Question: about a winchester

is a model 90 winchester case hardened. thank you. Tom

The model 90 Winchester was blued,never saw one case hardened. J.J.

The model 1890 and some of the earlier model 99's were color case hardened.

Crap!!! That's early model 90's!

The model 90's were produced between 1919 - 1932 starting at around serial number 610,000.

mine #670043

Then it's most likely just a blued firearm.

I believe the question was is the Model 90 case hardened not if it was blued. We sometimes equate bluing with the method of hardening. There is little to no correlation between how a metal is hardened and what kind of color we can finish this same metal to. Case hardened steel can be blued, grayed, coin finished etc. There are millions of firearms that are blued and case hardened, prime example all Original Mauser Rifles were case hardened and blued with the except of a few which were "color case hardened" which had the temper colors.

Case hardening is the addition of carbon to the surface of "typically" low carbon steels to make the surface hard and leave the core soft. The metal is not the same hardness internally as it is on the surface. There are many methods of adding carbon to the surface of a low carbon steel to make it hard (case hardening). Just one of these processes is called "color case hardening" and in this particular method many of the temper color are frozen to impart the various temper colors from light straw, yellow, purple, blue, reds, grey etc in varying shades and amounts and most importantly a hard surface.

The Winchester model 90 as seen in the book "Winchester Engraving" by R.L. Wilson on page 301 is color case hardened. The Winchester Model 90 can be case hardened and blued as well as color case hardened.