Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Metallurgy of chromoly gun steel question

I've recently learned that I have developed an allergic contact reaction to Potassium dichromate. Also Cobalt Hexahydrate. From what I have seen I pretty much need to keep from touching most metals directly.

What I am wondering is what the makeup of a chromoly gun steel is? The use of the word chrome is almost slang like so it's hard to know for sure. Most of my guns are stainless with the exceptoion of dad's old model 94, my shotgun, and my 10-22.

FWIW my best guess as to potential cause aside from frequently working with metals/mechanics is years of wearing unlined leather gloves and getting them wet be it with sweat or water. Chromate in tanning leather is quite common.

Most of it is 4140, but others are used.

here's a composition chart:

http://www.scotforge.com/charts/sf_steel_alloy.htm

Looks like 416 has even more cr. Guess I'm allergic to my guns too. Man this sucks!

Get them coated with one of the teflon or ceramic finishes.

It seems unlikely to me that enough of those compounds would leach out of the solid metal of a firearm to cause a reaction. Constant contact with wet chrome tanned leather gloves might be a different story. If there are any Dermatologists on the 'Fire please chime in.

I haven't quite kicked the reaction yet, but it's nowhere as severe as it was. I'm supposed to have a follow up visit coming up soon and I'll ask some more.

One of the best sites that I found is here:

http://www.dermnetnz.org/dermatitis/chrome-allergy.html

I scored on 3 items:

Potassium dichromate

Cobalt hexahydrate

Bisphenol epoxy A

P.S> I'm pretty sure that I react to my Lazyboy and leather couch...

None of these barrel steels have that crap in them. Bluing may be a different story but it is probably pretty well neutralized by the time a consumer gets a hold of it.

Probably one of the hardest parts is the fact that reaction does not show for days and can last weeks so it's hard to know what actually caused an outbreak.

Potassium dichromate (chrome) seems to be everywhere. I figured the cr in chromoly and 416 ss would be related.

Treated lumber and leather are probably the worst, but just to be safe I've been wearing gloves rather than handling bolts/screws/tools etc. Tough to do after all these years and especially since mechanicl work is part of my business.