CHF, CVM, Melonite, etc ?

[Erni]

MarkCO, do you know what is the relative hardness and wear difference between chrome and nitriding?

[MarkCO]

MarkCO, do you know what is the relative hardness and wear difference between chrome and nitriding?

Nitride is slightly harder and is a surface treatment, not coating. But for practical purposes, you can equate the hardness. About 60-65 for HC and about 65-70 for Nitride.

As for wear, both are better than raw steel and can be excellent based on surface prep. The issue with hard chrome (inside a barrel only) is at the gas port where the interface between the HC and the base steel is exposed. This ends up with a teardrop shaped erosion pattern that can start to cause degradation in as little as 6 or 7K, but usually not until about 15K and usually tolerable until about 30K as compared to a steel barrel that will go 10K. Some of that is gas cutting, some thermal delamination of the plating. Melonite does not have that issue and since the actual gas port is also melonited, the durability of the gas port is greatly enhanced. While I do not have a "normal life" number, testing so far is clear that a Melonited barrel will outlast a hard chromed barrel under abusive conditions by about 60%. In normal use conditions, that number might go up or down a little.

Microscopic examination of well used barrels shows significant cracking in the hard chrome for almost the entire length of 16" barrels and no such cracking of Melonited barrels.

[stenz]

So I bought this today. Should be a pretty decent set up I think. I went with a melonite barrel. Through the articles I read it seemed like a great choice and people have high praises for them.

http://palmettostatearmory.com/psa-1...-w-bcg-ch.html

[Great-Kazoo]

So I bought this today. Should be a pretty decent set up I think. I went with a melonite barrel. Through the articles I read it seemed like a great choice and people have high praises for them.

http://palmettostatearmory.com/psa-1...-w-bcg-ch.html

I grabbed a few of the complete kits, less lower receiver, when they had one of their "sales". Those are sitting till the post election PANIC.

The faxon nitride bbl i have a a dream to shoot, very accurate and easy to clean.

[Circuits]

Cool, looking forward to first AAR

[spqrzilla]

stenz, I've been shooting the twin of that upper for a couple of months now and have been happy with it. Mine seems to toss 55 grain FMJ bullets around a bit but that wasn't unexpected. I'm still working on a load for 68 grain bullets but they already show tighter groups.

[stenz]

Good to hear. I'm not looking for stainless accuracy obviously. I just wanted something that was well built, looks evil, and was priced right.

Did you get the BCG with yours? If so, how is it holding up?