Cobalt Boron Nitride Plating

Yesterday I posted about a P3-AT restoration I did and used this plating solution. http://www.ktog.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1200253566

I wish I could take credit for finding it, but it was specified by a customer for some custom parts we made. I had a few emails asking about it so I did some research today. The patent holder and sole distributor of the plating solution is in Germany, but they were kind enough to give me phone numbers of 3 plating shops that use it for guns. I was able to talk to 2 of them and they had nothing but great things to say about it. They both do plating for high end custom gun makers and competitive shooters.

The manufacture describes it as extremely hard and slick, abrasion resistant, low-friction, high lubricity coating that has the whiteness of Hard Chrome and the characteristics of diamond and graphite.

Hardness: 4140 gun steel blued 48 HRC - Nickel 45 HRC - Hard Chrome 65 HRC - Cobalt Boron Nitride 71 HRC

Friction Co-Efficient: 4140 gun steel blued .19 - Nickel .13 - Hard Chrome .1 - Cobalt Boron Nitride .04

Both shops plates the inside of the barrel and had similar chrono tests of a 4%-8% gain in velocity compared to a similar non plated barrel.

Now I can see why the P3-AT I plated is so smooth. The next step is to plate a slide and barrel.

 

It is not even close to what Caswell has, Caswell is more for the hobbiest and not commercial plating. Caswell is electroless, which is layered on, more like bluing. The Caswell is single stage h-BN boron, the commercial is a binary h-BN, c-BN boron plus Co Cobalt.

 

Here is how I spent my morning. I know it's a PF-9, but it is plated with Cobalt Boron Nitride. It's as smooth as silk

 

It's about 8% more than HC for chemical costs.

 

I'm really not sure if I'm going to offer it. The tank I have now is left over from an old job and would need to be replaced and I'm not sure if enough people would be interested to justify the chemicals and anodes cost.

 

If we have enough interest the pricing would be:

P-32 / P3-AT barrel and slide $78 (blued version only) Internal parts $40

P-11 / PF-9 barrel and slide $85 (blued version only) Internal Parts $40

Barrel and slides are stripped of bluing and bead blasted before plating, Internal parts are stripped, polished, plated and polished again.

 

Lynnsky,

The PF-9 is much smoother after the plating. I'm not sure what benefit you would gain from plating the barrel, you will gain less drag from the barrel to slide friction but you won't be getting the major advantage of the slide lubricant of the Cobalt Boron Nitride. Nickel is really a poor choice for gun plating, it is soft and will stain. Hard Chrome or Cobalt Boron Nitride is a much better choice for lubrication, hardness and stain resistance. I added the specs of each material:

Hardness: 4140 gun steel blued 48 HRC - Nickel 45 HRC - Hard Chrome 65 HRC - Cobalt Boron Nitride 71 HRC

Friction Co-Efficient: 4140 gun steel blued .19 - Nickel .13 - Hard Chrome .1 - Cobalt Boron Nitride .04

As you can see the Nickel isn't even as hard as the gun steel.

The good news is we can activate the nickel and plate over it.

Plating the internal parts makes the trigger pull much smoother.

As far as your more personal problem I'm not sure how the Hardness or Slickness of the plating can help you out ;D

 

Lynnsky, I will be offering the plating. The chemicals have been ordered and I should have them by the end of next week, just waiting on the truck shipping date. The prices will be what I posted earlier in this thread.

 

The plating tanks have been added, I'm balancing the ph levels now and should be making the Official announcement this weekend.