doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Annealing before re-casing, is this BS ?

John Gillette of Classic Guns studied under Oscar & does the same process that Oscar taught him. In 8 years, I have never had anything but great work from John using Oscars methods. FWIW, Ken

Sounds like a good idea to me. From what I've read about casehardening both guns and industrial, timming is critical. The longer you leave the part in the carbon the deeper into the steel the carbon absorbs. You could make your part high carbon steel and brittle. Recasing without an anneal would be like doubling the time in the carbon soak. Remember the cracked frames we saw on here awhile back? That nice Stirlingworth? I once annealed a LC Smith frame in the oven on the clean cycle. It works and the steel was soft so I could file and polish it.

Silvers,

Does the action need to be polished at all? I think John Mann and Ken Hurst are on point on this. By annealing the action first, you have the opportunity to easily remove pits, dings, etc. If the action requires any prep work, I don't think you'd go without annealing it first.

Even if you don't, i think you need to ensure a controlled hardening (feel free to insert viagra joke here....) and to do that, you likely need a controlled and homogeneous softening....

Just my opinion.

FYI. John recently annealed, colored/ hardened my beretta action on my Ken Hurst sporting gun. It didn't warp........

Phone number for John G? I want to talk to him about this issue.

From my experience (not hypothetical) warpage can take place whenever the metal is heated above the "critical temperature". I've seen it in old metal that was pre-anealed and in metal that had never been hardened. I'm talking double shotgun and single shot rifle actions, lockplates, trigger plates, forend irons, triggers etc.
Casehardening without the likelyhood and readyness to "hard-fit" after the fact is wishful thinking. Many jobs don't require it, but you had better be ready for some serious "tweaking" if warpage occurs. Straightening is not recommended for the inexperienced or heavy handed. The "hard-fitter" was once a job title for maker's of new guns.

Classic Guns
PO BOX 367
606 GOULD STREET
BEECHER, IL. 60401
708-946-6141
http://www.classicgunsinc.com/

John with his pal, Lucky.



Pete

Thanks all who replied. There's a wide range of fact and opinions here. What I've concluded so far is:

1. The need for annealing before re-casing (if you're not going to do engraving first) is still with the jury.

2. Old metal parts sometimes warp when re-cased, sometimes they don't warp. If you get something re-cased you might have problems reassembling the parts. Think about this if you plan to do the disassembly yourself and send the stripped parts to a re-casing service. Discuss with the service beforehand and ask them about warping.
Silvers

SDH is right on, time and temperature is critical. Knowing when to stop the process and just how far it needs to go with a certain type of gun is what separates those who can from those
who "warp".

But as stated earlier, there are some guns that are more
susceptible to movement than others. Use an experienced hardener
that has done your kind of gun in the past (hopefully many times)
and discuss the possibility of movement. Then you can make
an informed decision.

DM

Silvers, anneal the piece before re-casing it ! Ken

Silvers,
Respectfully suggest you obtain and read Oscar Gaddy's seminal works on the subject in DGJ. Further I was trained by Pete Erdner at Piedmont CC. Pete has done thousands over the course of 20 some years as the "Professor". He would not consider re color casing anything unless it was first annealed. This even included Crescent Arms single shots. Indeed his most noteworthy observation is that "good steel is the basis of good case color." Good luck, Dr. BILL