American doubles with Damascus barrels usually used Belgian barrels.
Indeed. But what is less well known is that most 19th Century British sporting guns used Belgian barrel tubes as well. The author Richard Akehurst (
Game Guns & Rifles, 1969) notes that in the 1870s, John Marshall (Monway Iron and Steel Works, Wednesbury, Staffordshire)
"supplied the majority of damascus shotgun barrels to the Birmingham gun trade, and while generally of sound quality, they contained a lot of 'greys.' These greys were caused by small pieces of scale becoming embedded in the metal during the fire welding. They did not materially effect strength, but they left marks when the barrels were polished, which rendered them unfit for the barrels of best guns." In muzzle-loaders, you could not see down the barrel, so greys were of no consequence; with breech-loaders, it was another matter. It was because of greys in British barrel tubes that the trade sourced barrel tubes from Belgium (mostly) and France. They were much clearer of greys, but were softer.
To quote J. H. Walsh in “
The Modern Sportsman’s Gun and Rifle” (1882) regarding the use of Belgian tubes:
“We were, in common with our competitors, excepting for first and second quality, using a large proportion of these tubes; in fact, we think that quite three-fourths of the tubes used in Birmingham are Belgian make, and nearly all the London trade use them, with this difference, that they use the best quality, which are no doubt harder than the cheaper kinds, but are still softer and less durable than those of English make, and cost as much.” And,
“For many years we have been almost entirely dependent upon one maker for Damascus, stub Damascus, and laminated steel iron [a reference to the Monway Iron and Steel Works];
he, having a monopoly, has not cared to trouble himself to keep his iron up to its original good standard, notwithstanding the fact that, in consequence of its high price and want of clearness (freeness from greys), his trade has been gradually leaving him and going to Belgium... One reason for the cleaner forging done by the Belgian smiths was that they used a smaller forge fire composed of a mixture of powdered clay and small coke that kept the work cleaner than the big coke fires of Birmingham.”
I seem to recall I have some numbers somewhere about the number of tubes imported from Belgium, year by year... In any case, it would seem that the most beautifully figured Damascus tubes used in British guns were of Belgian origin, made into finished barrels by British smiths and proofed in Britain.
Damascus steel:
Laminated steel:
