[Nathaniel Firethorn]

Just a new wrinkle on the frame materials debate. I was wondering what JMB might do if he were alive today.

[cratz2]

All of the above?

He was a shrewd business man. He'd design guns out of whatever was being adopted by militaries. Probably aluminum and poly handguns and steel machineguns.

I picked steel since he designed far more rifles, shotguns and light and heavy machineguns than he did pistols. Just he had two really good designs with handguns so that is how many remember him.

[Dave R]

I think he'd be working with titanium and polymers. He was a good engineer. He would undertand that lighter materials leave more weight for other things. Like more ammo.

[Schuey2002]

He would probably be scratching his head and wondering, "Why didn't I invent a handgun like a Glock??" :D

[agony]

he'd be what, 200 years old? His arthritis would probably deter him from any physical activity, and his brain would probably be putty.

So, he'd probably re-design the Glock.

[10-Ring]

JMB would be strictly a steel frame & slide kinda guy. Leave those new fangled materials too the other guys!

[Longbow]

I would think he'd opt for steel and polymer like STI/SVI. This two really made 1911 a perfection IMO. Its light, durable, easier and faster to manufacture. Titanium is expensive and hard to machine compare to steel so I think he'll leave this one out as an option (okay, maybe just for novelty :)).

[Mike Irwin]

He'd have invented his own element, Mosium, specifically for use in firearms.

Tensile and shear strength 1 million times greater than titanium.

1,000 times lighter than titanium.

An almost mystical property that allows it to mollecularly absorb recoil, making even the heaviest .44 Mag. feel like a .22.

Self-cleaning and self-lubricating.

100 times cheaper than steel.

We can dream, can't we?

[Dave Williams]

His designs were robust, reliable, durable weapons. They were made to last.

Dave

[Handy]

His designs were robust, reliable, durable weapons. They were made to last.

And Titanium fits the bill. It's also the most corrosion resistant material listed. I think JMB would have understood the material and its value and embraced it.

I think he would have asked some HARD questions about the long term life of polymer, especially after seeing his pistols used for 40 years after production by the military.

[Blackhawk]

Best response award goes to agony, IMO! :neener:

Steel is still be best frame material. Titanium is too soft, plastic is totally unsuitable for frames, and while aluminum works, it's also too soft.

Some of the steel alloys available today would simply amaze JMB.

[Justin]

If JMB were alive today he'd be in jail, locked up for making illegal fully-automatic child-killing terrorist weapons in his basement.:uhoh:

[BigG]

Assuming he was still in his fruitful years, he would be making something pretty cutting edge, I would imagine. Phased Plasma Rifle in the 40 Watt Range? Hmmm.

[owen]

Id bet on the long term durability of a polymer before i bet on titanium. In fact, a lot ofgun industry studies show that most guns have less than a box of ammo shot through them. Knowing that, I think JMB would be looking into totally polymer, unreloadable throwaway pistols

Now there is a market!

[Skunkabilly]

Carbon fiber.

He'd probably be working for some super secret stuff for the gummint. Either Star Wars or communications.

[4thHorseman]

Kriptonite!!!!:D

[Kahr carrier]

He was a genuis ,probably design a super trick semi -rifle.:)

[Gewehr98]

He would be mobile enough to pimp-slap Gaston Glock a few times. ;)

[BHP9]

Putting aside all the tongue in cheek comments I think everyone really missed the boat about John Browning.

I will not speculate on what material he would be working with but I do know this much. Whatever he would make today would have something that many if not most handguns do not have today and that is top notch workmanship and design. In the old days gun inventors and marketers took great pride in the products they produced often testing them for months or even years before marketing them and although they made them for a profit none of them put profit before quality and pride of workmanship.

Today sadly that has all changed. Today the name of the game is profit and most inventions and design changes are not even tested before being put out on the market. The manufactures have learned it is far cheaper and much more profitable to let the public test the new firearms and then make them send the firearms back again and again until the desgin is perfected and often times it never is perfected. This is something that would have horrified men like John Browning and also the firearms companies that produced his designes.

I do not think that you would have ever seen substandard materiels used in his guns unless they proved to be as durable as the quality parts that his guns were originally made with.

