Well it all depends on what you mean by a "late high-wall action"

If it's an original Pre-1930s Winchester made action, then I know the metal composition; if its one of the newer made actions 1990 and after... I don't have a clue.

Since I do a bit of CCH, I needed to know what the old actions were made of,  took several actions cut them up and had them tested. 

v/r

Mike

Poorhouse, I have one of those actions. Thickside, Coil Spring, Takedown. Got it in an auction with a very used 30-40 Krag barrel. What appeared to be a factory Blue on the action. I mated it up to a 32-40 Takedown and have been shooting it for 5 Years, no problems. Unless you are planning on some Hot Rod caliber it will be quite safe with Schuetzen loads of soft lead and moderate loads. The Model 1885 got it's strength from Robust design not Heat Treat. Consider how many Varmint Rifles were built using Winder Musket recievers which are also dead soft.  Hiwalls have more square inches of support of the breech block than a modern Bolt action. HTH
Regards, FITZ.

Mike,
Could you tell us what the results were of the analyse?

Frank

Creedmoor

I doubt calling Winchester about a frame would provide any results. I that frame is an original 1885, the company thet manufactured it is loooong gone.

Remember in the late 20s/30 Winchester sold out to the Olin corp, then in the 60s the Olin corp leased the name to US Repeating arms, and finally in 2010 or so the actual buildings closed down, and are currently bening torn down by the city of New Haven.  The only thing remaining of Winchester is the name, which is being leased by the same company theat owns Browning and FN. 

As to the actual composition of the frames, yes, I cut up about half a dozen frames, 1886, 1892, 1894s and had them sent off to a lab to have analysed.  It was not cheap.  Not something that I would be willing to put out on the internet for all to have... Hey..it cost me a couple of grand!

Then about a year ago, at no minor expense, I purchased Winchester's "materials" manual, which lists all the materials and heat treatment of the component parts of Winchester firearms made 1895-1920. 

Frank - That's not quite true. To heat treat correctly, one needs to know the composition of the steel used in each part. 

Mike - Case hardened parts need to be cut to determine the composition of the steel underneath, but the region affected can be quite small. Parts that have not been case hardened do not need to be cut, but may suffer some cosmetic damage to a region that is not visible when the action is assembled.

Poorhouse - If your action is dead soft and never used, a commercial metallurgical lab can determine the composition of each part without damaging it significantly. The problem is that some labs won't do firearms work except for government entities.

All - I don't know whether the late thick wall coil spring actions were based on surplus early low carbon steel forgings or later carbon-manganese steel ones. Does anybody know?

Tom

Find a lab with an XRF it is a nondestructive way to do chemical analysis.

Mike - Another good thing about cutting big pieces is that you can polish and etch some sections and look at grain size and direction in a light microscope. Come to think of it, one could polish and etch some of the flat surfaces of an action and determine the percentage of pearlite (and thereby know %C) by direct measurement. That might identify a HW frame as early or late, but wouldn't provide enough detail to fully prescribe the HT. Interesting, for sure.

PH - You have an interesting puzzle. Keep us posted. 

Tom