I have an Anschutz to drill & tap for scope bases. A brand new HSS center drill will not penetrate the steel at all. A solution may be to center drill with a carbide drill, then attempt to drill & tap as normal. However, I'm concerned about the receiver hardness & whether HSS taps will cut it. Would appreciate any suggestion from those with experience on the Anschutz.

Roger, I left you a phone message. But for everyone else.... Brownell's Gunsmithing Kinks mentions using a red hot heated rod applied to the spot to be drilled. In effect you are annealing the case hardening in the spot you are going to drill. Heat stop paste may be used if you are worried about heat creep around the spot you are trying to drill. A carbide drill bit is recommended on the use of A3-03s after annealing. It should work in this instance too....IMO.

Spot annealing never worked well for me. I think the mass of the action sucked the heat away too fast. I used a carbide drill to get through the hard case and finished the hole with a high speed bit. Taped with series taps. Used the milling machine to drill the holes and maintain alignment of the taps.

Dave

This comes under the heading of "When you ask where's the best place to get a steak and the answer is you really want a pork chop" but here goes. I do a lot of small bore competition shooting and the Anschutz 54s are far and away the most popular rifles. I don't know any competitors that have their receivers drilled and tapped. Warne, Leupold and others make very good mounts that hold well and return very, very close to zero when switching back and forth between iron sights and scope. I'd find a set of high quality clamp-on rings and use them.

I've used the carbon rods wrapped in heavy copper wire hooked to a 12 or 6 volt battery . Spot anneals easy .