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Barrels are normally hardened, not only to stand up to firing but to withstand the battering of locking and unlocking, especially in guns like the BHP and 1911 type where the locking lugs take a beating and the barrel is stopped by impacting on the frame. A soft barrel won't last long.
As to sabotage, no one ever said that every gun, or even the majority, were sabotaged. But that does not mean that none were, and skipping heat treatment and hardening of parts would be a good method as it would not be detected until the gun was fired at least a few times. If the failure occurred in proof testing or was easily detected by inspection, the perpetrator(s) would have been found and dealt with.
Jim
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