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I find it Mildly Amusing (tm) that back when solid steel barrels came out, many makers would etch them so they looked like damascus. It seems like leather-grain on plastic-- disguising a cheap substitute. At least I seem to remember that around 1900 a steel-barreled shotgun was cheaper than a good damascus-barreled one, as I read in yet another copy of the 1900 Sears catalog.
You know what, I think the damascus probably was better-- back when the gun was new. But that was before nitro powder became standard, and before a century of use, wear, and corrosion. The corrosion is what would worry me the most, perhaps. Being made up of laminated strips of steel, the damascus barrel seems purpose-designed to provide nearly infinite sites for corrosion to take hold.
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