In the past, I had Industrial Heat Treating of SLC, UT heat treat my Mausers. Would anyone care to give an opinion of them vs. Blanchard's?

Masterrifleman,

I've only had Blanchard's do one for me. I can't compare, but I'll say that I was happy with Blanchards. I didn't experience any warpage in the action, they asked me for case thickness and hardness values for the receiver and the bolt. They sent back the action neatly packaged and with a letter stating the specs they'd hardened the action to. I have no way to verify the work, but the action is shooting well, with no warpage.

If you're happy with IHT's work, then I'd imagine it comes down to price. Blanchard's offered better pricing on multiple pieces than the single action I had done, but I couldn't take advantage of it.

Hope this helps.

Steve

I've used both with good results, but since Blanchards is closer, I use them more for the convenience than anything.

I just e-mailed IHT and they quoted $70.00 for a single action. Anybody know what Blanchard's charges?

Malm

have you been over there and watched the process?

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
Malm

have you been over there and watched the process?

Nope... sure haven't. Send me something and I'll see if I can walk it through

Friends-

On a related subject, where would you recommend to send an action to be hardness tested?

Thanks in advance.

30 Caliber Mag Fan - I think anyone with a Rockwell Hardness testor can do it. If your action is a pre-1946 action, it may or may not register on the C-Scale, which is what is the benchmark for hardness. Some that I tested would barely register, somewhere in the low 20's, others wouldn't register at all. The important thing is where its measured and that should be on the flat on the underside just behind the stock lug and possibly on top of the receiver right where the locking lug recess is located. If you're going to use it for a high intensity cartridge like a .270 or a .220 swift, it should be at least 35C and probably not harder than 38C. The average Mauser was made from low carbon steel (ersatz beer cans) and won't take a straight quench and draw. They usually require immersion in a high carbon salt bath, quenched and then drawn back to 35-38C.

quote:

Originally posted by 30 Caliber Mag Fan:
Friends-

On a related subject, where would you recommend to send an action to be hardness tested?

Thanks in advance.

The critical areas on the Mausers are a little tough to access and therefore require a different set up, so for these, either of the two outfits mentioned here would be a good choice.

quote:

Originally posted by 30 Caliber Mag Fan:
Friends-

On a related subject, where would you recommend to send an action to be hardness tested?

Thanks in advance.

Any heat treat shop that uses a superficial hardness tester and can test on the 15-N scale can do some of it for you.

If you also want to know depth of hardness (which I would!!) then they must also do a sample and polish and etch the grain and measure the martinsite thickness under a microscope.

Properly done this can cost a lot more than heat treating.

If the case hardening is left very hard (as in ball bearings.....and in eddystone rifles) then you can easily tell with a file. It'll be glass hard. You won't even scratch it with a file.

If I had a mauser action and was in doubt as to it's state of heat treating and insisted it be properly heat treated I'd assume it was not hardened and send it to Blanchards for heat treating. (or anywhere you wanted to) I'd further ask them to test the hardness first and report before working on it. When I talked to them and asked the specs they hardened to I was surprised as to how shallow they harden the action unless the customer specifies.

This entire heat treating issue is full of opinion and old wives tales as far as I'm concerned. Many thousands of M98 actions have been converted to sporters with no benefit of heat treating at all and with no (apparant) trouble. Yet it continually comes up as an issue.

There is an old thread about this if you want to read it...it's really good but leaves one with as many questions in the end as he started with.!!!!

quote:

I think anyone with a Rockwell Hardness testor can do it.

Absolutely wrong....this will get you into more BS than you can imagine.

You must have a special hardness tester that measures on the 15N scale as the testing of the "C" scale machines will break thru the case and give a very bad (incorrect) reading.

There ar charts to show equivalents of "C" scale readings and 15N scale readings

Vapodog, I already commented on that thread so it saves me the trouble of repeating it !!

