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Otherwise, the only thing I can say is DON'T SHOOT IT!
Old damascus barrels are not to be trusted, a hundred years of use have usually taken it's toll on the weldings between the layers and it should be regarded as a wall hanger.
Remington Hammerless Doubles -- Two patents were issued on the same day, October 30, 1894. No. 528,507 pertaining to the milling of the frame was granted to R. C. Fay of Ilion, New York, assignor to the Remington Arms Company of same place; and No. 528,508 pertaining to the automatic ejectors, to R.C. Fay and G.E. Humphreys of Ilion, New York, assignor to the Remington Arms Company of same place.
If the gun is absolutely plain with no engraving, just "Remington Arms Co." stamped on the side of the frame it is an A-grade if a Model 1894. Model 1894 serial numbers were in the 100,000 range and often preceded by a P a Remington stock letter. Also perfectly plain was the lower priced Model 1900 with serial numbers in the 300,000 range, and often a stock letter of Q. These were also known as the K-grade.
A Model 1894 B-grade had just a bit of borderline engraving. As the grades went up C-, D-, and E-grade the engraving became more extensive, the stock wood and checkering finer, and the overall workmanship better. There is normally a grade letter stamped on the left side watertable, or on "bridge-frame guns" (usually 103,500 and lower serial numbers) on the bridge. Also, if you remove the trigger guard, the grade letter is often stamped in the wood after the serial number.
If a Remington Model 1894 is fitted with automatic ejectors the the written grade designation has a letter E added to it and if it has Remington Steel barrels an R or Ordnance Steel Barrels an O -- AE-grade (A-grade with ejectors and the regular Damascus barrels), AER-grade (A-grade with ejectors and Remington Steel barrels), BO-grade (B-grade with Ordnance Steel barrels) or CEO-grade (C-grade with ejectors and Ordnance Steel barrels). I’ve never seen these extra letters stamped on the gun’s watertable. In the Model 1900s things are reversed. Remington must have considered their Remington Steel barrels standard and appended a D if the gun was equipped with 2-blade Damascus barrels -- KD-grade or KED-grade. "Ordnance Steel" is normally stamped on the top of the barrels on AO-/AEO- and BO-/BEO-Grade Remington doubles and engraved on higher grades.
You need to check out Charles G. Semmer's book Remington Double Shotguns. It is available from the author 7885 Cyd Drive, Denver, CO 80221, for $60 plus $5 shipping and handling. It is invaluable if you are going to shoot, invest, collect or play in the Remington double gun field. Remington supplied a number of different pattern Damascus barrels on these old doubles. A picture of their salesman’s sample of the various styles of Damascus available is shown on page 275 of Semmer's book.
Remington Arms Co. stamped the actual pellet counts of their test patterns on the rear barrel lug of their Model 1889 hammer doubles and their Model 1894 and 1900 hammerless doubles. If the number is three digits, that is the count, if the number is two digits a leading 3 is implied. From surviving hang-tags we know the standard load they used to target 12-gauge guns was 1 1/4 ounces of #8 going 511 pellets to the load. My 12-gauge KE-Grade Model 1900 is stamped 33 on the left and 24 on the right. That would be 333/511 = 65% left and 324/511 = 64% right, or about improved modified in both barrels. The chokes measure .027" in both barrels of that gun.
While no one can tell you over the internet if a gun is safe to shoot and with what ammunition, there are thousand of damascus barrel guns in regular use. There are generations of us who believe those Damascus barrel warnings on shotshell boxes were an attempt by the manufactures, begun during the Great Depression, to sell new guns. My Father's AE-Grade Remington, made in 1895, with A and P on the bottom of the barrel tubes, digested many, many, cases of Super-X and Federal Hi-Power shells from when he got it in 1945 to when he quit hunting after the 1987/8 season. The above said, I strongly recommend having any old double gun inspected by a qualified double gun smith, not Joe S**t the 870 parts replacer down on the corner, before using with any ammunition.
Researcher wrote:While no one can tell you over the internet if a gun is safe to shoot and with what ammunition, there are thousand of damascus barrel guns in regular use. There are generations of us who believe those Damascus barrel warnings on shotshell boxes were an attempt by the manufactures, begun during the Great Depression, to sell new guns. My Father's AE-Grade Remington, made in 1895, with A and P on the bottom of the barrel tubes, digested many, many, cases of Super-X and Federal Hi-Power shells from when he got it in 1945 to when he quit hunting after the 1987/8 season.
That might have been true, but we are now 80+ years from those boxes.
You are quite right that a good composite barrel were as good as or even better than a fluid steel barrel in those days*, but the fact remains that each of those barrels contained miles of welds, each weld exposed to the corrosive effect of the burning gunpowder.
On the few occations I've seen a damasced barrel fired there have always been at least one tiny tendril of smoke coming from some place other than the breech or the muzzle showing a failed weld.
And the normal pressure of a modern shell is quite elevated from the ones used when the gun was new, so my personal wiew is to put those old guns out to grass and, if you want to try them out, use only very mild loads.
The only way to properly check for delaminated barrels are unfortunatly to cut them open
Researcher wrote:The above said, I strongly recommend having any old double gun inspected by a qualified double gun smith, not Joe S**t the 870 parts replacer down on the corner, before using with any ammunition.
Go to any Vintagers event and you will see many Damascus barrel guns being used. Read Sherman Bell's series "Finding Out For Myself" in The Double Gun Journal and see what pressures it took to blow up old junker doubles with both Damascus and steel barrels. The conclusions were that in order to blow a barrel with anything near a normal shell, the culprit was a bore obstruction. While most American makers quit Twist and Damascus barrels when The Great War dried up the supply of rough tubes from England, Belgium and France, Parker Bros. continued to offer Damascus ane Bernard barrels into the late 1920s. There exists at least one fully optioned Bernard barrel 12-gauge Parker Bros. double trap gun with vent rib, beavertail forearm, ejectors and single selective trigger. The British proof houses will still prove Damascus barrel guns, and at least James Purdey & Sons and W.W. Greener have recently built new Damascus barrel guns.
From the very first Remington Arms Co. catalogue introducing the Remington Hammerless Double Barrel Shotgun, October 1894, they state "The Remington Guns, both hammer and hammerless, are especially adapted to all nitro powders, and every gun is thoroughly proved, tested and targetted, before leaving the armory."
By all means, shoot it if you want to and know what you are doing. There's nothing inherently wrong with damasced barrels. Homogen steel or damasced, its all in the making.
All barrels however are pressure vessels, and pressure vessels have a finite lifespan...
