, the gun was in sad shape, but not as sad as the one in this thread.
A young man determined that he could safely shoot low-brass field loads by shooting a box of them with a lanyard & the gun tied to a tree.
And it let go on the first shot of his hunting trip using the exact same loads.
He lost his left thumb and two fingers.
The third gun was in reasonably good condition and was being test fired while tied to an old car tire with black-powder loads.
It blew a 6" chunk of steel out of the left barrel right over the forearm after several rounds had been fired.
Due to the nature of Damascus barrel construction, then is no way to predict when, or after how many shots a gun is safe to shoot.
The welds may have hidden voids or pits in the welds, and continued hammering from shooting even light black powder loads can eventually cause 100+ year old welded seams to fatigue & simply let go.
Shoot them if you want too, but it is bad form to tell others on the Internet it is safe to do the same.
rc
Last edited:
