Black Nitride (melonite) processing!

[BT Sniper]

The company I have been sending my products to for the last several years is looking to expand it's operations and offer their services to new customers. As you can imagine I am very pleased with their work and recommend anyone that wishes to process anything with an excellent Black Nitride finish to contact them.

They are finishing up the last process of getting their FFL licensing as well so they will be able to do entire/complete firearms. At the moment they can do anything firearm related that doesn't have a serial number on it. I have sent them many of my barrels over the years and again have been just as pleased with the results as I am with the swage dies I offer to all of you.

I am not affiliated with them and receive no financial gain from recommending their services.

Check out the many benefits that a Black Nitride processing can do for your firearm, swage/reloading dies and other various metal needs.

http://www.houstonunlimitedinc.com/

Good shooting and swage on!

Brian

[DerekP Houston]

Very cool, thanks for sharing. Dang they from the same town as my favorite brand of sausage.

[BT Sniper]

Yep! They have done a great job with all of my Nitride needs. I was a little hesitant to mention them in years past as I simply didn't want them to get over run and slow up my processing needs but it is time now to mention the good work they do and their great turn times as well.

Swage on!

BT

[M-Tecs]

Timely. I need to send some items out. Thanks for the link.

[Valornor]

How thick is this? If i have an existing set of dies/punches how much will it change the dimensions? Just looking to get a protective layer to prevent rust/corrosion.

[BT Sniper]

I all my experience it does not change the dimensional properties of my 4140 steel by any measurable amount..... Zero! Of course I heat treat my steal before machining is complete and temper it at a temp close to the nitride temp to eliminate as much chance for any change as possible.

The steel is heated up to a temp of 1075F so any tempering that may have been done at a lower temp of your material will now be done at the nitride processing temp of 1075f. It is basically the same as an additional temper to your steel yet gives a case hardened surface treatment of 60+RC.

I have done many reloading dies, barrels, various other metal items and of course hundreds, maybe a thousand or more by now, swage dies. IN all cases when the size was critical I was able to "measure" no noticeable changes before and after nitride processing. Not saying this will always be the case but for me it has been.


Mention I sent you if you guys choose to contact them.


Swage on!

BT

[BT Sniper]

Thick? It is not a coating. It is a infusion to the metal. The technical magic and data is listed on line and at their site better then I can describe it here. But again it is not a coating and doesn't add any measurable amount to surface areas.

Depth of treatment varies with the metal used. Anywhere from a few thousandths to a few more. Attempting to lap or remove a "few" thousands of this RC60+ treated steel can be a lot of work and certainly strengthens as well as adds a lot of weather protection. So anything you send you will want to have really close to final finish and dimensions.

BT

[goblism]

How does the nitride costing effect the tempering of the dies? The engineer in the family claims it takes something like 800 degrees for the nitride that woild soften the metal. I am temped to send him my CH4D sets but this is my main concern.
(Then again this specific brother worked with the military testing barrel life and methods to extend barrel life so I am not sure hishis information would apply in the swaging world)

[BT Sniper]

I'm no metals expert and the only thing I know about the Nitride process is what I have read, studied and observed in the last 5-8 years but as I said the nitride salt bath is typically around 1075F so yes depending on what type of steel you use it is the same as "tempering" the metal in an oven at a temp of 1075F. My 4140 steel is still plenty hard when tempered at this range and then add to that the actual Nitride hardened surface of 60+RC and it makes for a excellent combination of strength, ware resistance and weather resistance. Barrels made from either 4140 chromoly or stainless steel, as I understand it and have researched, are typically hardened to a value that is very similar to the same hardness that would be obtained from a temper at the temp of the salt bath. So in short when dealing with the 4140 or stainless steel barrels, as I understand it, we loose very little if any of the core hardness of the barrel due to the tempering effect of the salt bath yet gain all the advantages of a surface hardness of 60+RC. Heck it may even stress relieve the barrel? Who knows? they do the opposite with cryo (extreme freezing) of the barrel right?


