Ball bearing hardness tester?

Look around for a testing standard block around 60hrc. You may get lucky and find a deal on a used tester in your area. If you have the test block you can see how accurate the tester is before purchasing. You could also get a piece of hardened steel tested at a local machine shop for pretty cheap and use that.

The most important thing is consistent results. Doesn't really matter too much if you read a couple points high or low. Once you have a tester you can make several coupons and test them to get the optimal hardness and ht recipe.
 
If you have the luxury of time you can find them pop up on craig's list and other auction sites quite reasonable. I picked up a nice working bench top model for $90 that had been serviced and calibrated within 10 months of the listing on fleabay. The key is to watch for mis-spellings and listings based on actual model names. In this case it was an induction heat treat shop about an hour away from me that was closing up due to the owner retiring. The unit that I purchased had a broken lens on the bezel and some carbon grunge on the body, but still read the 45 and 62 HRC NIST traceable hardness standards within a tight group. IMHO the bench top units are so much nicer than the portable style.
 
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