Who trusts plastic rifles?

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I used to turn my nose up at plastic parts but not anymore. The M16's been doing OK for over 40 years with a plastic stock that was frowned upon initially. Mine looked like new after I beat the snot out of it one miserable summer in boot camp.

My guns with plastic are Springfield XD, Tikka T3, Browning X-Bolt. I trust any of them for function just as well as my other stuff. Composites offer lightweight, rustproof easy to manufacture parts. I've got some DeWalt and Milwaukee cordless tools that have been beat to *% for years and they'd look a whole lot worse if they were metal and they'd be so heavy I wouldn't use them. Some have been dropped off ladders onto concrete that would likely crack a cast alloy housing like they used to use for drills and saws.
 
If I've used it at the range long enough, fired enough rounds of ammo through it to know how dependable it is... yes.

In my mind, that applies to all weapons, metal or plastic.
 
My sub 2000, 2 SU-16's, and HK USC have done just fine, so yes I trust them. I love my walnut and steel guns just fine, and my daily carry is a BHP, but time for some of you guys to move in to the 20th C. It's already the 21st Century you know. :)
 
Polymers and composites are different things...
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Yes, but good polymers (the technical term for what plastic is formed from) have reinforcement making them composites; and nearly all of the polymers used in firearms are composites (composed of several types of materials in a "sandwich") and therefore can generally be used interchangeably. Laminate wood used in stocks is also technically a composite...but is not used as such within the firearms community...so for all practical purposes they are one in the same.

:)
 
Well here's the rub... ever see a stock de-laminate? It happens (usually an error in mfg & chemistry, once it starts there's no real stopping it). Ever see plastic get old and crack? it happens.

Having said that firearms mfg's and engineers are pretty smart and most understand you are buying something that might last 100 years. Remington's Nylon 66 (though its a rimfire) has held up pretty well over the ages with a butt-load of plastic parts.

Plastic centerfire rifles haven't been around that long. I'll reserve judgement a while.

I HAVE had plastic internal parts "fail" recoil buffer in Marlin 995 cracked into pieces, Marlin replaced it for free. Not sure if the Hoppes cleaning solvent I use contributed to the early demise of the piece, but I suspect that's the culprit.

Sunlight and powerful solvents seem to be the enemy of plastic and wood.
 
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Obviously the introduction of the Remington Nylon 66 in the early '60's is something the current generation has missed out on.

The metal looking reciever is just a trim plate, thinner than a tin can, and entirely non structural.
The firearm less trigger and barrel is made of fiberglass reinforced nylon.

It was marketed as being rugged, the American public tried it, and agreed.


Aside from plastic parts, lots of firearms don't use conventional cast or stamped parts. They use compressed powdered metal parts. Nobody seems to even notice.
 
My Kel-Tec SU-16C has a polymer frame- it also has 5100 rounds thru it with no signs of wear. My XD-45 auto has 4600 rounds thru it- the metal shows more wear than the frame.
The trick is to have the moving and stress bearing parts be steel, and the low stress "just holding things together" parts be polymer.
I have an 1903A3 and had a Hi-power. I have every bit as much trust in my "plastic guns" as I had in them.
BTW my "charlie" takes AR mags, weight 4.5 lbs, shoots 1.5 MOA and cost me $489.
 
broken11, kinda yes and kinda no

i trust the plastic well enough... it's the new designs i don't trust. (compared to the venerable ar15)


one concept people continually fail to understand around internet gun boards is reliability and availability. Reliability has to be understood in the context of a firing schedule and service life. For instance, I could design a gun (or component like a magazine) to be practically disposable... one use. I might design it so that for that one use, it is extremely reliable and never fails, but after a few uses it might fall apart. I might do that because of cost, or because i'm optimizing some other technical aspect, or because of some operational doctrine.

For example, I might design a disposable magazine that i ship loaded. Or I might design a super-light-weight receiver, or silencer that gives me an advantage in a competition, but that i have to replace every 500 rnds. As long as the mag works that one time, and the receiver or silencer makes it those 500 rnds, i could call them 100% reliable, knowing full well that if i tried to reload the mag a few times or go 2000 rnds on the receiver, it might blow up. The point is, they do what they're intended to do... or they don't.

lots of things are made in 'commercial' versions designed to be run all day every day, and 'retail' versions designed for occasional use. the retail version of say, a lawnmower, might last a lifetime of typical household use (an hour once every other week), but if used commercially, probably wouldn't last a year.