Case in point , you would have never seen John Browning use a cast extractor in the 1911 unless the design would have been changed to allow him to use an inferior grade materiel and still have it last as long and be as reliable as the original design which required spring steel. In other worlds he would have went to the external extractor in the 1911 to allow the substandard casting to be used without chronic breakage. This of course has already been done in some of the clone models of the 1911. But you would hav never ever seen him use a cast extractor on his original design. You would have not seen him glue in ejectors in place of pinning them to the frame and you probably would have never seen him use two piece barrels sliver soldered together. I think he would have rather raised the price and produced a quality product rather than use inferior designes and materiels in order to lower the price and sell more volume like most of todays manufactuers do.

No , John Browning in many ways would not fit in with todays philosphy of making weapons. John Browning would have either made them right or if that was not economically possible he would not have made them at all. His philosophy as most of his generation had was to build a quality product that would last a lifetime, not build it as cheaply as possible to last only a few months or days or even minutes.

I myself have bought newer weapons that failed right out of the box but my original John Browning produced guns bought many, many years ago are still working , many of which have never had to have a replacement part put in them. Can anyone really blame me for being so jaded towards that which is being produced today?

[owen]

BHP9,

I'm dying to know which companies put out completely untested designs without throurough testing! How thourough would the testing have to be before you thought it was acceptable?

Knowing how much testing FN does on their guns first hand, what's wrong with brazing the locking surfaces onto the HP barrel?

Cast extractors? Who uses those?

Owen

[BHP9]

Cast extractors? Who uses those

I am sure that you were only joking but in case you were not take a close look at many of the 1911's being made today and you will probably find very few of them, if any, using the original spring steel extractors. Even the high end semi-custom guns are now being supplied with mostly all cast internal parts including extractors. One company that is high end and semi-custom will supply forged parts, but only on special order for an extra charge in addition to the big bucks that are charged for the standard custom model that is supplied with all cast internals.

I'm dying to know which companies put out completely untested designs without throurough testing! How thourough would the testing have to be before you thought it was acceptable

I will not mention names because I have no wish to start a big flame war but it is so obvious that it really does not even merit a discussion.

As a matter of fact only a few days ago a very famous military rifle that is now being supplied with a cast extractor, ejector and firing pin failed after firing a maximum of 35 rounds. Several posters had spent upwards of 1,500 Dollars on these rifles and they lasted exactly 35 rounds of fire before the extractors failed. Now seriously, I think it is obvious to all that when the design change was made to go from forged to cast that the factory obviously never fired one round to test the durability of such a change, if they had and they found that there was a problem then they are to be even more despised than they already are by the enraged people that spent big bucks and got weapons that failed literally right out of the box. These people by the way also supplied pictures of the parts and the weapons to show that they were not blowing just hot air.

If you are more into pistols than rifles then you might go to the 1911 forum and read the many posts there that discuss brand new weapons by various manufactures failing right out of the box. It is not so much a problem of design as the original 1911 was noted for being one of the most rugged and reliable pistols ever made but the newer ones being made today are not being made to the orignal John Browning specs hence all the problems of parts failing or not working as they should.

I might add that these posts at the 1911 site are not mine because I do not own any modern 1911's only the original John Browning designed 1911 guns. I have never had a problem with my original John Browning designed weapons. They work and keep on working even when fed ammo that they were never even designed to function with. I could not ask for more from these excellent weapons.

[Pistolsmith]

I'm sure he'd have abandoned the swing link in favor of the cams used in the Hi Power and a more enclosed chamber mouth. And, yes, he'd have a Glock...hanging on the string for the water closet in the indoor outhouse.
I don't know anybody who learned to carry a steel frame GM who feels he needs a lightweight. The diffeence in characteristics during rapid fire can be critical. And, you may carry forever and never have to use it for real, but that one time, any advantage you have may be the critical edge. For that reason alone, I pack a heavy barrel GM.
If it works, don't mess with it! You can "improve" something until it won't function at all, as designed.
And, if you have ever seen Browning's prototype pistols, you will appreciate the input from Colt and FN enginers to his pistol designs. That didn't seem to happen with rifles and machine guns.

[BigG]

And, if you have ever seen Browning's prototype pistols, you will appreciate the input from Colt and FN enginers to his pistol designs.