In reading the latest posts on the Sheryl Searcy Charity rifle project thread, I thought it quite interesting (and noted for later use) that Thomas Burgess sent out a G.33/40 for "heat treating"(recarburizing) when the caliber to be chambered is 7 x 57 Mauser. Thomas has of course been working on Mauser actions for quite some time and is an Expert on them.

Vapodog's post is very well taken in that there are probably hundreds of thousands of mausers out there that have given significant service without further heat treatment.

The issue then becomes a personal one. Are you willing to take the responsibility for the remote possibility of what possibly could happen if you don't heat treat it, and are you willing to pay for it. That about sums it all up in a nutshell.

Friends-

First of all, I would like to apologize if it seems that I hi-jacked a thread here. It seemed like my question was on point, so I took the liberty of jumping in.

Secondly, I appreciate the additional information especially from Vapodog and 22WRF. I think I will most definitely send my Mauser action to Blanchards when the time is right. I think it was Ben Franklin who said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." I view this much like a project that I have in que at the present time involving a M-1917 Enfield being fashioned into a .375 H&H. Even though the action is of Remington origin, I went to the trouble of having the action magna-fluxed. Cost me $20.00 but, that's pretty cheap insurance if you think about it.

P.S. I almost forgot to thank Masterrifleman, as well, for his informative response. Again, thank you one and all.

My best personal regards,

22wrf,

To stir the pot some and to test your grasp of the concepts please enlighten us as to what might happen sans recarburisation?

The most likely problem with a soft receiver is stretching or set-back of the lugs ,especially if you're the type who likes to load it hot.If you're spending all that money to rebuild a M98 another $70 is a worthwhile investment !!

quote:

Originally posted by z1r:
22wrf,

To stir the pot some and to test your grasp of the concepts please enlighten us as to what might happen sans recarburisation?

Well, what might happen is what I know to have happened to an FN Mauser Action that was rebarreled to 25-06 by an acquaintance of mine. He shot the thing quite a bit. After awhile he noticed the bolt was kind of hard to open. It got worse and worse. Being a gunsmith he knew what it was. He removed the barrel and looked carefully at the lug seats in the action. Showed it to me as well. I could feel a slight indentation by running a small wire (the end of a paper clip to be exact) across the lug seat.

So what did he do. He put the barrel on his lathe, took a thread off I believe, rechambered, screwed it back on. In doing so the caliber marking ended up below the wood line so he had to remark it. And he shoots the thing to this day.

So, thats what could happen. What else could happen I couldn't say but knowning that Mausers are soft underneath I doubt one would shatter. Rather, I think that they would just continue to set back until you couldn't work them anymore due to the brass flowing from the excessive headspace that is created. Admittedly it would take some time for that to happen.

I have a 1909 Aregentine Receiver in my possession that is in like new condition. If you look at the top of the bolt handle, in the flat area, you can easily see an indentation where that flat hits the receiver just as you are going to pull the bolt back after lifting it up. Its easily felt as well. Perhaps 7-10 thousands deep. The steel is SOFT!!!!!!!

As for the safety part of it, I don't think most mausers would blow up. They might crack. But I think the safety part of it is the situation with the brass. Excessive headspace may help to create some sort of excessive pressure that may cause a brass failure, gas excaping, etc., which, as you are well aware, is pretty well taken care of on a mauser, but not infallable.

Not Bad. A few points are off a little but all in all good.

Thanks for indulging me.

z1r, 22WRF,

We are all acolytes of and correspondents with the guy who wrote the book on this topic.

What are you guys doing next year in early July?
Interested in a seminar along with some birthday cake?

LD

I was recently given a book entitled ‘Engineering Materials for Mechanical Engineering Technicians’. Published in England, and described in the forward as introductory course material for students, and ‘equally suitable for the interested layman’. Good – I’m a layman in these matters.

In the chapter on heat treating of metals the author describes the process of case hardening low carbon steel, and notes ‘this treatment will increase the resistance to surface abrasion but any increase in tensile strength will be very small’.

So what strength properties of Mauser 98 actions are significantly increased by case hardening the actions? Can somebody tell me, please, in plain technical terms.

