Now I want to know if our current barrel makers follow this the direction from the text:
"The barrel when forged is either finished in the manner or made to undergo the operation of which is a process employed on those barrels that are intended to be of a superior quality and price others This operation consists in heating the barrel in portions of a few inches at a time to a high of red heat when one end of it is screwed into a vice and into the other is introduced a square piece of iron with a handle like an augur and by means of these the fibres of the heated portion are twisted in a spiral direction that is thought to resist the effort of the powder much better than a longitudinal one Pistol barrels that are to go in pairs such as duelling pistols are forged in one piece and are cut asunder at the muzzles after they have been bored by which there is not only a saving of iron and of labour but a certainty of the caliber being perfectly the same in both"
What do you think Dan? 
He has some different ideas that what I find W. Greener (1832) giving a different account of how the stubs were made into steel, though this could (surely) vary with the iron/barrel maker.
W.W. Greener made some barrels that were not welded but were twisted to look like a twist barrel.
One must also carefully consider the material used. Good iron actually is pretty darned good barrel material. And the way iron can be treated is different than how steel would be done, things that will make iron better may well make steel worse for use as a barrel material.
It was common to hammer bugles down on iron barrels that bulged in proof and repeat till they would pass with out bulging. This will not work well with steel.
Note that the Springfield rifle musket barrels of the War of Northern Aggression were skelp welded iron and then rolled to length.
Twisting a welded barrel or welded bar would surely show bad welds.
Dan
