I heard the Earth is flat. I heard it is bad luck to walk under a ladder. I heard that a lone gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald killed a sitting President with an Italin Carcano rifle with a scope not properly fitted to the rifle.


When it comes to the Howa I hear all kinds of ignorant things online from people the most frequent is "The Howa 1500 is not strong enough it has a cast receiver.". For the record that is not true it has a forged receiver.That makes it vastly stronger and more expensive to make than 99% of the actions made in America.

If anything would react badly it would be the bottom metal which is aluminium but no one with 2 or more brain cells would put them in the salt bath at the place doing the process.

It is possible that something in the steel is reacting but not likely since a steel mill is providing Howa with their steel so it will be very pure and a common steel allow.

I would ask all these people parroting that they do not do well to put forth some evidence of this and a scientific reason for this. I would also contact the place you want to do the work and ask them directly instead of hoping to get an intelligent and well informed response off the internet.

Even when talking about strong ammonia to clean bores it is normally impurities in the steel that react Hatcher had no way of knowing this though and that is why they thought it was random. I would also remind you that there are many types of surface hardening that do not use the heat that salt baths do and that are not as potentially corrosive.

There are still relics living that think the Japanese make junk and have junk steel and think European cars are the mark of quality which is actually backwards and reversed.

I am thinking about making a trip to Ohio in the next 6 months to drop off some parts since I am only one state away. If they let me I will take some photo's. Take care!

I am sure you know this already but a nitrided surface is hard on tooling so any machine work that you want to do do it before the parts are treated. Also the biggest issue is the solution not being completely rinsed out of spaces where threads and gaps can retain it. So it is best to have the rifle broken down as completely as you can if you want to eliminate this as a possibility.The down side is trying to put the barrel back on for example with out marring the new finish.

No this is not a process that builds significantly on the surface like chrome does or electroless nickle and the like.

Last edited by JohnLittleTree; 03/10/19.