Titanium nitride (gold ish) terminus action

[Safety_3rd]

So I’m a terminus fan for sure. Love the quick change, 60 degree bolt throw, threaded trigger pins, and they look cool as shit. So I built out a Gucci rifle and picked up a titanium nitride (I think) action.

Well fuck me… I haven’t shot this yet (barrel is a 22gt and haven’t loaded anything yet). So I’ve just cycled the action a few times…. But the nitride has already worn off where the bolt slides. I reached out to Joel, who’s awesome and a great guy, and he said it’s normal wear.

I thought these were supposed to be hard as shit. None of my dlc or black nitrided actions wore anywhere near this quick.

Thoughts? Is this normal wear? There is no wear on the bolt at all.

 

[R_A_W]

Did you wipe it with solvent, some of that could just be the nitride residue from the bolt wearing off onto the TiN… although the grey part does look like wear to me

 

[Safety_3rd]

Yes, it is bare steel for sure...

 

[45-90]

It looks a bit premature for wear to me. Here are two cutting tools both used one 3 flute heavy hogging in 10 hp cnc mill, lots of parts shows heavy wear but most of the coating still intact even as the carbide is worn down.
The other is Chinese high speed TiN coated, but has cut fair number of parts 700 pcs, in softer metals but it shows no wear.
These are cutting tools under high pressure and high heat.
So your rifle TiN coating is very thin, as all basically are, but maybe ultra thin. Assuming it was properly applied.
It's Not as good as Chinese cutting tools, which is pretty bad.
Doesn't affect performance, just looks...on the rifle action application.
There are better, more durable finishes & coatings.
TiN would not be my choice of finish on a rifle or handgun, it wears and looks bad when it wears. So it will always get worse, as it wears.
It's even old school on cutting tools.

 

[Safety_3rd]

Yea, I agree. I expect wear over time but this is unfortunate. I am curious who did the nitriding, I assume it was done out of house.

 

[45-90]

Yes, disappointing.
The appearance is not quite right, my cutting tools have a deeper gold and finer grain, on the more expensive ones.
Its applied by physical vapor disposition, usually requires a fair investment to do it right, but small units for smaller parts can be had.
Some shops would invest in this, some would send it out.
I worked for a high end manufacturing facility that would do some, like electrolysis nickel. Others require a licensed chemical handler depending on process involved.
I obviously do not know if they did this in house, but the standard wear statement, with only cycling a few times without even firing, seems a bit lame. Seems like they'd like to have happy customers.

You can pay to have the finish reapplied, as TiN PVD companies exist to apply the coating ...one could call to get bids...the only problem it's a firearm, that's assembled, FFL to handle, that may or may not be part of their business..but it makes things more difficult...but one could check in it in your area.
It won't hurt anything as is as far as functionality, and much of it will probably wear of quite swiftly once in actual use, but it appears, ya didn't get what ya paid for.