This is a very insightful observation. Not to take away from Moses in the least but if you doubt this, get a copy of Handguns of the World by Ezell and see photos of some of the original Brownings that he sold to Colt/FN and the US Gomt. There are a lot of refinements put on after the master's hand got thru making it work right. :)

[Pistolsmith]

J.M.Browning, like Leonardo and other mentally agile designers, was able to envision a mechanism in motion, like a creation of Autocad, and could iron out the difficulties of principle during the creative stage. It took input from Human Factors aware engineers to round off the rough edges, but the real genius was in the basic design principles.
I went to a house party in 1947 and a guest was my girl friend's brother that all of the factulty told us was a genius. Being a journalist type, I approached him and asked him outright:
"What is it that makes you so much more astute than the rest of us?" He laughed and replied: "I search the past for the nearest parallel, then I look in the present for more clues. By drawing an imaginary line from the past to the pesent and projecting it into the future, I have a pretty good idea of the way things will shape up."
And, it was he who told me that the basis of all learning could be condensed into three words: Observe, Remember, Compare.
And, remember Holmes' statement to Watson: "My dear fellow, you SEE, but you do not OBSERVE."

[owen]

BHP-9

Oh! You must be talking about MIM!! MIM IS NOT THE SAME AS CAST! MIM is not subject to voids. MIM is not subject to inclusions. MIM parts are may be very close to the parts they replace as far as mechanical strengths go. It is possible to nearly (very nearly!) match the alloy of the original steel used. The properties of spring steels come from two things...original material, and heat treat. A MIM tool for something simple like a front sight will cost upwards of 20k. Once the tool is made, and the process is established, every part is the same.

Companies that don't thouroughly test their products get forced out of the market. They get sued. They have unbearable warranty costs. The professional engineer that signs off on stuff loses his liscense.

Reputable manufacturers test extensively. MIM has been tested extensively. There are two real problems with MIM:

1) Smith and Wesson insists on using a color case hardening process that gives a truly ugly finish.

2) Things like parting lines and ejector pin marks are readily apparent if steps aren't taken to remove, or conceal them.

If I were to MIM a peice of stock, and then machine every exposed surface, you would never know the difference between the two. There are some grain structure differences, but those were accounted for when the part was designed.

You brought up extractors. We use a MIM extractor in the pistol my team is just finishing up. Of the five guns we have fired up to 10,000 rounds, none have failed. We have fired three different guns up to 20,000 rounds. None of the extractors failed. The 8 extractors came from 4 different lots. In fact, none of the 8 MIM components have ever failed in our testing. Is that enough testing yet? It's not? How much testing do you want us to do?
Would you like us to shoot 5000 rounds out of the gun you are going to buy, to make sure it works right, before we send it to you?

The parts that cause us constant and neverending quality problems are the forged and machined parts. If you have get a bad part, it probably wasn't MIM.

As far as guns breaking out of the box, stuff happens! It is not always a matter of poor quality control, or MIM parts.

Owen

[BHP9]

You brought up extractors. We use a MIM extractor in the pistol my team is just finishing up. Of the five guns we have fired up to 10,000 rounds, none have failed. We have fired three different guns up to 20,000 rounds. None of the extractors failed. The 8 extractors came from 4 different lots. In fact, none of the 8 MIM components have ever failed in our testing. Is that enough testing yet? It's not? How much testing do you want us to do?

First you did not mention what type of pistol that you were using. If it was the pivoting type of extractor I could well believe that a traditional not an MIM part would work because it has been done before. If you are speaking of the internal 1911 extractor the evidence is overwhelming that no cast part wether it is the traditional made cast part or the newer very brittle MIM part will perform the job as intended.

MIM parts will take little or no stress or shock. They may be suitable for things like the grip safety that takes little stress or shock but they have already proven to be catastrophic failures when used as extractors, slide stops, barrel bushings, sears and hammers. The extractor failures are well known and even Colt which uses very few MIM parts has recently given up on using them as an extractor because of all of their MIM extrator failures. Many, many posters on the 1911 forum have had their MIM extractors literally fail right out of the box and most if not all have replaced them with aftermarket spring steel extractors.

