I know some of you are into double guns so I hope you can answer a question about one. My friend has a Remington 12 gage model 1894 that was manufactured in 1898. It has the Remington (fluid steel) barrels rather than the Damascus steel. He would like to know how it compares in strength to their ordinance steel barrels for shooting smokeless powder? He also has a Remington model 17 20 gage pump gun manufactured in September, 1927 serial number in the 47000 range. He was wanted to know if anyone knew what serial number or what year did they start chambering for 2&3/4" shells?

Metallurgy was still not very good during that day 'n age. I'd only fire very low power low brass stuff if any.

Me too, though it was no so in my misspent youth. I'd buy any old double shotgun I could buy cheap and shoot whatever shells I had on hand- and I wasn't big on low-powered anything, so odds of a low-brass shell lying around were pretty slim. I have scars in my hairline from vigorously-departing hammers and firing pins. Lucky this didn't happen back then.

http://www.thesixgunjournal.net/shooting-old-damascus-barreled-shotguns/

Thanks, He has several vintage shotguns and drillings. He has a book on Remingtons, but it is lacking some technical information that would be helpful.