• This Forum is for adults 18 years of age or over. By continuing to use this Forum you are confirming that you are 18 or older. No content shall be viewed by any person under 18 in California.

Melonite services or similar

Westhunder

Please excuse typos, sent from my iPhone.
Looking for someone that is gun friendly and has ffl to do melonite treatment for several guns and barrels. I found info for one guy on the site but it was dated quite a while back... so lets update the list for myself and others that may be interested.

Just in advance, I am open to other options for metal treatment that are similar or different as long as they don't include Cerakote/duracoat or the like.
 
I spoke with reps from 3 companies that do the black nitride treatment to firearms today. It has been awhile since I have sent anything to be treated and was kind of surprised at the increase in cost. H&M Metal Processing, MMI Tru Tech, and Controlled Thermal Technologies all have FFL so they can take in actions for treatment. Barrels need to be new, with no throat wear or 'fire cracking'. The main purpose of nitride treatment is to increase surface hardness, thus extending barrel life. Add lubricity and the black color are just by-products of the surface hardening process.
 
  • Like
Reactions: EFR
shortgrass said:
I spoke with reps from 3 companies that do the black nitride treatment to firearms today. It has been awhile since I have sent anything to be treated and was kind of surprised at the increase in cost. H&M Metal Processing, MMI Tru Tech, and Controlled Thermal Technologies all have FFL so they can take in actions for treatment. Barrels need to be new, with no throat wear or 'fire cracking'. The main purpose of nitride treatment is to increase surface hardness, thus extending barrel life. Add lubricity and the black color are just by-products of the surface hardening process.
Click to expand...
From my research the barrel should be new, ...ish, recommend that the barrel be broken in. The reason being if there is an internal burr in the chamber or crown or a slight imperfection in the rifling, that the treatment, because its so hard, essentially makes it permanent. Which makes since too, you want to know that the barrel is a shooter before dropping the extra cabbage. Any idea of cost? Lets say action, barreled action, barrel, pistol, any of the for a comparison? I have spoken to several companies about their " nitriding" process and one only treated to 250 degrees and the other wasn't heat treated at all, so the term is used loosely with some. Im searching a true qpq treatment with a black finish, matte or satin, either is fine.
 
Conventional wisdom is to not nitride barrels. Those who have done it complain of terrible accuracy.
I have access to a nitride processor that I use and have had great results with. Doesn't blacken stainless, just darkens it. Max. Temp. Is 1050F, so not hot enough to affect a good stress relief.
PM me know if you want to discuss further. I am an FFL.
 
I have had many barrels Nitrided and have had NO accuracy issues. I have used all 3 of the companies I mentioned in my previous post. It takes a darned sight more then 250deg to impart a layer of nitrogen in the surface of steel (carbon or stainless)
 
What other process' are available, several years back Precision Shooting had an article about barrel/bore coatings. The primary point of the article was a process/product that I think was called J-TEX. It was a chemical surface hardening compound that was being used primarily for tooling used in oil well drilling, it was reported to have greatly increased the surface hardness and left a very smooth finish. Another one they touched on in the article was Tuff-Ride, it was a surface hardener used primarily on the connecting rod and main bearing journals of automotive crankshafts used in racing engines.
 
Twicepop said:
What other process' are available, several years back Precision Shooting had an article about barrel/bore coatings. The primary point of the article was a process/product that I think was called J-TEX. It was a chemical surface hardening compound that was being used primarily for tooling used in oil well drilling, it was reported to have greatly increased the surface hardness and left a very smooth finish. Another one they touched on in the article was Tuff-Ride, it was a surface hardener used primarily on the connecting rod and main bearing journals of automotive crankshafts used in racing engines.
Click to expand...
Tuff ride is the same thing. I’m sure the other is close as well.
 
I have used Controlled
Thermal Technology to do several of my barrels and actions [Krieger and Rem 700] I just shot them minimal time to break in and cleaned good with JB's and sent them off and they work great, Accuracy is has been very good and the actions are very slick! They only thing is you can not do a action together if they are not the same steel, [stainless or chromeoly] so you have to do the barrel and action separate if you do them because the temp that they have to be do at is different. RW
 
My 2 cents -- I've had 3 barrels nitrided, all by H&M. Use a new barrel and shoot it just enough to smooth out any chambering burs. Examine with a quality borescope that you don't have have anything you can't live with. Then clean it to bare metal. Any muzzle end threading also needs to be completed prior to nitriding.

