Posted by Doug Kubosh on January 14, 2014, 5:45 am, in reply to "damascus pressure"
Cliff, I have thought about some of the same questions you have raised. It seems to me that many of the guns made in the era you indicate may have never seen a black powder load. One that is 100 years old has probably be "proofed" hundreds of times with nitro loads in the past hundred or so years. If the gun has been fired, and it probably has, with high brass loads in the past and not come unglued, using low pressure loads from RST , Polywad or B&P would be the best choice. Not that any of this makes your particular gun safe, but somebody probably has been pulling the triggers on higher pressure loads than you will use for many many years. Hard to imagine a great hunting double being locked in a closet for 100 years unfired. My bet the owners were blasting away at ducks, pheasant, rabbits or a chicken hawk or two ...all the time with nitro loads at twice the pressure you would encounter with RST's.