The Armour Archive

For those of you using alloys other than mild steel (such as 410 SS, 4130, 1050), what are you using?

What are the benefits?

Do you heat treat them yourselves, or send them out?

For armour, anything from 1050 to 1070, and AEBL for stainless.
For other stuff, a much wider range. The benefits to these alloys are fairly simple heat treats that can give a wide range of characteristics.

I do the heat treats myself, or I go over to a buddy who had better/larger facilities.

4130 is readily available in large sheets, it's easy to weld and straight forward to heat treat. 410 is more expensive, but it requires less clean up because it creates less forge scale. The heat treating is nearly identical to 4130 otherwise, and I do it myself.