I thought the P07/P09 barrels were black nitride "treated."
I've read, numerous times, about how many gunsmiths will not attempt to increase the leade at the front of the chamber due to the hardness of the barrel metal damaging their chambering/reaming tools.
On this forum, I mentioned one time about how clean/shiny my P07 barrel gets with just a couple dry patches after shooting lead bullets and someone said it was because the barrels are nitrided to make them harder/smoother.
Not an expert, just repeating what I've read.
Hot? Humid? Sweaty?
Picture of my P07 after a couple/three hours at the range on a summer day here in central VA and the 30 to 40 minute ride home in the holster under my shirt. Wouldn't have gotten any wetter than if I'd been caught out in a heavy rainstorm (done that, too, but the sweat is more corrosive than the rain.)
They are, but as it was explained to me by someone at CZUSA, when I called, the barrels are finish reamed after nitriding why? I don't know, assuming that's correct, and knowing that nitriding is a surface treatment, the minute you stick a finishing reamer in the chamber and remove metal you're removing any benefit that nitriding would've had. And, now you're left with the chamber in the white..As far as reamers go, sure a nitrided barrel would ruin a reamer made from high speed steel, (which is the most common) but a carbide reamer, nitriding won't hurt it a bit as carbide is much harder than nitride which usually, on a pistol barrel, will run about 70 on a Rockwell C scale, (that's what the folks who nitrided my barrels told me..) So, a nitrided barrel can be reamed, with the right reamer. But carbide reamers are expensive, and I'm thinking about the only place you'll find them is some place where they're going to get used alot, carbide stays sharper,longer, than HSS, so I'm thinking at the manfacturing level..
One thing I've found out about sweat, and those of you who drink lots of coffee like I do, or smoke, may want to pay attention..I have in my safe a mag for a PX4 compact that was Robar'ed twice, and it's rusted, pitted on one side. This mag was used as a reload, and carried daily by me it rubbed up against my body I sweat on it and in about 2-3months it began peeling, and rusting..I contacted Robar,sent them pics, and they were shocked..They paid for me to ship the mag back, and bead blast it and recoat it, I got it back, and in about a month it was rusting again..I contacted Robar again, sent them more pics, about 30minutes after sending the pics, I get a phone call from Robar.. They told me over the phone that they were quite concerned about the failure of the coating on my mag, and would I mind if the person who invented the Robar coating called me and talked to me? No problem I told them, I figured I hear something in a day or two, but about 45 minutes later this person called.. He explained that when Robar recoated the mag the second time around that there was probably still rust in some of the smaller pits, and that as bad as it was pitted, it should've been thrown in the trash. Then, he asked me two questions which I thought at the time, were odd. Did I smoke, and do I drink coffee? I told him I don't smoke, but I do drink coffee, how much he asked? Oh, I'll drink a pot all by myself I told him, Ok, he said, I think we found the problem, he told me that people who drink alot of coffee, or smoke alot have higher than usual levels of Urick (sp?) Acid in their system, that when combined with your already acidic sweat makes for a highly corrosive sweat/acid and this plays hell on blued, or on steel surfaces left in the white. This made sense to me, as I've always had trouble carrying a reload if the mag was made from steel and blued, they'd rust like crazy, in just a few weeks. Up to that point, Glock mags were the only ones that I did'nt have a problem with..So, he had a replacement made up for me at no cost, but he double plated it with eletroless nickel, and then robar'ed it.. I later sold the PX4..Lately, I've been using renaissance wax on my blued mag I use as a reload, I put a couple of coats on every couple of weeks or so, and so far, that seems to work, I also have 4 mags for my P01, I had plated with eletroless nickel by a plating shop about 30 miles from me, and those have held up well, I think I need to gather up some mags and go back up there they did an excellant job, and the turnaround time was about two weeks, which compared to Robar is about 2 months or more..
