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Chromium Carbonitride

2K views 7 replies 7 participants last post by  WalterGC 
#1 ·
I got a new A.G. Russell catalog today. It included a knife with the blade treated with Chromium Carbonitride, alleged surface hardness near 90 Rc over steel at 59 Rc.
Black, too.

Has anybody here heard of this stuff and considered it as a gun finish?
 
#6 ·
Carbonitriding is the heat treating process performed to the steel. It's only a case hardening, but it does elevate the core strength of the base material. The Chromium may help take it up to 92rc, but the effective case would probably only be a few thousandths at that hardness range. Like an egg shell, per se.

I'd have to see what the steel is, because that's pretty high.
Most of your highest tensile/yield alloy materials are only going to nitride out at a max hardness of around 55-65rc and your effective case is going to depend on the length of the process.

But if you want to make something completely bullet proof, you make it out of a 40 carbon-range steel and nitride it (or Carbonitride it depending on it's metallurgical properties). The wear-ability is extremely durable, and you have the core strength elevated to to a pretty high tensile/yield.

Worries of the part actually becoming fragile have to do with the ratio of effective case relative to the over all thickness of the part.
 
#7 ·
I think this would be useless on a knife blade, after the first couple sharpenings you'd be through the coating and into the regular steel of the blade (although 59rc is fairly hard it's not as hard as many knife steels out there). For firearms parts I could see it being useful as a wear coating but not much else. Might be good on the rails and firing group parts to make them last forever.
 
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