A real example is a very famous and extremely expensive gun that is oft derided by one group of military folks as unreliable, but praised by another for reliability. why? because it was designed to a firing schedule, and the first group uses it like a machine gun while the second group uses it as a sniper rifle. the results are totally predictable.


i said all that to basically say, yes, i trust some of the plastic rifles out there, but only if used the way i assume they were designed. (edit: because i don't think they were designed to be run hundreds of thousands of rounds. it just means that if i chose to use one, i would be more meticulous about observing wear and cleaning.)
 
New Ruger 10/22's has a plastic reciever.
The 22 upper for my AR 15 's upper reciever is plastic.
 
I love wood and metal old school firearms but I equally appreciate some of my fine weapons made with polymers and carbon fiber.

It's not an either/or thing.
 
@ maverick223, it just bugs me using them interchangeably, sorry....just saying Polymer or Composite encompasses a huge amount of things.Concrete is a composite, and tire rubber is a polymer (vulcanized)... but I wouldn't want those in my gun!

Saying that composites aren't any good for guns is way too general and is usually based on one or two types of material, and their respective mixtures... a small simple change in the composite mixture, or even the structure of the final product can really change the performance of the material. I vaguely remember my professor talking about the GlobalFlyer using carbonfiber in the the wings, but specially manufactured so the fibers only traveled in one direction, rather than two, to save weight, while providing the same strength in that direction. Without that, they would not have succeeded where everyone else had failed.
 
Saying that composites aren't any good for guns is way too general and is usually based on one or two types of material, and their respective mixtures... a small simple change in the composite mixture, or even the structure of the final product can really change the performance of the material.
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Agreed, but, in the case of most firearm components, it should be "reinforced polymer composite" or something to that effect; however I think that most just shorten that due to it being commonly accepted as "composite" even if not technically correct. As least that term recognizes that there are reinforcing strata within the part. These constituents (can be steel mesh, parallel glass fibers, or fiberglass mesh, carbon fiber mesh, or other polymer textile reinforcement) greatly increases the strength and wear resistance of the component.

:)
 
I wish cav-arms would make a blaze orange receiver. That wound accessorize perfectly with my November wardrobe and prevent firearm loss in the woods
 
I have nothing against plastic stocks or magazines, but everything mechanical should be metal (personal preferance, nothing against those who feel different.) IMHO an AR15 is about the max plastic I want on a gun. SCARs etc. make me want to vomit, from an appearance standpoint at least. As to whether I would trust it? Sure, but only if I saw firsthand that it was as tough as an all-metal rifle.
 
Read what taliv wrote. He knows what he's talking about.

I'll add something to that: you can make **** out of metal, too. Ask oneounceload about the bolt assembly in his 28 Gauge 1100... There's NOTHING magical about metal. It can be engineered and manufactured in many ways.

Also, not all firearms plastic parts are reinforced composites. Some parts are cheap injection-molded plastic. Others are the highest of high-tech composites, truly better than any metal in specific applications. The EXACT material matters, and the EXACT design matters. You can't make blanket statements that are accurate.:)

Finally, sometimes a cheap injection-molded plastic part works just fine, even in a gun that gets abused. Sure, you can buy a machined aluminum magazine follower for an 870 that comes with a plastic one. But... How many problems have you REALLY heard about or ever had with the crappy plastic one? Zero, in my case. For the particular application, it works fine -- not that there's anything wrong with installing an upgrade, just in case it doesn't.:)
 
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Well, TALIV, I see what you're saying, and thats kinda why I post the question.
I kinda trust the plastic, I kinda don't
the rifle in question has never let me down, works perfectly, but I never trusted plastic.
My AR-15, on the other hand, has had a few failures, but it's a sound operating system and has parts that I trust.
guess I'm just not sure about all this new age stuff.
 
of course another option would be to put one of my plastic fantastics through a torture test and see what it could really handle
 
The PS90 is mostly plastic. The bolt & barrel are made of steel. The rest is plastic. The fire control group is all plastic except for the springs.
 
dont even get me started on the ps90, had one of them once, big lemon. traded it in after one too many fte's and ftf's.
of course it didnt stop me from getting the rest of the fn line
 
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