Wait, he just walked up and told you how to rate your own record? That is wild, and the fact that he nailed it with the drum sound makes it even crazier.

So what was the actual quench speed on that 10w30, did the guy even measure it or just dunk and hope? Motor oil has additives and detergents in it that mess with the cooling curve, so even fresh 10w30 is way slower than a fast oil like parks 50. I ran a batch of 1084 through canola once at 1450 and got maybe 58 hrc on a good day, so I'm not shocked the used oil gave him nothing. The part I want to know is whether he normalized it first or just went straight from the forge to the quench, because that changes everything. If he skipped the normalizing step then the oil is only half his problem. What did the grain look like when you broke it?