Looks like a real good start. How did the hardness turn out when tested with a file?
Chuck

After reviewing my video of the quench I believe my furnace is running a bit hot. Using steel temp color charts, I believe the kiln may be 200 degrees hot.

I did the test at night and really if the crucible tried to fall to a "red" color Id not see the red. Not sure how the color charts are calibrated, in daylight or not. Everything in total darkness looks bright orange. 

From the video I have a bright orange crucible in total darkness.
At quench its simply orange.
A couple min after its dark orange and almost showing no color. A minute after that or so the crucible was not showing any color and never was it ever red in hue. It goes from bright orange to dark/no color in a couple minutes with no red stages. I have to be seeing the orange due to working in the dark at night.

Ill need to get another thermometer and calibrate the furnace.

Im trying to pull pics off the video to post.


FOLLOWUP: I downloaded the ipad video to my main machine and reviewed. I have a RED diner style ketchup bottle, squeeze type, I use for way oil. You know the restaurant type. ITS RED, not orange,RED. In the video it looks orange, as orange as my crucible.
I think I am OK on temps. Ill still try to get a laser temp off of it next time I run it to verify.

Hey I think thats an admirable attempt.
The fact that you got colour at 1350 is excellent. Not just grey and blistered blue.

I for one value your efforts and the time it takes to post them.

So unfortunately there are a lot of variables to test.
Air quantity and quality
Shielding
Drop height
Water. I think your on the right track using rainwater. but there are the additives. Ive seen several references that suggest workmen were encouraged to pee in the quench barrel at one company.....I havent the foggiest what that does to the water.

As well in my own fooling around I found out quickly that highly polished steel shows the colour more vividly. By polished I mean polished on a buffer

I broke down and rust removed the receiver then polished to 320, Polish took very little time. The brownells really works well at giving you a white bit of metal.

I then prepped a stevens 107b receiver. It was very vividly cased in protected areas, after I simple greened it in ultrasonic tank the real colors came into view below the trigger guard area and the tang section. So I saw what a real savage stevens case looked like and mine was crap respectively. 

I believe my furnace was about 50-100 degrees over temp, partially confirmed tonight by me adding a 32 deg C offset and measuring a crucible at 500 C. The crucible at center mass was officially at 501 C, my thermocouple(s) both new and old are measuring the same voltage but that voltage is 2mv lower minimum than the core temp of the oven.
Tomorrow I have a long probe digital arriving and will measure the center temp via the peep hole for absolute confirmation. I'll be able to measure all the way to full temp with it and not top out at 500. Plus accuracy will be significantly higher than the laser measure used tonight. I feel pretty good that my temps were 100 or less high. Worst case is I normalized at 1725 instead of 1625. Grain growth is a possibility but I'll pray tonight that I avoided it. 

Tomorrow I will degrease the receiver, pack it again and this time will leave the water at a very subtle roll. As with my audio gear I have designed, one param at a time only can be changed or the test is not valid. Old water, only 1 hour of aeration pre quench, low roll at quench and I will be able to raise the water level to within 1/2'inch of crucible. I will lower my temp or rather I will HAVE lowered my temp nearly 100 degrees. My target will be still 1350 but I'll hit 1350 dead on for sure this time. Officially the one param changed is the water bubbles and as a byproduct of calibration, certainly a 100 degree F drop in process temp. I've seen stuff done at 1400 using all brownells product and it's looks superb. 
I'm going to stick with the high temp for this run, I'll back off 100 degrees on the next run and try high and low water turbulence. I might as well experiment. My buddy is going to do hardness tests for me. I'm also going to cut the receiver in half giving me two test samples. Cya tomorrow night.

Shotgun receiver part two: the do-over

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This was modest aeration during the quench, second quench on the water, 1350F, with a very fast rate of process, 1 hour soak, 1 inch headspace to quench surface. No shielding, no drop controls. And no extra parts to create better shielding wired to it.
400 grit polish only, by hand. 1 hour draw at 350F. Dipped in Brownells water displacing oil.

Way to go, thanks for the follow up pictures.

You may be aware of it, but if not, there's a Dr. Gaddy article on doublegunshop. Look under the DG Journal, index entries from past issues, volume 7 issue 4. It may help with what's going on and why, and maybe some fine tuning.

Very excellent effort. And nice colours too.

Fear not a lot of people are watching this with great interest. And you've inspired me to give it another go. I have a Belgium Double sitting here just crying to have the CC redone.

I've ordered another pail of wood from Brownell's(still have lots of bone). The added variable on my part is I have a gas fired oven. A homemade job that sits outside. It's served me well for any case hardening I need to do around here and my total investment is $150 rather than $2K+
Then only downside is I have to sit right there for the duration to regulate the fire

Am planning to try this in future,   Been following with much interest.  Very informative and good  story........even the digressions
Thanks,

-06