The statement from the book is an oversimplification. There are some case hardening processes that are very thin and only add abrasion resistance but there are others that have a far thicker layer .your automobile wheel bearings and gears are case hardened and it's not just for a little abrasion resistance !!!

quote:

So what strength properties of Mauser 98 actions are significantly increased by case hardening the actions? Can somebody tell me, please, in plain technical terms.

lets try this example.....

If we had a .50 diameter steel low carbon bar of tensile 60,000 PSI and we carburized it to .03 deep and hardened it to 40 Rc and that thin section then had a tensile of 100,000 PSI the resulting increase in tensile to the overall piece will be close to 18% ( I assume you can do the math).

If it was the case that the steel application was "marginal" initially the 18% increase just might be enough to put it over the edge of suitability.!!!

In fact, with actions what we're trying to accomplish is the resistance to compression. We're trying to prevent the bolt lugs from being pushed (compressed) into the metal of the action. The geometry of the sections is very complicated but to say that there is an 18% increase in resistance to this is easily an understatement as one must also deform the metal adjacent to the lugs as well and it's resistance is also greater.

I agree that on the surface a light case hardening don't seem to be much of an improvement but look at the situation closely and bear in mind that the improvement don't have to be a lot.....it just has to be enough.

I truly believe that lug setback has been the result of folks thinking their mauser will hold anything reloadable and have run a lot of ammo thru them at very high pressures.....maybe in excess of 75,000 PSI. If this was the case then an 18% increase in strength would be a welcome improvement.

A few years ago I saw a Duhmoulin (never can remeber which "first initial" Duhmoulin it was, but it was the GOOD one) that had serious lug set back. It was a .416 Rigby on a M98. THis rifle that cost over $6500 in the '90s was as soft as butter. It did not take many rounds to get it in this condition. After seeing this, I decided to start ehat treating my Mausers. I am working on one right now so I can send 3 off at one time to get a little price break. I consider it cheap insurance and it gives me peace of mind.

There is a difference between case hardening and heat treating boys. Case hardening is a surface treatment only so deep, a heat treat changes the grain structure of the entire piece. How a piece heat treats is based on the alloy's carbon content and other alloy elements, like chromium, vandium and manganese. A case hardening is done by heating the steel with carbon to get a surface imbeded with carbon, in essence making a thin layer of higher carbon steel on low carbon steel. Case hardening is mainly for abrasion resistance and looks in the case of color case hardening. Heat treatment is to harden the whole of the piece for a specific task and strength requirement. Both have specific benefits and applications they are not interchangeable as a process however.

I always wonder why heat treating threads get some folks "attention"...

on the absolute safety issue, didn't ackley prove that in casastropic failure mode, the softer action survives "better"?

as for heat threat, i believe this is why modern mausers (us made) are made from either stainless, 4140, or 8620.. with *MY* preference being on the 8620, as you could have it color cased and it would actually be hard.

to me, this kind of boils down to maker's (or owners) choice.. and it's cheap enough that a company that does this can offer a reasonable probability of success.

then again, we could all start with vz-24s, which are hard as woodpecker lips

jeffe

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
I always wonder why heat treating threads get some folks "attention"... I think because there really isn't an answer.....merely decisions to make and no data to make them on

on the absolute safety issue, didn't ackley prove that in casastropic failure mode, the softer action survives "better"? Yes....but this has nothing to do with lug setback that I can see

as for heat threat, i believe this is why modern mausers (us made) are made from either stainless, 4140, or 8620.. with *MY* preference being on the 8620, as you could have it color cased and it would actually be hard.

to me, this kind of boils down to maker's (or owners) choice.. and it's cheap enough that a company that does this can offer a reasonable probability of success.

then again, we could all start with vz-24s, which are hard as woodpecker lips

jeffe

Jeffe...just wondering...how do woodpecker lips rank on the Rc scale?

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
Many thousands of M98 actions have been converted to sporters with no benefit of heat treating at all and with no (apparant) trouble.

