CRA (Cold Rolled Annealed) steel has a bright smooth finish and is easy to machine, drill and grind.
CRA means cold rolled annealed and is important to be in the description. It means the steel was pressure rolled while cold but was annealed again to relief the stress and take it to the softest state from rolling under tremendous pressure.
HR means hot rolled and this steel was rolled to thickness usually during the smelting process but maybe later. The steel generally will be half or nearly fully hard depending on the type. It may often have mill scale residue. This steel can be easily forged. It can also be ground via stock removal. Drilling a hole in the tang maybe hard to do with out a carbide bit.
HRA is the same but the steel was later annealed to relieve stress and make it as soft as possible for easier machining. Several companies produce "powder" smelted steels. This is a premium smelting process that improves the mixing of alloy content and generally produces a finer grain structure as a result. The powder steels are nearly always annealed and can be assumed to annealed unless noted otherwise.