The metal CH uses (not sure if it has changed in the last couple years, don't think so) for their swage dies is 12L14 which is a challenging metal to harden, machines like butter as many of you know. One of the ways is to Nitride process the dies. The 12L14 steel is not going to get any harder or softer below the hardened infused layer. I think CH mentions it somewhere in their site as to what depth the hardening process is obtained. I don't think the CH dies are going to get any harder or softer due to the metal already used but it will turn them a nice black color. I have done a few myself and was pleased with the results, matter of fact I will be offering many of them for sale soon.

BT

[Valornor]

Very surprised to here that 12L14 is used in swaging dies. I've been spec'ing out D2 on some of the drawings I've done. Good to know on the Black Nitride coating. I appreciated the heads up, might have to try this on receivers. If memory serves, a lot of the old Mauser receivers were case hardened, sounds like this process is more or less duplicating that case hardening.

[bangerjim]

It is NOT a coating! Nitriding is a molecular surface change that prevents/minimizes rust. The process I am familiar with uses dissociated ammonia gas and heat to cause the steel surfaces to turn black. Used in mil-spec applicatons. A salt bath works for small teeny parts also. I am familiar to nitriding furances you can drive a car in. But high temps are involved and will possibly shift any heat treated hardness. Depends on temps and materials involved. But metals can be re-hardened after treatment, as the nitride does not change the potential austenitic vs martensitic properties that may be there.

[jmcburn]

Very surprised to here that 12L14 is used in swaging dies. I've been spec'ing out D2 on some of the drawings I've done. Good to know on the Black Nitride coating. I appreciated the heads up, might have to try this on receivers. If memory serves, a lot of the old Mauser receivers were case hardened, sounds like this process is more or less duplicating that case hardening.

Valornor,

Stick with D2 and spec a 58-60 HRC temper. The dies will outlive you.

If you really wanted to get crazy with it you can get a 1-2 micron DLC coating from Richter Precision and live happy. Swaging with a die that has a surface hardness of 90 HRC and a coeff of Friction of .1(Should form/extract like butter)

This is essentially a case hardening process. Except the hardening process just uses a different strengthening mechanism.

[M-Tecs]

DLC coating from Richter Precision look interesting http://richterprecision.com/dlc-coatings.html

[jmcburn]

DLC coating from Richter Precision look interesting http://richterprecision.com/dlc-coatings.html

He does some pretty interesting work. My company uses them to coat tooling and has had great results. Speaking with them, they do some interesting work coating rifle bores to allow them to have longer life (even with worn out throats). A lot of people in the precision
shooting market use them to coat bolts/actions.

[Doc Highwall]

I used a XADC coating from Armoloy.

https://www.armoloyct.com/processes/xadc/

[Valornor]

Not a coating got it. Sorry, I haven't done much with various treatments. What are the costs of some of these? I'd be interested to know what you guys have paid on some of this.

I have been happy with D2 so far, I'll also use 4140 on a lot of stuff. I have also kind of considered 12L14 to be too soft to be of much use in any sort of tool or die application so I find it interesting that people are coating it or nitriding it the working surfaces with good success. Is there a cost advantage there?

[BT Sniper]

Cost...... call for exact details but typically at Houston Unlimited it is a flat fee of $150 plus a $15 hazardous processing fee. As I understand it this covers either 150 pieces or 150lbs worth of material. If you send more then 150 pieces or 150lbs then there is a charge of roughly $1/lb or $1 per piece (if under one pound) for the additional items.


I don't know if they charge any extra for barrels, I send them so many dies at one time they just include the couple extra barrels I send in with the rest of the batch.

BT

[nekshot]

this is off thread but can a melonite inside and out barrel be reamed (say to a ackly imp) with a reamer or will it hurt the reamer?

[M-Tecs]

this is off thread but can a melonite inside and out barrel be reamed (say to a ackly imp) with a reamer or will it hurt the reamer?

Way to hard for HSS reamers. I use carbide reamers almost exclusively but not a snow balls chance in h**l that I will try reaming a melonite barrel with a carbide reamer. My guess would be no.

[BT Sniper]

M-tec is correct.

I have recut dies that where Nitride processed and reamed them up to the next size but is scratched hell out of my carbide reamers. I no longer risk my expensive carbide reamers in attempt to recut a die that has been nitride processed.

BT