That's an interesting 1922 snippet Drew.

It's my understanding that Vanadium makes steel more hardenable by virtue of forming Vanadium carbides. Same with both Chromium and Tungsten.

Curious why this would be sought after in a case hardened application.

Seems like the idea would be to through harden it thus taking full advantage of the alloy.

Remember, Vanadium steel was all the rage after Ford popularized it back then. I bet the Vanadium barrel ad was more fluff than actual content.

"The price of good shotgunnery is constant practice" - Fred Kimble