I am rebuilding an IAB Sharps clone. The falling block and FP block are in the white. I have now fit them, but am not sure that they were heattreated before shipping. They are not particularly hard so i suspect that heat treating is needed. Has anyone worked on one of these rifles before? Was the falling block blued or color cased and does anyone know what range the final hardness should be? I plan on contacting Turnbull for this job but wanted to see if anyone had experience with this particular gun.

IMHO,

If you start with junk, you will end up with expensive junk. You would be much better off buying a Shiloh Sharps.

True, but Shilohs cost many times what the IABs do and they are fun for home projects, only if you do all the work yourself. I have worked on many of them and my most accurate Sharps is an IAB with a Badger barrel. You have to replace the big hammer with a 74 hammer and make the lock plate look like a '74 in order for it to look right, if it is an old on that has the old type conversion hammer on it. The locks don't have a fly, so you have to deal with that. The old ones are not as good as the ones made recently from Pedretti and Pedersoli. From the factory, they are case hardened very shallowly. Polish all of it and send it to Turnbull for the best colors. Hardness is not important for the calibers used.

quote:

Hardness is not important for the calibers used.

+1

I think that BPCR competitors have had the breech clock face peened by the primers when they are soft.

My customer picked up the gun cheap from someone because it was missing the parts. I would have thought the parts would be heatreated before coming from IAB, but the gentleman at VTI said he couldn't say for sure. The part does not seem soft. It's all fit and ready to go now. You are probly right that for normal 4570 loads hardness will not matter. I dont think he will be doing anything but having fun with it so it should be good to go.

Find someone with a hardness tester then you'll have at least some idea of what you have.

Hardness testing will only work of it was through hardened. Case hardened parts can't be checked if the case is thin.

For what it does you could heat treat it in the garage plunk it in oil and draw it back till it just turns A reddish purple. But being that it's already fit the steel will change size after heat treat so.