I myself have worked with castings for many, many years and to date no type of casting especially MIM even approaches the strength and durability of forged steel. Traditional castings (not MIM) as used in the current Browning High Power seem to hold up very well but they are in no way the equal of the forging in terms of strength and durability if apples are compared to apples i.e. the same thickness and heat treatment.

In the real world there are so many unhappy and outraged owners of handguns with MIM parts that one could sit for days or even weeks reading about all of their problems and complaints on the net especially in regards to the current world of recently manufactured 1911 pistols.

In all fairness looking at the opposing side of the argument the sellers of handguns claim MIM is a very difficult process to get right and perhaps it is still in its infancy or evolution toward ultimate perfection but until that day comes I for one will relagate any current MIM part immediately to the nearst trash bin.


The parts that cause us constant and neverending quality problems are the forged and machined parts. If you have get a bad part, it probably wasn't MIM.

With all due respect history has absolutely proven the exact opposite. The forged machined part is revered as the ultimate in quality and durability but is used less and less because of the cost of machining them. I honestly cannot ever remember anyone ever complaining about a forged part in any classic handgun like the 1911 given that the forging was made to the same heat treatment and thickness as the competing cast part.

There is a brisk aftermaket buisness that supplies people with after market forged parts that people use to replace both their traditional cast and especially their cast MIM parts with forgings. The parts are not cheap but they are often not even available because of the huge demand. Just as people at one time who lived in East Berlin Voted the only way they knew how and that was with their feet by leaving the country so to the modern gun owner is voting with his wallet because he cannot throw away MIM parts fast enough no matter what it cost him to replace them.

Currently the real world is one reality and the advertisment hype to sell new handguns with MiM parts is quite another. To date I have yet to hear even one person that I have talked to on a personal basis equate MIM with quality.

[owen]

A grip safety is on the way outer limits of the allowable size for MIM. If it won't fit entirely within a golf ball, it shouldn't be MIM'ed. I wouldn't even try to MIM a grip safety.

MIM does take quite a bit of tuning to get right, so I've heard. I wouldn't actually know because we don't bother with that, because we don't test anything. We just make it and send it out the door, remember?

And yes, our extractor is the pivoting type. I worship JMB, but he was smoking crack when he designed the fixed extractor. Sure it has fewer moving parts, but that is where the advantages end as far as I can tell. you have to drill a deep hole, and drilling deep holes stinks. It is extremely susceptible to being damaged when dropped on a round in the chamber. In general, they must be tuned. Proof? The custom guys wouldn't be messing with external extractors, if the fixed internal extractor was all that good.

Even though I have worked in the engineering departments of 3 different gun manufacturers using both MIM and Forged and machined parts, you must be right. There is no way I could possibly know the actual quality issues that face gun manufacturers. Of the hundreds of scrap tags I have written, of the dozens of customer returns and recurring problems I have been involved in, of the dozens of endurance tests, dozens of drop tests, and general kick em down the hall until something breaks (done with guns built from defective MACHINED parts) to see what happens tests I've performed, there is no way I could possibly know what breaks and what doesn't.

Machined parts that absolutely had to be handworked to work at all are much higher quality than the MIM parts that are nearly identical, and usually good enough that the final assembler just has to put them in the gun. Some MIM parts do require some machining (hammers and sears, to make them sharp), and nine times out of 10, it is those machined surfaces that end up being the problem in faulty parts. But what do I know, MIM sux

A forged hammer that can take a blow from a 16 pound sledge hammer is much much better than a MIM part that can only take a blow from a 10 pound sledge hammer, even though the stress caused by actual use is about the same as the blow from a well swung tack hammer. What guns have a track record of breaking hammers and sears? Heck, you are right, a part that is ten times stronger than it needs to be is catastrophically inferior to a part that is 11 times stronger than it needs to be. MIM stinks, cause its only 10x overbuilt.

MIM is a lot cheaper than Machined parts, and that is why gun manufacturers use them. If its less expensive, it can't be as good.

JMB would use MIM if he were around today, because he would want to sell guns, and make money at it. There is a very fine line somewhere 500 and 600 dollars. go over it, and you stop selling any great volume of guns. Everytime the volume decreases, the cost of manufacture goes up. And you make less money, or you raise the price, Then you sell even fewer guns.

After all, sufficient is never good enough, if it aint steel, it aint real, and chevies are better than fords.

