Dave,

I bought some of this steel from Brownells about 10 years ago and have fabricated
firning pins from it that have survived many 1000's of rounds in half a dozen
rifles:

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/ns/sto...%22+STEEL+RODS

It's pricey, but it works. I had to replace the all firing pins in my Rem 788's
because the originals were flat sided and kept eating up the firing pin springs
and jamming up the actions (wouldn't open). This is good stuff and a little goes
a long way. It machines very well.

FWIW, I tried drill rod and had breakage problems with it. Probably because of
my lack of skill at heat treating. This stuff requires no heat treatment.

Highly recommended.

Mike Eberlein

Dave Hinz wrote:

On Sat, 18 Mar 2006 10:57:29 GMT, Gunner wrote:
On 17 Mar 2006 18:16:42 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:

(4140)

Any thoughts on where I should shoot for on the
hardening?

50-52//just as a gut feeling.
Is the sear carried on the bolt?

No, but of course that leads to the followup question. The firing pin
on the 1927a1 rides with the bolt, and is a piece of 1/8" flatstock cut to
an interesting contour. I made a new one (broke the firing pin tip off
of the original one due to my sear spring reduction experiments).
However, after only a few hundred rounds, the firing pin where it mates
with the sear, is showing rounding. It's unknown alloy. An point in
trying to harden that, at least in the part which meets the sear? I'm
completely ignorant of heat treating, which is pretty obvious at this
point, but I'm thinking get that local area of the firing pin up to
cherry red or so, and quench in oil?

Without knowing the alloy, I know it's a crapshoot. But knowing the
person I got these materials from, if it's newer than 1970 technology
I'd be shocked. Any thoughts?