sn0wflake

You do understand that this is PVD and is being by most of the gun manufacturers, cutting tool, and engine parts manufactures? It is applied at 300-350. I know exactly what it is, and its a very thin coating compared to 0,3mm plasma nitride. would you agree? Lets face it, you can have untreated steel at like 30 hrc and if lubed well it will last 100k rounds. With nothing! this is not the problem. I am an ex machinist, and have worked with everything Sandvik and Seco has to offer (I greatly prefer Seco for everything, Sandvik for turning only, they have better geometries), and most other stuff is crap, the expections being Seco and Sandvik inserts. And possibly Iscar from israel. We had salesmen having us try out whatever crapola they could find and nothing ever performed better than the variates we used for like 10 years. Not in money nor time, nor durability, and time is money. Most of the gold titanium nitride on drill bits wear off in like 30 seconds, because its just a cheap cosmetical coating, but if you for example buy Dormer drill bits, its done right and it lasts for many many hours, since its done correctly. yeah go figure. 5 micron coating? are you kidding me? on a butter soft matrix. What is the expectations here really? Cant be very high. He said he dinged it on a soft screw and the coating came off. Good luck trying that with like 0,1mm or maybe 0,3mm plasma nitride, you will going through at least 10 kilos of screws before you see even a scratch in that nitride layer. I dont care if ALL gun manufacturers use PVD whatever coatings, if its a joke its still a joke in my book (I know for a fact that there is really really good treatments, I have first hand experience, my own eyes (and having wrenched machines that use thick nitridedes for many many years) I'm guessing you would wear through like 200 holsters before you wear through a 0.1 or 0,2 mm correctly nitrided coating on a gun (like shown in this very thread) but thats just me. Hey I'm no gun doctor or anything but I know pretty much how it works with metals.

I see, so there is no need to worry it goes bad after after a few k rounds. I'm good with lubing things. I have access to whatever industrial lubes I want. For free too. I prefer molykote (have a 5kilo cannister at work) for pretty much everything metal on metal. I use this for everything, I just thin it down with motor oil to get the penetration/flow/thickness I need. Into chains for example, since my molykote is a grease it wont go into chains by itself. I have a special kind that is made for roller bearings that is made for a one time lube and then it should last for the entire life of the bearing. Its very good imo. I was thinking about getting a sig 226 slide/x5 short frame hybrid that comes that way from the factory and they guarantee 1,5 inches at 25m with good ammo. It was a special run. I was made with the 226 slide and its extractor for durability and dependability. its also production approved. My second choice would be a 9mm infinity. Also that one was built for a company here so there is not choices for me to make as to customizing it, its already built, and in stock, and stock is running out. Thats ok with me though. Its probably very good as it is. I just wanted to know, since I will be competing in accuracy biased competitions more than run n gun types. And i want a gun that will do both for at least 30-40k without no accuracy degradation. I dont know about these things, so I ask. Maybe it was a stupid question, I dont know? But now I know how it works. thanks you everybody that has responded.

