Help to identify metal

[Kevin the grey]

I got a nice piece of metal from a guy who used to get metal from a militairy base . This metal was blued beautifully . Almost a mirror blue . Is this an indication of quality . It may be that blueing is not a direct indication of the type of metal . I don,t think they would blue just anything .
Also if I anneal it to work with it . Will it destroy the blueing ?

For the most part I am going with known metals . This piece just happened to come my way .

 

[AwP]

I got a nice piece of metal from a guy who used to get metal from a militairy base . This metal was blued beautifully . Almost a mirror blue . Is this an indication of quality . It may be that blueing is not a direct indication of the type of metal . I don,t think they would blue just anything .
Also if I anneal it to work with it . Will it destroy the blueing ?

For the most part I am going with known metals . This piece just happened to come my way .

A nice blueing doesn't indicate quality, it's just how nice of a polish was put on the metal before blueing. Since it's from the military I doubt they'd blue something just to make it pretty, which means most likely it's some sort of non stainless steel. Whether or not it's hardenable is still questionable, you could do a quench test to find out. Heating it will destroy the blueing.