[BHP9]

And yes, our extractor is the pivoting type. I worship JMB, but he was smoking crack when he designed the fixed extractor. Sure it has fewer moving parts, but that is where the advantages end as far as I can tell. you have to drill a deep hole, and drilling deep holes stinks. It is extremely susceptible to being damaged when dropped on a round in the chamber. In general, they must be tuned. Proof? The custom guys wouldn't be messing with external extractors, if the fixed internal extractor was all that good.

I guess I will both agee and also disagree with the above statement. Although I would agree that it certainly does not do a fixed internal extractor any good to drop a round in the chamber and snap it over the round, I have seen quality forged extractors endure years of such punishment , take a licking and still keep on ticking. I have seen the same extractor made of a casting break in short order when this was done because of the brittleness of castings.

I personally have always perfered the internal extractor and here is why. Last year an external extractor blew out of a Ruger handgun in 40 S&W caliber and went right through the head of a fellow shooter standing next to the gun when it blew up. Now if the gun would have had an internal extractor this would have been almost an impossibility as to its blowing out of the gun.

I have also seen external extractors break the sheet metal roll pins that hold them in while under recoil and I have seen even solid pins work themselves up and out of the slide thereby releasing the extractor which was thrown into the air and often then lost along with its spring.

In short the expensive to produce and install internal extractor is the more rugged , safer and more reliable design if it is quality made and machined. This is exactly why John Browning put it on his most rugged handgun design the 1911. He was well aware of the external extractor but wisely chose not to use this design when creating the ultimate military handgun, the 1911.

Even though I have worked in the engineeridepartments of 3 different gun manufacturers using both MIM and Forged and machined parts, you must be right. There is no way I could possibly know the actual quality issues that face gun manufacturers. Of the hundreds of scrap tags I have written, of the dozens of customer returns and recurring problems I have been involved in, of the dozens of endurance tests, dozens of drop tests, and general kick em down the hall until something breaks (done with guns built from defective MACHINED parts) to see what happens tests I've performed, there is no way I could possibly know what breaks and what doesn't.

I find your comments interesting but now lets look at what you said a little more in depth. This is exactly what I have been complaining about. The faults you are speaking of are in no way the fault of the forged part. The falt lies in the hurry up sloppy machining and lets make it faster and get it out the door without proper inspection or quality control. Something that rarely happend with the quality made guns of yesteryear. This is exactly why the manufactures love the MIM part. It is cheaper to make because of less machining and they can still charge every bit as much for the weapon as they did when it was made of the forging. In other words the consumer does not even get a price break although it is costing the manufacture way less to produce it.

The big myth is that it is now too expensive to produce a quality weapon made of forged parts that will still be affordable to the consumer. HORSE MANURE. Look at the currently made Savage 110 rifle. It is made from forgings and it often even undersells the all cast Ruger model 77. And as far as pistols go the Star company only a few short years ago made an top notch all forged model 28/30 9mm military hangun than sold for less than half the price of many of the cast and sheet metal pistols that were in competition with it. Colt until only recently had an all forged weapon that competed very well in the handgun market. It even today uses only a few MIM parts and is still affordable to the average gun buyer. Consumers who want quality will not reject out of hand a quality made weapon becuase it even happens to cost a few bucks more than the lower quality competition.

Case in point did you notice how the very big buck Sig-Nuehausen P210 pistols were actually sold out before they even go them off the boat and through customs last year? Although this is an extreme example of a very expensive pistol it shows that the myth the gun manufactures keep telling us about consumers not willing to spend more for a quality product is just that , "a myth".

In short the quality rifle is still being made today and at an affordable price and the quality pistol still could also be made today but there is so much of a greater profit margin in making weapons out of cheaper materiels that rather than staying in buisness for the long run and producing a quality product the incentive is to stay in buisness for the short run and make the most profit you can before you can no longer sell your weapons to anyone that is still willing to buy them.

In industrial catalogs the forged part is listed as 2 1/2 times stronger than the traditional cast part given the same heat treatment and thickness and God only know how much more stronger than the brittle MIM part.

[BigG]

The get it out the door mentality stems in part from the management decision of using statistical quality control, which sets a standard of how much failure are we prepared to tolerate? Once this level is set, they figure it's going all right as long as their complaints stay below the std. Conversely, the old time manufacturer would not let something out the door with his name on it unless it was right.