Hard chrome is about 68hrc hardness and can me made thick. The ionbond method/process sounds more like its a cosmetic finish and not a really durable one, hey its 5 microns thick. Plasma nitriding can be made 0,3mm thick. I work with plasma nitrided wear parts. Sometimes we have to send these out for machining, they have to use diamond cutters for this, precision ground ones. I'd say if you want a durable no nonsense finish you have to resort to the old tried and true ones like carburizing/straight nitriding/nitrocarburizing/carbonitriding. The rest is just cosmetic fluff imo. All the durable treatments are high temp like 550deg C, so make sure they parts you are treating are tempered at around 500C or so. Because they will be once the treatment is done! whith the corresponding hardness/strength that that tempering temp will give you. Look at glock, they use a nitrocarburizing process of some sort and it lasts a long time. But what they do is that they select the steel quality before this is all done, a steel quality that benefits from this, its like its all a package, the nitriding is not an afterthougth its was there from the start. But from what I have seen and can read out (reading between the lines) most gun parts employ a high temp tempering (500C+), like 4140 at 32hrc. this is quite soft and weak if you ask me, maybe go up to a a 0,5C% steel and temper that to 40hrc instead. I mean the base metal that the coating adheres to has to be sufficiently hard so it wont deform when dinged. Because when the base metal deforms a hard coating will chip. Less so with straight nitriding coating though. It goes so deep. Paint for example is plastic. ceracoat is just a plastic with some ceramics in it. and the thinner you put on paint the better, since when you ding and deform the base metal the paint just follows the ding without chipping. the thicker it is the longer it takes to wear it down but the easier it chips. Nitridied parts never ever rust if done right. I have been keeping some nitrided (plasma) stuff outside for over a year in the rain and it just doesn't rust, its diffusion proof. Its more rust resistant that stainless steel and hard chrome. 416 ss that is common in guns is not that stainless to begin with, no hardenable stainless is really really stainless. Except maybe 17-4ph but thats an aging quality. You get the hardness and strength from "aging" it. that is you insert it in a oven at an elevated temp for a long time, until the alloying elements starts to precipitate out and get stuck between the crystals in the matrix preventing them from moving, thus making it harder. Anyone tried just regular nitriding in a kiln at 550C with some ammonia gas (or whatever they use now) in there to a depth of 0,1mm or so? I think that will beat pretty much all these exotic micron deep coating for wear and durablility by a factor of like 20-30 or so. Would be cool to see some data though. Its not very pretty though. Personally I wouldn't send out any small parts at all for any kind of treatment unless I knew it was tempered at above 500deg C, and all small parts like sears and such should be hard, like 50hrc plus. So its highly unlikely they used a 500C plus temper on those, since they would be rubber soft then, unless they make them out of HSS or stainless knife steels (and those materials are not very well suited for that job). These above are "secondary hardening", that is: above a certain temperature when the "matrix" of the steel goes soft, (it gets softer the higher you temper it, all steel does) carbide formation will begin, usually at approx 500deg C (the carbide forming elements in the steel robs the matrix for carbon, and makes complex multimetal carbides with these, MMCs) and then the carbides that are very hard will make the overall measurements indicate a harder/stronger material, but still you have specks of hard carbides in a soft and weak matrix. Thats how it works pretty much. I sometimes read books. And this knowledge has been known for at least 60-70 years. Good luck.

I dont know what a LAMR is or does. but yeah if I see the first round go in without problem I expect at least another 500 to do that too. At least.

I like to keep all guns horizonthal to the ground and looking into the ejection port when loading/charging them so I can see the round go in and no weird stuff happening. When the load command has been given in the sports I do its only like a few seconds left until we start shooting. so therre is no need or time to second guess that loading process. But hey if you see it go in, it has gone in, and you saw it do that, no need to check it another time imo. I still like the "just in front of the ejection port" location for serrations though. It just cant get any more ergonomic and better than that imo. Sadly no one makes guns like that.

Probably depends on how old you were when you started getting 1" groups at 25 yards .... At 71, I can't remember the last time I shot that tight a group. But seriously, I would imagine that you would lose accuracy with any gun, and it would be slower in a well-made, tight gun than a gun of less quality. But, probably depend on each individual gun ... I mean mechanical accuracy or what the gun can perform at best. Its a theoretical question. I'm not a 1 inch shooter. I can get a few (1 or 2) 2 inch groups though every training at 25m. It requires my full concentration and usually I can't simply do it for more than 4 shots in a row unfortunately.

edited: thats interesting.

