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Originally Posted by ariel
I have yet to see a single barrel made out of wootz. Plenty of acid-etched damascening, plenty of pattern-welded ones, but not wootz.
Barrels were either cast whole, or made out of spiral billets welded together.
The former is obviously impractical taking into account small size of crucibles and the requirement for slow cooling to allow formation of the dendrites.
As to the latter, perhaps the strongest argument against it is the purely ceremonial nature of the so-called " chevron" blades, with segments of wootz welded to segments of plain or pattern-welded steel. There are always cracks in the welds, making the blade unusable for fighting. But if the same technique is used for a barrel, the gases will tear the whole structure apart. This, BTW, is the main reason why modern barrels are not using spiral welds any more, and just drill a hole in a long steel cylinder.
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I have not tested any old chevron welded blades, but have made a few Ariel (web search my name "furrer" and chevron for photo of one blade from 1999) and they bend 90 degrees without breaking (have photos somewhere of that above blade doing so). I made a few to see if they were actually practical...I would say they were...flaws and all.
I too have not seen wootz barrels, but I did see and Dr. Figiel has in his book chevron welded gun barrels... one may call that pattern "multiple chevron" as it zig-zags more than one slow chevron.
As per Dr. Alan Williams' research there are armor pieces which have wootz welded to common bloomery iron as a laminated material. One could suggest that such was done with barrels, but again I have not seen one.
Ric