removed barrel from action

[chucksniper]

Recently I removed a barrel from an action, an old military action. I had to heat the action to almost cherry red, was this nessesary? Has anyone here done this... The big question is it safe to use the barrel once this is done? How bout the action?

[Bama Man]

Call Jerry, at Clio Gunshop, Clio, Alabama, 1-334-397-4886, if no one here can answer that for you.
I don't know the answer, but I'll see Jerry myself Friday and ask him, and see if you've got an answer by Friday evening when I'm back here on-line.
He'll tell you straight up what your looking at. We are on Central time, so 10:00 where you are is 9:00 here.
Call him about 9:00am while he's still doing his e-mails. He usually heads back into his shop by 9:30am or so and gets busy on his lathes.
He'll be more than happy to speak with you.

[justashooter]

you have screwed the pooch, my friend. the action is now soft as butter, and the barrel is in question depending upon what temperature it acheived. you may as well take the acetylene torch you used to heat them and cut the receiver into peices so someone doesn't try to build on it and have a catastrophic failure. the barrel should be cut up to the point at which it acheived 600* F.

military bolt action rifles like K98, springfield, and arisaka that were made from 1890 to 1945 typically used a 1035-1090 steel (medium to high carbon), and were heat treated during manufacture to get high strength material properties that allowed the use of less steel in making and ensured that threads could be made on small scale, etc.

the heat treating process typically involved heating the semi-final machined part to about 1655*F to enlarge the grain structure of the steel in the interest of hardness, oil quenching to freeze the enlarged grain state, then re-heating to 400-600*F to allow some of the enlarged grains to refine to smaller grain state. this increases the grain boundary area while retaining a portion of large grain structure, upon which balance tensile strength is dependent, and by which brittleness is eliminated.

by heating the part to temps above the original temper (400-600*, usually), you have re-tempered and allowed more grain refinement, changing the balance of small/large grain ratio and making the steel more ductile (softer). if you have heated above 1655*F (bright orange) you have re-austenised the steel. allowing re-austenised steel to air cool will give you variable hardness depending upon part thickness variation, but will always result in steel that is much softer than an appropriate normalise/quench/temper cycle.

you have thrown away 40% of the material strength of the critical area of the action, for sure. you have prolly damaged the barrel beyond use, unless you just wanted to cut off a section in front of the chamber to rechamber to another purpose (example: mauser 71 bbl'd actions converted to 45/70 or 45 ACP application).

trust me on this. it's what i get paid to know. you don't want somebody to get killed over a piece of steel. destroy the receiver. next time get an appropriate action wrench block, a set of barrel vises, and a long piece of pipe.

[Pukindog]

I agree with justashooter 100%.

Jeff

[chucksniper]

will do. The main thing I was doing was to see what it looked like. The reciver is the part I made red.

[Bama Man]

Yeah, what they already said, it's trash.
What you COULD do, if you have all the old parts to make a complete rifle again, is take the barrel to a welding shop and have the chamber ruined with weld to where it will NEVER chamber a cartridge, then, pull the firing pin and spring, and even stamp on the non-bolt handle side of the receiver "non firing replica only", re-assemble and hang it on a wall, if your into those kind of decorations.
If not, heat it up again and hit it with a hammer and squash the barrel end out of round. Heat the barrel in the middle, and bend it .
Assembled, and properly deactivated, it is still worth a buck or two at a gun show either as a wall hanger or a parts piece, so, all is not a total loss.

[Pukindog]

Receiver might make a boat anchor? (small boat) Barrel could be used as a tomato stake.

Jeff

[chucksniper]

I hear yall.... I'm gonna chop it up with a sawsall.