I've seen two forearm irons crack in the same area that hadn't been re-case hardened. One was on a GHE-20ga that I was purchasing from a well known dealer in Parkers that had done some work to the gun himself.
When I was buying that gun & it was in the inspection period. I found a crack in the forearm iron at the exact spot this iron is cracked. I liked the gun and decided to call Brad Bachelder to get his advice on if the crack was repairable. Brad explained that it's fairly common to see cracks at that thin spot, his opinion based on some of his experiences was that a good portion of the irons cracking in that location was due to over tightening the iron mounting screws and poor wood to metal fit where the iron is bedded in the wood. These are old guns, wood can shrink, change shape, get oil soaked & people work on the guns which can change fit as time goes on. Brad told me that even he had cracked a couple of irons in that location until he figured out what to watch out for when assembling a Parker forearm.
I'm not saying the OP's take about his forearm being over hardened isn't correct, I'm just giving a different perspective based on my experiences and Brad's knowledge he shared with me.
Brad repaired that GHE forearm with laser welding and you couldn't tell where it was repaired.
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