HOW GUN-BARRELS ARE MADE. 237 



there are very few even tolerable imitations of them. 

 The cost is the 'bugbear'; the name costs nothing, 

 and can easily be assumed; but to make laminated 

 steel barrels is quite another matter : it touches the 

 pocket, and interferes with the profit ; and it is only 

 in very rare cases indeed — although the order may 

 be as explicit as words can make it — that the real ar- 

 ticle is supplied. There are very few makers in Bir- 

 mingham who in reality make ' laminated steel.' 

 Steel barrels are more plentiful : they care not so 

 much for the price of the metal ; it is the after re- 

 peated manipulations that are evaded : the labor and 

 loss of material is too much, and is necessarily 

 ' shirked,' and argument is always met with the 

 answer, 'We see nothing in it.' Yet the words 

 ' laminated steel ' are to be found engraved upon 

 barrels of the lowest quality of iron of which double 

 barrels are made. Iron twist is subjected to a similar 

 process to that already described as employed in pro- 

 ducing Damascus iron, and which may be termed 

 common iron Damascus. Thousands of guns are 

 made from this kind of metal, and yearly sent to the 

 United States of America; yet all are unblushingly 

 represented as 'laminated steel barrels.' The actual 

 price charged for these sort of guns in the United 

 States I know not, but have no doubt for the whole 

 gun it is about equal to what would be the prime cost 

 of a pair of real laminated steel barrels alone. 



" Purchasers should be fully acquainted with the 

 fact that it is impossible to produce laminated steel 

 barrels at a low figure : labor, high-priced, skilled 



