"Someday that plastic gun'll flake apart"

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My Glock will last forever. I clean it with Armour All.

[ now ducking and running for cover to avoid the incoming rocks ]

This thread is over five years old, someone send the OP a PM and see if his pistol fell apart yet.
 
You can not compare the crappy plastic that Colt uses on its triggers to the super high quality polymer Glock uses.
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First, both the block and Colt triggers are polymer, what the differences in the ingredients are I don't know. Do you? Is it possible that you are believing what you want to believe, what block wants you to believe? Heck all manufacturers that make plastic parts want you to believe that! :)

One of the things I'm concerned with is the fact that people believe that the word "polymer" confers some kind of magic to a plastic, hey people! All plastics are polymers!

So, let's rewrite your nonsense statement to reflect the truth;

You cannot compare the crappy polymer that Colt uses on it's triggers to the high quality plastic block uses.

There, say it one way, then the other for balance. :D It's wrong either way you say it.
 
In the nearly 6 years since I've posted this, I sold the G19 but have a Steyr that also has a polymer frame. I don't have any concerns this will fall apart in my lifetime nor did I when I first posted, but the whole "outgassing" thing is something that sounded interesting. If both a steel frame handgun such as a 1911 and a polymer frame such as a Steyr or Glock were placed in an ammo box and squirreled away until found by some lucky decendant 500 years later, which would be safer to shoot if both chambered for the same caliber? I'd cast my vote for the steel frame, but I wouldn't bet on it.
 
If 500 years from now we're still using small amounts of explosives to push small projectiles, and in the same bore sizes and chamber pressures we see now ... ... well, then we'll have probably failed as a race anyway.

What 500-year old gun is safe to fire right now with replica loadings?

In 500 years, chambers should be made out of spacedraft hull material, and ammo had better be caseless or energy-based for propulsion, at least.
 
Ruin my fun, would you? :D

Yes, we will either have destroyed ourselves as a species or be using energy-based weapons against the Helghast or whatever extraterrestrial enemy we'll have at that time. I suppose it's also possible we'll be back where we are now after a 500-year dark age after civilization breakdown in 2012 (kidding!).

Seriously, it's just a silly question that focuses not on what technology we'll likely be using at that time but specifically on the pistols themselves.
 
What 500-year old gun is safe to fire right now with replica loadings?
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In "Tales of the Gun" they fired a 15th century hook gun. If you go to the Art Institure in Chicago, you will see a few firearms from the 16th century on up that I would not hesitate to shoot. The curator might frown upon it though... It seems to me that once you glock fram turns into coruption, you can get a CCF Raceframes frame in aluminum, stainless steel or at one time titanium alloy, replace and shoot somemore.
 
For what it's worth I took my best friend shopping for his first gun and he decided to take a look at a Glock. I told him I had owned an M&P before and that was a great gun but it just wasn't for me. The clerk decided to chime in, "They're plastic guns!" like I either didn't know that, he had just found that out for himself or like the thing was going to break with even a simple amount of use. To put it simply there are some people on this planet that are just plain ol' mis-informed, about a lot of things. Will a the plastic on a Glock eventually break down? Probably. Will your grandkids grandkids be there to see it, probably not.
 
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Will a the plastic on a Glock eventually break down? Probably. Will your grandkids grandkids be there to see it, probably not.
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The operative word is probably. Museums have headaches with many materials, but plastics more than most. The fact is that "polymer" as used by block haven't been around long enough to have a long term history either way, but plastics of all kinds come out pretty poorly.
I wouldn't pay too much attention to what "greenies" say about plastics, they also say aluminum cans will be in landfills for gazillions of years, has anyone ever seen aluminum corrode away? I have. Now stainless steels may actually be in landfills for thousands of years.

I picked up some polyethylene rope that had been in the back of my old pickup for a couple of years, it literally fell apart in my hands! I really didn't expect that.

Maybe in 50 years they will be talking about block handguns holding up so well to the elements. I seriously doubt that.
 
What I meant by "Probably" was that the thing will most likely be passed around so much, sold, inherited, lost, taken away (Heaven forbid) or some other action that wouldn't allow them to shoot it, not necesarily that it would break down. In other words the reality is that the gun will more likely be out of his and his family's hands before it degraded.
 
The operative word is probably. Museums have headaches with many materials, but plastics more than most. The fact is that "polymer" as used by block haven't been around long enough to have a long term history either way, but plastics of all kinds come out pretty poorly.
I wouldn't pay too much attention to what "greenies" say about plastics, they also say aluminum cans will be in landfills for gazillions of years, has anyone ever seen aluminum corrode away? I have. Now stainless steels may actually be in landfills for thousands of years.

I picked up some polyethylene rope that had been in the back of my old pickup for a couple of years, it literally fell apart in my hands! I really didn't expect that.

Maybe in 50 years they will be talking about block handguns holding up so well to the elements. I seriously doubt that.
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I'm not a plastics expert, but the plastic appears to be some type of nylon, possibly glass filled, which is a lot different than polyethylene.
 
I have an old Dan Wesson .357 mag rev., and I don't have a clue as to it's age, history or anything about it. I don't fire it. The cylinder is so loose, the last time I did (in the early 80's I think) I had powder residue half way to my elbows. Thought it might be a good idea to retire the gun. Or maybe fix it. Never got around to that. It's one of those "I got it from a friend, who got it from a friend, who...etc.)" The finish has long ago worn away, but I've kept it clean, oiled, and stored and it will no doubt last longer than I do. I found an old revolver in a rusty metal box under our house in the early 60's that was pretty much a hunk of rust. But I wish I had kept it. It had "Wells Fargo" on the butt. I traded it for a used baseball glove. (I was 9) The first bad trade of my life. I was fully content with my little .22 bolt action Stevens single shot "squirrel gun". Wish I had that one back as well. Most acurate gun I've ever fired. May have been my 9 year old eyes that helped too.
 
That is good. A spectrum analysis of Glock frame material is nearly identical to Nylon 66. Just keep it away from strongly acidic or highly alkaline chemicals and my son's Glock will last as long as my Remington rifle.
 
According to him, he has heard that eventually
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Do worry too much about recycled, regurgitated "information" that you pick up from your buddies that "heard" something from someone else who "heard" something. Unless he has first hand experience with it, or provides legitimate sources of actual testing, it is likely crap. Polymer guns have been around for like 30 years now. If this was a real problem, you would know about it. Maybe someone cleaned their old poly gun with battery acid once and blamed it on the polymer.
 
I've seen plastic milk jugs that are in a local sandpit laying in the sun for 5 or 6 years beginning to disintigrate and break down. I don't believe the 5000 year thing. You pick these things up and they come apart in your hands. More junk science?
 
When you figure that metals corrode but plastic lives forever in a landfill, odds are a Glock frame will be around longer than a 1911 frame buried at the same time
 
"Their plastic guns!"
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Who's plastic guns? ... I'm confused.

I've seen plastic milk jugs that are in a local sandpit laying in the sun for 5 or 6 years beginning to disintegrate and break down.
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Perhaps someone should make those milk-jugs out of a heavy-duty polymer instead of a cheap recyclable soft plastic, and then do maintenance on them ... then there might be a comparison worth making.
 
I've seen plastic milk jugs that are in a local sandpit laying in the sun for 5 or 6 years beginning to disintigrate and break down. I don't believe the 5000 year thing. You pick these things up and they come apart in your hands. More junk science?
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Did you really just compare a Glock to a milk jug? smiley_freak.gif
 
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