We live in a marketing era where hype has replaced honest claims about products. Given this mentality, you will never get a straight answer about MIM or any other controversial process from somebody who is in the business.

You also have the fact that many of these companies are public corporations, not family held, therefore they have stockholders and mgt is concerned with showing quarterly profits or they are not management long. Whatever they have to do to show a gain they are many times willing to do, be it use processes that make parts cheaper or anything else they feel will make their management look effective to the stockholders. The old time quality we used to expect as a rule is now just a happy surprise if we get it.

[Tamara]

I have also seen external extractors break the sheet metal roll pins that hold them in while under recoil and I have seen even solid pins work themselves up and out of the slide thereby releasing the extractor which was thrown into the air and often then lost along with its spring.

Fascinating! Do you recall which particular models of pistol you saw this occur with?

[owen]

Traditional casting is not the same as MIM!!! Are MIM parts the same as forged parts, no. Good design takes care of that issue. If a forged and machined part is copied identically, and gains a reputation for failing, then the forged part was probably marginal to begin with. New guns are being designed with MIM in mind.

A reputable manufacturer shoot every gun that goes out the door. If it doesn't work, it get gets fixed. That is 100% inspection folks. There are few other consumer goods companies that come even close to that.

Forged is 2.5 times stronger than MIM? Catalog, item number, and page number please.

How many SIG 210's did they actually sell? 100? 1000? Do you know how many guns must be sold to pay overhead alone? What if the gun doesn't already have 30 years of legendary status? Heck, even Korth sells a few guns. Are you willing to spend $5k on a gun? Are 10,000 people a year willing?

Star went out of business didn't they? bad example. :)

The Savage rifles have some innovative feature that decrease the manufacturing cost independent of forging or MIM. It seems to me they have mediocre triggers out of the box too. Mebbe if they went to MIM, they could maintain their price point, and improve their trigger pull.

Who actually uses a roll pin on an extractor? Not all pivoting extracors even have pins. If the internal extractor is so great, why did he go to the external extractor on the Highpower? You do know the extractor doesn't actually extract during firing on a pistol. The purpose of the extractor is to provide good ejection.

The fact is the majority of guns are sold to people that don't shoot them at all! The majority of firearms purchasers are extremely price sensitive. After all Perazzi has no problems selling guns, don't they. So maybe mossberg should consider upping the price of their sg to $5 or $6k. Heck it would still be cheap.

As far as profit margin goes, most gun companies barely keep their head above water. The ones that excel usually have major government support (FN, Colt) or major corporate support ( Presale Smith & Wesson, H&K). I am waiting to see what happens with Ruger now that Bill has passed on. If the profit margin gets any smaller than it already is, most companies do a little thing called going out of business.

BigG, if the complaints are below the standard, isn't everything alright? Most companies employ the concept of continuous improvement. That means the standard gets tighter and tighter.

I know from when I worked at Smith & Wesson, the customer returns and complaints were dropping rapidly as the older guns had their problems taken care of, and a large volume of the MIM guns were getting out there.

[Pistolsmith]

"He" didn't go to an external extractor on the Hi Power. "He" made the prototype extractor internal for a reason, and everything through WW-II used a "real" internal extractor.
Any gap or external moving part is an ingress for crud and detritis. For going on 100 years, forged extractors have operated successfully in 1911 pistols. The only time they failed was when used to extract steel cases. Ever try steel cases with an external extractor? Ever try crawling through a rice paddy with a pistol equipped with an external extractor? Ever carry a pistol with an external extractor thrugh a dust storm?
Every pistol is tested? Nope. Every pistol is PROOFED.
Who is the doofus who lost the blueprints? Can his prissy butt and make some pistols that will stand up to use in the field. We are once more in harm's way where purple hearts and body bags await those with malfunctioning weapons.
If the sonofabitch will function reliably from Antarctica to the Sahara, you have a pistol. Otherwise, you have a Twinkie or a cream puff. For shame! For shame!
And, where did you get the idea that an extractor is not used for extraction, only for reliable ejection? Bushwa! Fire some steel cased ammo and some aluminum cased ammo and try to convince ;yourself the striations on the cases aren't really there.