Quoted:
Quoted: are you looking for general information or do you have a specific steel you need to work with?
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Looking to buy a HK registered sear (price range of $10,000) and wanted to know about "metalurgy" pertaining to extending the life of such a piece of "precious" metal. Don't want it to break now....
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Keep it lubricated. That's about all you can do.
Once it has been processed by the manufacturer the chances of you ruining it by trying to alter it are almost a sure thing. Machined parts with holes, corners, voids, etc machined into them are very hard to heattreat properly due to the irregular surfaces and cooling characteristics of varying thicknesses.
To answer your question on heat treating, on ferrous metals several things come into play as to the finished characteristics of the item. Basically, the amount of carbon content limits the hardness potential and how much carbon is trapped in a finer grain structure in the moment between solid solution and quench temp determines the hardness, toughness, maleability, machineability, etc.
There is an infinite amount of variables but that is the very basic scoop.