Thanks, guys. Most regular steel barrels are mildly heat treated 4140 Chrome-Moly. You just have to be careful welding on them since they have enough carbon to harden and get brittle. I would hate to have the shifter snap off in my hand! It's a shame I didn't have a stainless barrel. I could have just polished it and skipped chrome.

As to just having a barrel laying around. I used to be an avid shooter. Both for fun and various competitions. When your shooting buddies find out that you can do machine work, there's always going to be someone with a "little" gunsmithing job they want done. This one was from a rebarreling job to another caliber and we had to cut it at the receiver shoulder to get it off the action, so it was pretty much useless after that as a barrel.