17-4 stainless anyone?

[klokwork]

Hello everyone! I'm Drew Klok I'm a fairly new engraver. Most of my work has been in titanium on pocket knives so far. I want to engrave a custom slide for a Glock. The custom made slides are 17-4 stainless. I'm curious if this would be a good steel to engrave??

 

[Mike Fennell]

It appears that the aftermarket stainless steel slides can be engraved. Gordon Alcorn did a marvelous engraving on a stainless steel slide for his Glock which won the 2019 FEGA Best Engraved Modern Firearm Award at the Las Vegas Convention. A photo taken by Sam Welch will be posted at fega.com and published in the next issue of The Engraver Magazine.

 

[graniteguy52]

Thanks Mike,

The Glock slide I engraved was 416 Stainless that cut as nicely as any Stainless that I have engraved. I do not know the engraveability of 17-4, but suspect it could be hard since 17-4 is used for items that require hardness and corrosion resistance (Wikipedia), however it is magnetic which I have been told IS a sign of engraveability.

It looks as if Lone Wolf Distributors has discontinued the 416 slides:
Discontinued slides
(https://www.lonewolfdist.com/Detail.aspx?PROD=80619&CAT=247)

If you have been engraving titanium of the 6AL4V variety, you should be able to engrave some harder materials.

Sorry, I'm not more help.