Originally Posted by xenologer

-Wills
Actually, I purchased those exact same bar ends from that same seller for my 'prototype' attempt
conclusion; cheap bar ends are indeed steel, but have inconsistent tube quality -one side fit fine, the other had slightly thicker walls and needed to be reamed out
For final configuration I used nicer bar ends, which were steel by virtue of their manufacture age (very thin wall cro-mo); not modern cheap steel ones(hi-ten junk)