Not everyone.A friend bought a Les Baer and a .45 case head rupture cracked the frame in 6 places - to the point where the mainspring fell out of the frame with the retaining pin intact. Les explained that this sort of damage was normal for a case head rupture, but he stands behind his work so he would offer $50 off the price of a new gun. The brass case head showed the typical rupture where the brass blew out at the unsupported part near the head. There was no indication or barrel obstruction or blowout beyond this one part of the case. The frame was sent to a metallurgical research lab where it was subjected to chemical, photomicrographic, and nital etch analysis. The chemical composition of the "forged" frame was "fully within specifications" for 1141 hot rolled resulphurized steel, with a Rockwell hardness between B82 and B83 as measured at 5 points on the frame. The parallel nature of the manganese-sulfide stringers showed no evidence of the deformation that would be expected from a forging operation. I still have the frame that was cut for analysis in the back of my safe - I think I even have the block of plastic with the etched and polished sample of the frame used for the photomicrographic 200x/nital etch analysis. I am not saying that all Les Baers guns exhibit this inconsistency between what they are represented as and what a metallurgical analysis will show, however, this kind of thing does not strike me as something that would happen by accident. Sorry for bringing up this thread again but this is pretty much as antipremium it gets when talking steel. 82 HRB is 1(!) HRC lol. And its not even forged!! And lets have a look how 1141 performs.. http://matweb.com/search/QuickText.aspx?SearchText=1141%20steel http://matweb.com/search/DataSheet.aspx?MatGUID=f5c33d1153c14ba3bc9fd4a7016e2307 http://matweb.com/search/DataSheet.aspx?MatGUID=1832444e22314157bb2f52ca19187e74 Not very good stuff to be honest...Not very premium at all. Some 7000 series of aluminum types is very close to this. This would be close to what STI uses in frames and slides. http://matweb.com/search/DataSheet.aspx?MatGUID=b84253734c984954bf74d07ce128e49f http://matweb.com/search/QuickText.aspx?SearchText=4140%20steel 50% higher ultimate tensile strength and yeild strength. (beyond the yeild point is where the permanent plastic deformation begins, before that it flexes back to shape). Thats 94 Joules vs 11 in impact toughness (I'm looking at the "as rolled" figures for the 1141) and the STIs are a bit softer and therefore a bit tougher still. The izod and charpy impact test are conducted by putting a 10x10x100 (or so) mm bar in a slit in a machine that has a pendulum cracking the bar, and then you measure how far it travels after it cracked the part and then you calculate how much energy it took to break the part, this is usually on a scale and the pendulum simply pushes and arrow up this scale. Pretty straight forward. More J is better. Stainless knife steel clock in at about 5-20J or so here. L6 family of tool/knife steels tops out at about 200J and thats at about 55-58HRC or so too..

What about the bushing/slide fit and bushing barrel fit? and the barrel hood and such?

Hi guys. I have a question. I wonder for how long a custom fit, lets say as good as it gets fit gun stay accurate? Lets say it started out as a 1 inch gun at 25m or 2 at 50. How long could you expect this kind of accuracy? Also is it different for 9mm and 45? I have a feeling the better quality parts going into the build the longer it will stay accurate. Talking steel quality and ht processes and tolerances and such. Also lets say I got a SA that does 2inch at 50m and an Infinity that does the same and a Ruger SR1911 (lets just pretend the Ruger came that way from the factory). Would one stay accurate longer than the other? I have read Jerry Kuhnhausens book so I'm not totally out of the loop about how it works. But still I'd like first hand experiences. Also a bonus question... would a Sig x5 for example stay accurate longer than an SVI for example? What can be expected of an x5? there is no bushing on an x5 how do you "reaccurize" those when they are not shooting well anymore?