I see, and you've followed them all I take it?

quote:

Originally posted by z1r:

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
Many thousands of M98 actions have been converted to sporters with no benefit of heat treating at all and with no (apparant) trouble.

I see, and you've followed them all I take it?

You have opinions?...something to contribute to the thread?...post it!!!

Are you disputing my statement?

Yes, Many thousands may have been converted with no "apparent" effect. Maybe some really did suffer no ill effects. But many did.

I've seen plenty with setback and I've seen a relatively small sampling in the scheme of things. Enough though to convince me that any rifle worthy of more than a couple hundred dollar investment is worth having carburised. I suppose if all one is going to do is slap on an A&B barrel and put it in a plastic stock then fine, use it as-is. If setback occurs, then I suppose oe could try to fix it by setting back the barrel and rechambering. But the problem will only continue. I sure wouldn't want to risk going this route if I've invested in a nice stick of wood and painstakingly inletted it.

It is true that many mausers out there see no problems, or I think a more precise way of saying it is that their owners don't NOTICE any problem. In reality, how many rounds do we all think MOST people put through their rifles? Seriously, most hunters I know, which make up the vast majority of gun owners, don't even bother practicing before season. Hell, I know some that can't remember what they have from one year to the next. (scary actually)

For me personally I will always do it. It's one thing for a shade tree smith or somebody just fiddling with his own stuff to decide not to. When the professionals like Echols and Burgess ALWAYS have it done, guys that have to think about safety, their reputation, warranty support, then I'll go with their assessment of it. I don't have enough money to gamble on little things like this that can ruin a whole project. (heck, I don't have the money for the projects to start with )

besides, think how much happier your smith will be when he knows up front that you don't mind if he anneals the action before doing his work because you are having carbon added back later.

I have two 09's in the pipelines back towards me now (one is chambered in 7mm rem.). I have a 3rd mauser that might need it chambered in 264 win. not worth the 70 bucks or whatever to chance it.

I am curious about something guys, for the engraver, do they prefer to do the work on the mauser actions before or after the action has the carbon added? Is Scrollcutter around here somewhere?

Red

quote:

Originally posted by z1r:
Yes, Many thousands may have been converted with no "apparent" effect. Maybe some really did suffer no ill effects. But many did.

I've seen plenty with setback and I've seen a relatively small sampling in the scheme of things. Enough though to convince me that any rifle worthy of more than a couple hundred dollar investment is worth having carburised. I suppose if all one is going to do is slap on an A&B barrel and put it in a plastic stock then fine, use it as-is. If setback occurs, then I suppose oe could try to fix it by setting back the barrel and rechambering. But the problem will only continue. I sure wouldn't want to risk going this route if I've invested in a nice stick of wood and painstakingly inletted it.

This is interesting....

quote:

If setback occurs, then I suppose oe could try to fix it by setting back the barrel and rechambering

Do you really believe this is a "fix" for lug setback??????

Interesting tactic, rather than address the fact that I called you on your statement that, "Many thousands of M98 actions have been converted to sporters with no benefit of heat treating at all and with no (apparant) trouble.", you attack this point. When in fact I said, I suppose one could try but the problem will continue.

To answer your question, yes one can "fix" setback. Not by simply setting the barrel back and rechambering though as many would like to believe. But, then, if you bothered to read my post you would have seen I already said that.

I have several actions that I acquired with setback. They were FIXED and now serve me well with hundreds of rounds through them and no setback.


Now that I've answered your question perhaps you would so kind as to reciprocate? How did you track those thousands of sported Mausers and determine they had no issues? That must have been quite a challenge. And if you did not track them then your statement is mere supposition.

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
Do you really believe this is a "fix" for lug setback??????

YES, don't you?

If you experience lug setback, then you obviously have an action that is too soft for the load. The cure, provided the action isn't ruined, is to re-case it to a sufficient depth to withstand the load.

For the idiot who experiences lug setback because he insists on hot dogging his loads, anything short of smacking him up beside the head will be pointless.

quote:

Originally posted by malm:

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
Do you really believe this is a "fix" for lug setback??????

