Just out of curiousity, when a gunsmith/maker uses heat to soften and harden an action/bolt/whatever, what temperatures are we talking about? What temp would they use to soften a bolt? And to harden it up again? Do they use differant temps for differant purposes?



Erik D.

You're talking about ~ 1550F depending on the alloy.It's certainly not for anyone but one of us metallurgists to do, not a do it yourself project.

When I was studying mechanical engineering back in the early 60's, metallurgy was 2 semesters and was taught out of a 1100 page textbook that was written in german. Through WWl, heat-treating was an art. After WWl, it became a very detailed, exacting, scientific part of metallurgy. No guess-work allowed. Mete, hats off to you.