Hi. I have no problem with mim on non critical non likely to break parts. But critical ones like sear/hammer and slide stop and so on, there I want better. I think the main difference is the cast parts have exactly the same properties as forged except 25% or close to that lower strength and impact resistance. With the MIM, well they don't seem to be very crack/impact resistant for some applications. I think MIM is a bit more porous too, just over the edge to make it a bit unpredictable. The technology was invented for cheap mass production so its not that unbelievable you give up something with it imo. Personally I prefer bar stock, its already forged at the steel mill, at the correct temperature and so on to prevent grain growth and such. Around here both these guns cost the same. Around 1500€ or so. Do you know which parts are non standard 1911 in the smiths? I heard this about the E-series guns, triggers among others, and sight cuts. But is it the same with the pro series too? And more importantly would one have to remove material from standard 1911 parts or add material (not always possible if heat treated) to make them fit? Personally I wouldn't start welding on hardened parts and then file down to specs. Anyway thanks for your thoughts on the SIG. The Smiths I can see and handle at the importer, not too far away from here. The SIGs I would have to travel like 500km to see, or buy unseen. I would prefer to handle the gun before buying though, to see what I get.

That position looks pretty optimal to me at least. Thats where they belong.

Presonally I would like to see the front serrations just in front of the ejection port, this is the most natual place for me to hold when cocking the gun (with my cocking hand thumb forward and pistol grip horizonthal to the ground). Why doesn't any maker put the serrations here? Do you weaken the slide to much if you put them here? If so. How far back is it safe to put them? on a 1911 that is.

Ok I just wanted to know what the general consensus is here. I'm looking into 2 very similar classic styled 1911s with similiar specs, price and features. And now I want to know if one is better than the other, and why. http://sigsauer.com/CatalogProductDetails/1911-traditional-match-elite.aspx http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product4_750001_750051_765953_-1_757754_757752_757751_ProductDisplayErrorView_Y Pretty much everything on a 1911 can be switched out but is the internal component quality better in any one of these? Anyone care to guess? I prefer to run with the stock parts as long as possible. Are they both 100% MIM inside/external controls? Or is there better stuff used? They are both all stainless, supposedly forged. Any indication one would be longer lasting than the other (thinking slide/frame)? I only seems to find "collector" type individuals owning these guns (sigs and smith 1911s in general), and they think its the best thing ever of course, but they only have a few hundred or maybe 2-3k at most down the tube so I dont know how relevant thier opinions are really. Barrels, is one better or more accurate than the other? I guess we have to judge this by going with what quality they usually put out. Fit and finish. Would either one of these be superior here or are they about the same? I dont think any one here actually owns these 2 very guns and can compare so we just have to go with their general work here with these types of guns I guess. Are these the rattling types of 1911s? How is the barrel/slide, and barrel/bushing fit usually on sigs/smiths? Which one would you choose and why? With that being said I have read a thread on a another forum about a SIG that had so many problems I don't know what to think really. They did fix them though, eventually. And supposedly the extractor is in the wrong/suboptimal position by design on sigs (not thinking about that its an external one). I have shot a 9mm smith pro and it was nice, I experienced no problems with it but I only used it for about 150 rounds in total. I wasn't exactly blown away by anything but I saw nothing to complain about either. I also have another question. The new SIG slide (that looks like this, below). Is it heavier or lighter or exacly the same compared to a classic 1911 slide? Is there any benefit/downside with this slide for competition shooting?

Ok anyone else care to join in? From what i have heard the german "production line" sigs are all very much like other companies custom shop/semi custom ones (they dont make any "defense/war" oriented weapons in the 220 and 226 line there anymore, only competition it seems). they only make a few of them now and they all cost like twice as much as the american ones (which are not available in europe). One sigsauer.de you can see the german made guns. All the 1911s are made in the us though. My initial plan was to get a 45 1911 and then after that a sig 226 beavertail stainless in 9mm. but now I'm not so sure. maybe a 220 stainless german made and a 9mm 1911?? like a smith? or maybe a heavy/long frame baer or sti range master in 45 that i simply chop down to meet ipsc classic specs. Is baer better than sti?? Please elaborate! I also had my eye on an infinity 9mm single stack (new) or a 6 inch sig 210 super target. But those are like 3500€. Yeah i can buy one but then I'll only have that single gun though.