Thread: Nitriding Rifles

I've had a few non-gun things done and it's good stuff. Good process in terms of wear. Apparently good in terms of corrosion resistance but haven't really tried to find out.

Three different kinds of nitriding - gas, salt and plasma. What you choose will be down to who does it at a good price and your metals. Basically nitriding is an industrial way of case hardening steels without risking warping. Like bluing, it's not going to hide any imperfections, and the better the surface finish you have going into the process the nicer it'll look coming out. Usually comes jet black. Also quite cheap for what you get. Don't know how it works in NZ but industry standard elsewhere is you pay by the kg of material being done. Downside is that some companies are doing their nitriding for industrial machinery and aren't super concerned about finish appearance as long as they're nitrided - will just come down to who is doing it. Also don't plan on doing any metal alterations after nitriding like drilling, engraving, finish reaming a chamber etc - grinding's about the only thing that will go through a nitrided finish.

No idea what it does to stuff like solders or non-iron based metals. Best to treat it like a gun going in for a hot bluing and remove anything that isn't steel and polish/degrease before it goes in for treatment.