Do 1930's and 40's K98's need to be anealed before surface grinding then recarburized afterwords?

It has been reported that heat treaters full anneal prior to rehardening (I'm not at all sure this is true).....I can see no reason at all to anneal prior to surface grinding.

If it was me, I'd send the receiver to heat treating and then have it surface ground as the only place I need the hardened steel is in the lug seats to help prevent set back.

If the heat treater full anneals it's his perogative.....ignore the anneal issue and let the heat treater do his thing!

quote:

Originally posted by ColoradoMatt:
Do 1930's and 40's K98's need to be anealed before surface grinding then recarburized afterwords?

There are many opinions on this, but I would think not. The carburization used on Mausers gives them a hardened "skin" that's only a few thousandths of an inch deep. If you're going to have receiver surface ground, the grinding will probably remove most of the hardened layer. Were it my action, I would have whatever machine work that the receiver needed done, then I'd have it surface ground, then I'd sent it off to the heat treater. Again, there are several schools of thought on this, but it makes sense to me to have it hardened last after I'd worked on it and polished it.

That's just my take on this though.

Not being a total metalologist, my take would be as follows: Surface grinding does not reqire annealing; however, you will be removing the hardened layer of metal. If the case hardening has been removed, it will need to be recarburized. Prior to re-hardening an action, it should be annealed prior to hardening to prevent distortion when hardening. Your choice anneal before or after the grinding.

John

Does not need annealing prior to grinding. Surface grinding the outside of the action will remove case hardened surface, but there's really no reason it has to be re-hardened afterwards...at least I can't think of one.