Originally Posted By: Wonko the Sane
....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?"....

Maybe, one could also add in previous case recoloring attempts after it left the maker, as possibly relevant. It would seem that casing the tang on SKBs example to a depth of a few thousandths couldnt impart enough depth of hardness to cause it to crack off. Id think predictability matters, and Steve probably cared?