making guns out of composites?

[Gotenks]

Yes, we probably all here hate plastic guns :o

But I have heard about composites that are stronger than steel and stuff, and lighter than aluminum.

Could you use these materials to make a paintball gun?

Well, what am I saying, its been done I think

But I means, you think its possible to make it completely of composite, I means aluminum for the regs and some other stuff, but any part that could be composite, make it that way?

[ShinyGuy]

Both mags and cockers have been coming with carbon fibre grip frames for quite some time now and people just replace them with aluminium frames. The CF is lighter and stronger than the Al but it doesn't feel as beefy so noone likes it.

[Coaster]

the sidekick pistol uses the same plastic that a glock uses.

[Redkey]

The stock grips on the cocker are injection molded nylon. I would guess they are reinforced with a short length glass fiber. Using carbon fiber in an injection molded part like that would be a waste of money. Again, I would guess the only carbon added to the grip would be in the form of carbon black to make the grips well... black.

Composites generally have poor wear resistance and cannot be drilled and tapped very well. Also, to withstand some of the internal pressures of a gun they would have to be cafeully hand made to make sure the fibers were orientated correctly.

While composites are fantastic materials, they don't lend themselves to precision high volume production unless you want to spend a fortune on tooling.

As for the materials that are stronger than steel and lighter than aluminum... uni-directional carbon fiber in an epoxy matrix will do just that as long as you are only concerned about tensile strength. When you start looking at other properties like compression and shear strength carbon fiber does not come close to steel.

[kutter]

I wonder though about some of the new ceramics out there. There was talk about using them to make engine blocks a few years back. They are light and very strong but I am not sure about the other properties, anyone know about them?

[Redkey]

ceramics

make decent cylinder liners due to their thermal properties and abrasion resistance. However, when loaded in any way other than compression, they have pretty low strength and are brittle. From a manufacturing standpoint ceramics can be difficult to work with. Unsintered ceramics ("green") can be fairly easy to work with as far as shaping goes... but, when they are fired there tends to be a fair amount of shrinkage and once fired they are nearly impossible to machine. Ceramics cannot be threaded very easily either.

I cannot think of any practical use for solid ceramics in a pb marker. J&J makes ceramic lined barrels, but, that is just a thin layer of material.

[Gotenks]

hmmm you know rally cars kutter?

They use turbos, which take a LOT of abuse from the ALS system.

You know how when the rally cars are turning, you hear the loud POPS coming from the exhaust?

Those are exhaust pulses created by igniting the air/fuel mixture right before the exhaust valves open.

If you were to use a regular steel turbo, it would be ripped apart, but it uses a ceramic turbine.

[Wat]

Materials like fancy composites, exotic metals and what not do have their limitations. They have their ideal uses and their not so ideal uses.

Composite fibers are generally very good at torsional, bending and tensile loads (twisting, bending and pulling), but horrible on compressive loads. You would never make a load bearing column out of say, carbon fibre, not only because its expensive but because it wouldn't withstand much. Concrete, is the best at compressive loads, but absolutely horrible at tensile or bending loads. Generally carbon fiber is used whenever you have something long under a bending load that has to be light. You'll find it used a lot in racing chasis from F1 cars, boats and what not.

In general, ceramics are hard but with hardness comes brittle. Turbine blades must hold their shape. Ceramic blades will hold their shape much better than metal blades that under large centripetal forces would eventually warp. Ceramics in this case isn't used for some sort of strength but for its rigidity in shape. If you had a use where you expect the item to bend or give a little, you wouldn't use ceramics as it would crack or snap.

I believe in some rally racers, they actually spray raw fuel into the engine exhaust so it ignites in the turbos and continues to spin it to keep the boost pressure up and prevent turbo lag.

The ATS series of guns are made of Ceramic Polymer body with standard metal internals. I believe its some sort of glass fiber with a ceramic polymer fill.

[FreshmanBob]

just a note about the ceramic engines,
Rutgers University has been working it for a while now in their ceramics engineering program, can't recall the problems they're encountering.

[Cristobal]

I've considered milling a custom mag body from (what I believe is) a nylon ploymer material that I have access to, but I haven't gotten around to determining what exactly its called and whether its material properties would be suitable. It certainly machines easily and is lighter than aluminum, which would go along with the latest craze (for better or for worse) for featherweight markers. It also may possibly be easy to die different colors, which would be fun. Come the winter I may look into it further; if anything comes of it I'll post.

EDIT: what is also exciting is expanding the possibilities of existing materials... for instance Tom has mentioned that advances in Aluminum technology have made possible the aluminum X-mag valve on the new extremes. I think he mentioned something about the 7000 series of alloys (which I believe would be Aluminum and Zinc?)

[Vegeta]

Taken from www.x-lite.com/materials -

"2000 Series - this group is alloyed with Copper which is added to give higher strength.
6000 Series - this group is alloyed primarily with Magnesium and Silicon to increase strength.
7000 Series - this group is alloyed with Zinc to make a high strength alloy."

[N8DOG]

what your describing in a composite (cough) plastic (cough) gun, sounds exactly like a Brass eagle product. Personally I dont care if it was 1 million times stronger than steel and 1 million times lighter, I still think an aluminum gun feels, looks, and is better.

[athomas]

Originally posted by Wat
Materials like fancy composites, exotic metals and what not do have their limitations. They have their ideal uses and their not so ideal uses.

In general, ceramics are hard but with hardness comes brittle. Turbine blades must hold their shape. Ceramic blades will hold their shape much better than metal blades that under large centripetal forces would eventually warp. Ceramics in this case isn't used for some sort of strength but for its rigidity in shape. If you had a use where you expect the item to bend or give a little, you wouldn't use ceramics as it would crack or snap.

Ceramic is used here because it handles heat very well. Most metals would melt or soften in the extreme heat generated in a turbo of some motors. In contact parts where wear is a problem, ceramic is not used. It has poor wear properties. It is also not so flexible and can be brittle by itself. There are ceramic alloys that help get the best ceramic properties in a usable form.

[EastAl]

anybody remember the Stingray? that was a composite body, with steel internals.

[Ironmag]

I think a Titanium Mag body would look awesome. Titanium is really strong and ultra light (my Titanium watch weighs about half as much as my other watches). I know that if a mag body was made out of it, it would cost a fortune, but at least it would look great and hardly weigh anything. Just my thoughts on this.