Hello, thank you for the fast reply!
I'm working in a side blast forge with cokes.
c45 is very similar to 1045 , should at least heat treat similar to 1045 as far as I know but maybe someone with more knoweledge about alloys will chime in.
for the rc, I tested it (read bang together and look at the dents xp) against a piece of c45 that I heat treated sucsesfully. should be about 50rc I recon (some testing it against files , testing it for rebound banging it againsdt other pieces of steel :p) i don't have a RC measuring device nor some of those testing files so the only thing i can do at the moment is look at what the steel does compared to other pieces with a known or at least better known rc. If you know a good way to accurately test the rc (without having to dish out large amounts of money) please do tell. bottom line is,the hardness i'm getting is softer than what I'm used to which would be spearheads and hammers, all be it smaller ones about 30mm square and poleaxes also about 30mm square)
As far as the thickness of the axe goes. The beard is only about 1/5 of an inch in thicknes and the edge itself is 2,5mm (blunt axe head for reenactment) and there was enough scaling indeed, don't have a power hammer and have to do everything by hand without a stricker. relatively heavy stoch 40mm square and upset it for more material at the blade end.