Stress relieving a barrel?

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Sockeye

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Good day. Would any members have had there barrel stress relieved by "salt bath nitriding". As well as case hardening a action and rust resistance I am wondering if there may be other benefits to this process on fire arms?
 
Stress relief is done during the manufacturing process of steel.
Stress Relieving is a heat treating process that consists of heating the steel to a temperature below the critical range to relieve the residual stresses resulting from hot rolling, welding, shearing, or gas cutting. Stress relieving does not change the material properties as does annealing and normalizing.
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Hitzy said:
Stress relief is done during the manufacturing process of steel.
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Gun barrels have been relieved of stress imparted too them during the manufacturing process of quality rifle barrels by filling them with liquid nitrogen then permitting the nitrogen to slowly escape returning said barrel to room temperature. This in turn negates most of the deformation that happens as the barrel heats when a round is fired.
 
Stress relieving is accomplished by heating the part to the appropriate temprature and holding it there for a period of time. It is then allowed to cool slowly. Freezing of barrels does not appreciably relieve stress but it may improve machinability.
 
Hitzy said:
Stress relief is done during the manufacturing process of steel.
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Not necessarily. Stress relieving is frequently performed on products assembled using steel to relieve the stresses imparted during the forming or fabrication of the product. A common form of stress relieving is post weld heat treating performed to reduce the residual stresses occurring after welding.
 
BENCHMARK BARRELS
Benchmark Barrels uses only the highest quality 416R and 4140R carbon steel in the production of our product. This ensures that our barrel is the finest you can put on your rifle.

All barrels are individually double hand lapped to a true consistent bore. The manufacturing process also includes double stress relieving and quality control inspection utilizing proprietary methods along with the most accurate industry techniques available.
 
Some rifle manufactures use hammer forging to make their barrels. These do not need to be stress relieved.

Custom barrel makers would probably stress relieve after rifling.

I do not know if Savage or Ruger barrels are stress relived. The Savages I have used do not seem to walk when I shoot long strings.
 
Cryo treatment may improve machinability but there is no evidence of any stress relief accomplished by the process. It does relieve the customer of the burden of carrying extra money around. Whether or not he gets this money back via longer life is mostly conjecture.
 
When I was still making knives we used to cyro them. I realize that steels are different but on those we picked up 2-3 Rockwell points and completely changed the edge holding capability. That was easily provable. What it does to 416 or 4140 I don't know but won't be ruling anything out.
 
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Leeper said:
Cryo treatment may improve machinability but there is no evidence of any stress relief accomplished by the process. It does relieve the customer of the burden of carrying extra money around. Whether or not he gets this money back via longer life is mostly conjecture.
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I don't think the folks running high stress engine parts would agree with you. If it imparted no advantage, NHRA, IMSA, F1, DHRA etc would not be so heavily into it.
 
Like I said,it improves machinability and surface finish. It is said to improve tool wear. While it may well do all these things, it has not been shown to be effective as far as stress relief is concerned.
 
Leeper said:
Like I said,it improves machinability and surface finish. It is said to improve tool wear. While it may well do all these things, it has not been shown to be effective as far as stress relief is concerned.
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The peer reviewed white papers disagree. However on critical aspect of cryo treatments is the re-warming of the barrel to room temperature. If not performed correctly the cryo process will not be properly done.

https ://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4bcc/77549c2aa75c9573d2cc2e49c1d470ce53e8.pdf
 
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