How tuff is hard chrome

[KEYBEAR]

I have a Ruger Super blackhawk in 44 Mag and need to replace the barrel . The question is can the new barrel be hard chromed then installed on the frame

[Pahoo]

The question is can the new barrel be hard chromed then installed on the frame

Yes but it's conditional or there are a number of factors to consider. I'm "assuming" you have a SS barrel. There environmental controls over this process and many local shops, no longer do this kind of work. Just going to have to work through the details. .....

Be Safe !!!

[KEYBEAR]

My question has little to do with the barrel being Hard Chrome .
I have the New Barrel in hand and going to have it Chromed then sent back to me .
I will have the barrel installed after i have it back .

[Bill DeShivs]

If you have the barrel fitted first, then chromed, you shouldn't have a problem.
Cutting through hard chrome requires carbide tools or abrasives.
Rockwell 72 hardness.

[JohnKSa]

One more thing to keep in mind is that if you want the inside of the barrel plated, you should make sure up front that they will do that.

[Unclenick]

My concern is with the plating thickness in the bore. I found one Indian spec online calling for 0.001" to 0.002" thickness for assault weapon bores, meaning bore and groove diameter would be 0.002" to 0.004" narrower after coming out of the plating bath. The same spec did show a ten-times-thinner layer requested for sniper rifle barrels, probably on the assumption rate of fire will be slow enough not to present a lot of heat to them. I lack personal experience in this area and don't know what the life expectancies for the different thickness plated bores are.

[KEYBEAR]

The Plating will not be in the barrel at all . The Ruger a Super Blackhawk had a Mag-Na -Port job and it is ported (Predator Package) it came Hard Chrome . I have a new takeoff barrel from Bowen in stainless . all i am doing is replacing the ported barrel with a non ported barrel and replat the barrel (the out side) . I bought this Ruger (unfired) little over a year ago and can not live with the porting . It has a 4.5 inch barrel and will replace it with a 4.5 non ported barrel . That is All ?

[Dfariswheel]

Armoloy of Fort Worth will hard chrome the inside of a barrel...........

http://armoloyfw.com/protect-your-fi...h-armoloy-tdc/

This has no effect on anything since this type of plating is not the thicker coating of a standard hard chrome lined bore as used in many rifles.
To be fair a couple of other plating experts told me that they doubted the bore plating was more then a "little color" as one put it, but that was years ago.

The possible problems with hard chroming a barrel THEN attempting to install it on a revolver are as follows...........

1. The barrel shoulder will need to be lathe turned to align the front sight at 12:00 o'clock.
NOTE that barrels do NOT just screw on with the sight properly aligned
Turning the barrel shoulder will be required.

2. The rear face of the barrel will need to be trimmed to set barrel-cylinder gap.
This is usually done after the barrel is installed and is done by using a special cuter tool that works down the barrel.

3. The forcing cone will need to be cut, gauged, and then lapped to a smooth finish.
Surprisingly, a shocking number of general gunsmiths have no idea this needs to be done.
The forcing cone is not just a funnel in the rear of the barrel, it's a CRITICAL area.
The critical dimension is the outer diameter of the mouth.
If the cone is too large you get poor accuracy.
Too small and you get poor accuracy AND spitting bullet metal out the barrel-cylinder gap.
The difference between too large and too small is TINY and it can NOT be eyeballed, only the plug gauge will be acceptable.

The cone is cut to the proper diameter with a special cutter that, again, works down the barrel, and a special plug gauge is used to measure it often during the process to insure it's the correct size.
After the cone is right, a brass lapping head and fine valve grinding compound is used down the barrel to smooth the cone.

The problems with all this is that the hard chrome is HARD.
The tooling can't cut it so the barrel can't be installed after plating without grinding off the plating, which defeats the purpose of having it plated to start with.

I strongly suggest you talk to you gunsmith about all this.
If for example he tries to sell you on no forcing cone work needing to be done.........find another, real gunsmith, because this one is NOT competent and you won't have a good shooting gun after he's done.

The proper procedure is to have the barrel installed and adjusted, then have it hard chrome plated.
That way the gunsmith can simply screw the finished barrel on and torque it in place.

[KEYBEAR]

The new barrel will be fitted to the revolver it will be fired and if every thing is ok then the Hard Chrome . It is being fitted by Ron Mahovsky . The Ruger has been coated before
at Mag-Na-Port years ago . I bought it unfired last year and have shot it some but
dislike the porting . The Ruger and the new barrel is in good hands

[Unclenick]

As long as they mask off the back of the barrel and its threads and shoulder to prevent the hard chrome from changing the timing, you should be good to go in that sequence. Alternately, they may just final tweak the shoulder with a toolpost grinder and a diamond point on the lathe.

Industrial hard chrome is very hard. Exactly how hard seems to depend on who you ask. I find numbers ranging from RC 65-72.