Note that casing and heat treating are NOT the same thing and that is why some actions are cased AFTER they are heat treated. Annealing is a very bad idea unless there is some reason other than engraving to consider. Different composition steels are heat treated for different levels w/ different schemes. You don't know what you have and can end up with some less than optimum results just going for a guess....
have a day
Dr.WtS
My understanding of heat treating or at least hardening of steel is that the specs of a given heat treatment would not survive the temps required to case harden. The steel would likely have lost the structure that caused the hardness or at least be heavily tempered or softened.
If the engraver can cut hardened steel, they might not need to remove the hardened case if they just want to remove the colors. The tough part of a case hardened action may be the softer inside, not the harder outside.
Just wondering, Craig
