During my time there I made quite a few of those little tensile pieces to be pulled apart.
This is quite soft & is basically off the Rockwell C scale which is normally used for heat treated steel. From these two figures we see the case hardening gives an increase in tensile strength of around 33%. This I believe is due primarily to the case as there would be little change in the strength of the core at the 20 point level of carbon due to heat treating it.
So if the test sample is small and the cased component comprises the majority of the (also) heat treated material how is that supposed to apply to a shotgun action?
And I have to admit that fond as I am of CC'd guns this whole discussion ranks right up there with flame colored screws on the importance scale. Yet another topic of seemingly no importance whatsoever to the guns. Whatever it was the manufacturers did to the guns and why is not something that shooters and collectors are gonna be changing very likely.
Simple minded as I am I am faced with the burning question of "who cares" and "what difference does it make?" I suspect that would just be me.
Oh, yeah - casing can warp an action. A common concern.
