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Good information, and my response should have taken that into account.
One point, though, is that case hardening was not used to harden cheap or low quality steel, it was used to surface harden iron. In the days before and for a good while after the Civil War era, most gun frames and larger parts were not made of steel but of wrought iron, which could not be hardened. The hardening was primarily to prevent wear from the working of the internal parts, not to prevent wear from outside sources. The color was a by-product and not necessary to achieve hardness - it was cosmetic.
After steel was widely adopted in the gun industry, surface hardening was still used, but color case hardening was reduced or eliminated except where it was retained (as by Colt) for cosmetic reasons.
Jim
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