First 1/4 tool steel lower is done, was a 9 hour project. Haven't fully decided on how I want to do the bottle opener yet, but I may make it homogenous. This one was a test run, see how much longer it takes than a 7075 piece. Hard to say, as I didn't have my prints set up with radius accounted cutter coordinates on the aluminum one, but I think steel is gonna be +2 hours just because the feeds are that much slower.
Mag well isn't perfectly square, mostly because I was impatient and aggressive, kept bending the 1/8" square needle file
It weighs triple what the 7075 piece does. Still just 15 grams, though. Plan was to blue it, but the D-2 took on such a nice dark grey from the heat treat, I see no reason to apply a different finish.
And no, those aren't scratches in the mag well and FCG pocket; it's paper towel fibers from wiping it with CLP to improve rust resistance.
Have you considered a 1/2 scale AR-180? Which was designed to be more easily machinable in less sophisticated places.
The AR-180 simplified manufacturing by using mostly stamped parts. Easier for a large manufacturer with gigantic die presses, but like hammer forging vs. cut rifling, it's economics of scale. Yes, if you're making enough products to amortize the equipment, then stamping/forging/investment casting/injection molding become much more cost effective methods of manufacturing. For small time guys, though, the quantity isn't there, so cutting from billet allows the manufacture of new products with only a small investment in cutters and fixtures. Lots more time, tons more material waste, but much more cost effective for small runs.
I have access to a pretty large machine shop here at school, maybe I'll CAD something up myself and sell them...Fortunately for Mach I have too many finals and not enough time for tinkering...
More like fortunately for me, I know what CNC can and can't do, and even if you had a 5 axis high speed ATC machining center, you'd still be spending quite a bit of time doing manual operations-particularly finish work. CNC doesn't do stoning and sanding. Unless, of course, you don't care about tool marks. You'd also play merry hob with tool paths, cut depths and speeds & feeds trying to get a CNC to run these 3/32, .082 and 1/16 cutters through steel without snapping them. I'm flooding and running <1 IPM with a 1R DOC max on full diameter cuts, and pulling the cutter out frequently to clear chips. And they still break.
If my reply feels rather pointed, that's because I perceive your comment as a snarky idle threat at intellectual property theft. If you intended humor, it didn't come across that way to me.