TW;
Yes I understood the R simply referred to Rockwell. I was not intending any contradiction to your post, just additional info. The Rockwell C scale is most commonly used for checking the hardness of heat-treated steel. On case hardened steel one might not get a correct reading using the C-Scale. Many small machine shops are set up to check the common C scale so was just a warning if someone had access to one, it might not be adequate. The Rockwell C tester operates by applying a known load to a diamond pyramid shaped penertrator. The machine reads the depth of penertration & converts it to a hardness number. The problem with thin cases is the penertrator will likely break through the "Case" & read much softer than it really is. If you get a reading in the low C30's but a file won't cut the case, you can bet you didn't read the actual hardness of the case.
Last edited by 2-piper; 06/05/07 09:23 PM.
