"So if you don’t mind, would you please expound on the discrepancies between theory and practice, esp. mine."
No issue on my side with your practice!! My issue is scientific curiosity. I don't doubt in any way that annealing is a good thing. What I don't understand is why a part would not anneal as it passes through critical temperature in the rehardening heat. I don't question that your practice produces fine results and that any part needing work would need annealing prior to that work and then rehardening. Maybe the point I'm missing is that all parts require something done before rehardening. Like, say, do you polish a reciever before or after annealing?
Lets take another example. Say we machine a part in W-2 such that it has significant internal stress. Then, we heat to through harden. Did the part lose the machining stresses as it was heated above critical?