YES, don't you?

If you experience lug setback, then you obviously have an action that is too soft for the load. The cure, provided the action isn't ruined, is to re-case it to a sufficient depth to withstand the load.

For the idiot who experiences lug setback because he insists on hot dogging his loads, anything short of smacking him up beside the head will be pointless.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I have watched enough barrel installation videos to know that some of the accuracy smiths will go in and remachine the lug seats on actions in order to make them perfectly perpendicular to the bore line. Mostly remingtons.

That makes me say that if I had a mauser with setback and I had a decent lathe and I knew how to use it I'd probably go a bit further than just taking a thread off the barrel, rechamerbering, and screwing the thing on again.

Rather, I'd go in and carefully remachine that lug seat surface, have the thing selectively carburized, and then go ahead and see what could be done with the barrel. We are not talking about much here. Maybe just shaving off a couple thousands or so, but still, making sure that I had good full contact on both locking lugs.

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
I have watched enough barrel installation videos to know that some of the accuracy smiths will go in and remachine the lug seats on actions in order to make them perfectly perpendicular to the bore line. Mostly remingtons.

That makes me say that if I had a mauser with setback and I had a decent lathe and I knew how to use it I'd probably go a bit further than just taking a thread off the barrel, rechamerbering, and screwing the thing on again.

Rather, I'd go in and carefully remachine that lug seat surface, have the thing selectively carburized, and then go ahead and see what could be done with the barrel. We are not talking about much here. Maybe just shaving off a couple thousands or so, but still, making sure that I had good full contact on both locking lugs.

You are right. That is exactly how one would handle setback. Setting the barrel back wouldn't do nothing without recutting the lug seat, and if it weren't re-cased after that, then one would be merely pissing into the wind.

quote:

Originally posted by Masterifleman:
I just e-mailed IHT and they quoted $70.00 for a single action. Anybody know what Blanchard's charges?

I got a quote from them some time ago....it was about the same but their price was better if you sent two actions or three or more.

The more parts sent the cheaper per piece it got....or if you (for example) had three actions you could accomplish the mailing charges for all three for the same price as one and the heat treat cost for the three might run $125 verses 75 for just one.

I don't know if the other heat treater does the same.....but clearly it's best to send several at once verses one at a time.....

All in all Blanchards was roughly $100 by the time you paid the shipping and insured the parsels......same as the other guys roughly.

I sent a Chilean Mauser 95 in 7mm Mauser to Pac Nor in Washington state to have a .257 Roberts barrel installed. They checked the Rockwell hardness and said it was 6. They would not rebarrel anything less than 20. It may have been 4 on a couple parts of the receiver and maybe a taste higher in some other odd place. They returned it.

This thing has no doubt done a lot of shooting with 7mm Mauser ammo since the date of manufacture. If a harder receiver is desired I would find a way of having a fixture made to hold the shape, maybe put in a false bolt or a bad bolt, see that heat is distributed as evenly as possible and is removed as easily as possible. No big deal on this latter account as it is a standard consideration. I don't think there has to be a massive improvment in hardness or depth of hardness if the same general load and pressure of ammo is to be used. As regards warpage that is a minor problem in case color work on shotgun receivers and as they aren't treated that deeply it is possible to whack 'em flat to maintain straightness. However a shotgun boxloxk receiver is of a different and likely more manageable shape. Warpage might be dealt with on a Mauser receiver as soft as mine by simply not going that deep. Keep it within a limit so you can step up a bit on the loading. Meanwhile get another receivger for the high pressure loadings.

quote:

I sent a Chilean Mauser 95 in 7mm Mauser to Pac Nor in Washington state to have a .257 Roberts barrel installed. They checked the Rockwell hardness and said it was 6. They would not rebarrel anything less than 20. It may have been 4 on a couple parts of the receiver and maybe a taste higher in some other odd place. They returned it.

Curious indeed. The Rockwell 'C' scale STARTS at 20 and goes upwards from there, so how did they get a reading of 6?