Aftermarket nitron/nitride finish?

[Shadowrider]

That is contrary to what I have been told by folks that do SBN

1050F won't hurt the temper on steels that are heat treated already. The only ones I know that would be affected are PH stainless that are aged at a lower temp than the salt bath and that would be rare and very hard steels. They would go down in strength if the salt bath temp is higher. 1050 is the lowest I can recall working with so the heat treater could just do a SBN at 950 for a longer time period without bothering the temper at all. Other steels are going to take quite a bit more to mess with. For instance you can do a subcritical anneal on 4140CM (lots of guns made out of 4140) at 1440F but to fully anneal you'll need 1550F.

FYI I worked in machine shops for about 25 years. Aerospace, oilfield and automotive.

 

[rc508pir]

1050F won't hurt the temper on steels that are heat treated already. The only ones I know that would be affected are PH stainless that are aged at a lower temp than the salt bath and that would be rare and very hard steels. They would go down in strength if the salt bath temp is higher. 1050 is the lowest I can recall working with so the heat treater could just do a SBN at 950 for a longer time period without bothering the temper at all. Other steels are going to take quite a bit more to mess with. For instance you can do a subcritical anneal on 4140CM (lots of guns made out of 4140) at 1440F but to fully anneal you'll need 1550F.

FYI I worked in machine shops for about 25 years. Aerospace, oilfield and automotive.

I talked to several companies about having it done. I guess they just didnt want to do it. This particular inquiry was for a 4140 FAL barrel

 

[Shadowrider]

I talked to several companies about having it done. I guess they just didnt want to do it. This particular inquiry was for a 4140 FAL barrel

Were they local? There a guy on the enos forum that offers it. Of course he sends it out and does it in batches. It's not cost effective to do a single item, they need to fill the furnace. That's probably why, they knew you'd say when they gave you the price they'd have to have.

 

[rc508pir]

Were they local? There a guy on the enos forum that offers it. Of course he sends it out and does it in batches. It's not cost effective to do a single item, they need to fill the furnace. That's probably why, they knew you'd say when they gave you the price they'd have to have.

Yeah that's what most of them said about needing to fill the tank. 2 of them said they do single but Id have to wait till they had enough orders. They said they needed to know what the tempar temperature was as well. Since DSA doesn't make their own barrels and wont disclose who actually does, I couldn't provide that info so it was not recommended. It took some doing just to find out that the barrel was 4140. The price I was given was $450 to $500 which was acceptable to me. Id still like to get it done but I dont know if the barrel was heat tempered or cryo treated so its a non option

 

[lasher]

i use AR Performance barrels exclusively because they are nitride finished. have spoken at length many times with Mr. Beene who owns the business and is a long time barrel/bolt/wildcatter. 550 degrees for 15 minutes in the molten salt is what he has said to me. i'm going to send a commander finished in satin nickle to NightHawk, they will get it stripped and nitrided for around 350 bucks. Mr. Beene has told me several times the treatment is only a few 10,000ths deep, but with proper cleaning should outlast anything else out there. your mileage may vary

 

[tRidiot]

All great info. I'm looking for a nice dark black, durable finish that increases lubricity and helps reduce effort in cleaning. I'm not planning on playing SEAL in the salt water or anything.

 

[Gunbuffer]

http://blacknitride.com/firearms/
First hand experience w these guys on firearms.. good stuff

 

[lasher]

All great info. I'm looking for a nice dark black, durable finish that increases lubricity and helps reduce effort in cleaning. I'm not planning on playing SEAL in the salt water or anything.

Mr Beene has a barrel that's been submerged in salt water for 5 years, still no sign of rust or corrosion. nitride finish makes everything super easy to clean, 2 patches and the bore is done, i run bolt carrier groups in an ultra sonic cleaner for 10 minutes, rinse and dry in de-humidifier then oil, haven't scrubbed a bolt in a long time.

 

[Shadowrider]

All great info. I'm looking for a nice dark black, durable finish that increases lubricity and helps reduce effort in cleaning. I'm not planning on playing SEAL in the salt water or anything.

Nitride is what you want. Here is a post from a site that I used to spend some time on and this seems pertinent to your question. Also if you hit the link there is a ton of info on the process in general.

I am a technical adviser for firearms industry work, and full time weapons designer and custom rifle builder, and I can assure you that the process can be used on both Button and Hammer Forged barrels. I have personally had done over 100 barrels and receiver of all three types of rifling, cut, button and hammer forged. I have experienced no issues with any of them. My employers plant does a lot of rifle barrels for major OEM contracts so if it were a problem we would know. I have done stainless, and chrome moly, one thing I have noticed is that the process will allow to use Chrome Moly where manufacturers would ordinarily use stainless. Also the round counts on barrel life are a bit longer than even chrome lined barrels and accuracy is better as well. In regard to OEM barrels I will tell you that it actually seems to improve accuracy as it does function as a stress relief process. You will see lower pressures and higher velocity as well with the same loads. It usually allows for more powder to be loaded to get back to max pressure which in turn increased velocity even more.

Its a great boon to rifle building and should be considered for all who want a custom rifle built. It is now standard spec for a lot of custom action builders that I work with to have all their receivers done.

https://www.finishing.com/324/69.shtml

 

[ibanda]

Cummings Custom Refinishing in Tennesse does some really nice work.