Vacuum Heat Treating of a 44 Mag Finger Lock

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With our solid commitment to providing quality service to the manufacturing community, Nelson Heat Treating Co., Inc. has many long term clients in the firearms industry. The finger lock highlighted here, was designed for use in a .44 Magnum. This is just one example of a project we completed for a noted manufacturer of this large bore revolver.

Constructed from 0.006″ thick 420 steel, the finger lock measured one inch in length. To harden the part, we used a vacuum heat treating process. Because heating steel to a high temperature causes it to rapidly oxidize, our vacuum furnace provided a contaminant-free environment that enabled us to process the steel components with little to no surface oxidation. Our computer-driven furnace allowed us to program the sequencing and monitoring of precise temperature and atmosphere controls, which produced minimal distortion, uniform tensile strength, and scale-free results. For this alloy to achieve Rockwell hardness in the 45 to 49 range, the temperatures in the furnace needed to reach 1850°F.

Highly accurate hardness testing was used to validate conformance to the customer specification, with ongoing production at rates from 1 pound up to 5,000 pounds per production run. Our ability to store and recall the process parameters enables us to ensure metallurgical repeatability from run to run. Turnaround time is three days for smaller batches up to five days for the larger quantities.

If you are interested in learning more about this project or any of our heat treating processes and capabilities, please contact us today.