I've never had accuracy problems with my barrels. All that said, my pet peeve is that it slows down build time. Must be assembled for barrel break-in, barrel removed,then sent for treatment, and finally put back together. $mith time costs, unless you are doing it yourself.

My nitrided barrels are on SwitchLug rifles, so it's an easier deal. Guess it would also be on barrelnut rigs.
 
Willie said:
My 2 cents -- I've had 3 barrels nitrided, all by H&M. Use a new barrel and shoot it just enough to smooth out any chambering burs. Examine with a quality borescope that you don't have have anything you can't live with. Then clean it to bare metal. Any muzzle end threading also needs to be completed prior to nitriding.

I've never had accuracy problems with my barrels. All that said, my pet peeve is that it slows down build time. Must be assembled for barrel break-in, barrel removed,then sent for treatment, and finally put back together. $mith time costs, unless you are doing it yourself.

My nitrided barrels are on SwitchLug rifles, so it's an easier deal. Guess it would also be on barrelnut rigs.
Click to expand...


Why don't you smooth the fluff from the neck and throat first? Don't need to shoot it to do that.
 
From what I can tell from a close friend who employs one of the leading companies to treat some of the critical parts that he manufactures, the salt nitride process is similar to case hardening. The use of salt nitride instead of bone meal, and the various tempture+duration time element. If this is true how is the strength factor of the actions not affected in the process as in the over hardening of the early 03-A3s that became brittle? Also, 1100° is hotter than a lot of fires that damage homes where people are told never use any of the guns damaged by the fire since they are weakened by the heat? I would love to hear from someone in the industry how this works especially from the liability stand point of re-heat treating an action.
 
To case harden low carbon steel, the 'part' needs to be of at least 1333F when quenched, to harden. That will impart minimum hardness. Most case hardening quench takes place at 1400-1550F for higher hardness. The higher the temp when quenched, the greater the hardness. Also, the higher the temp when quenched the higher the chances are for distortion of the part (warping). CM and most alloy steels with a higher than .35% carbon do not case harden well. They are best "through hardened", as they already contain enough carbon for this. The materials used for rifle barrels and actions is an alloy steel, be it CM or SS. These harden , when quenched, at a much higher temp. I heat treat 4140 annealed sometimes. To achieve optimum hardness I heat the part to 1625-1650F and then quench. I seem to recall that Isonite QPQ operates between 1050-1100F. The annealing temp for 416R is above 1350F and it hardens when quenched when the 'part' is heated to 1750-1850F. Annealing temps for 4140HT are right around 1400-1600F. The salt bath nitride process operates at temps bellow the annealing temps for the common alloy steels used for firearms.
 
Farmer John, I don't have a lot of knowledge of this, but it was a pre WW1 problem of too much heat during the forging process.
Stiller and Bat are a couple folks that offer the use Melonite on their receivers and bolts. The military has had many many thousands of barrels Melonite treated. I have had many many done.
Remember, they are not reheat treating the metal, only about a .0003 case hardening.
 
As for "re-heat treating" actions, Blanchard Metal Processing re-case hardens Mausers. Modern heat treating methods are far above what they were in the past and are highly predictable for the results.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Upgrades & Donations

This Forum's expenses are primarily paid by member contributions. You can upgrade your Forum membership in seconds. Gold and Silver members get unlimited FREE classifieds for one year. Gold members can upload custom avatars.


Click Upgrade Membership Button ABOVE to get Gold or Silver Status.

You can also donate any amount, large or small, with the button below. Include your Forum Name in the PayPal Notes field.


To DONATE by CHECK, or make a recurring donation, CLICK HERE to learn how.

Classified Ads

Forum statistics

Threads
164,739
Messages
2,183,395
Members
78,493
Latest member
Tyson84

Share This Page

Back
Top