I have also seen a few Damascus barrels blow with both black and smokeless powder loads
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have the same level of believability as "I have seen several XXXXX (name your problem, LN Springfields, Glocks, M1A's, Colt SAA, etc.) blow up."
As a matter of fact, 99.7% of us have NEVER seen ANYTHING "blow up" so anyone claiming "a few" (which means at LEAST 3-4) guns of any specific make and model "blow up" get me reaching for my can of BS repellent real quick.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Bell (if I recall correctly) used a bit of almost everything english, Euro, and US (LC Smith and Parker) guns, although none were in bad rusted, pitted shape to begin with.
Bottom line, I would shot ANY decent quality "tight" and clean LEGITIMATE NATIONAL PROOFED shotgun with a damascus barrel with low-brass non-mag target and field loads..
Does this means some loose low budget beater, NO.