Why do people fear the MIM?

[feets]

I don't understand why people fear MIM parts. It's worse than the whole cast vs forged frame thing.

Gun parts (with a few exceptions) are very lightly loaded. This is especially true for the trigger group. The hammer has to be the toughest part of this group because it whacks things and get whacked back on auto loaders. Even those don't see excessive force.

Metal injection molding can build surprisingly robust parts. The more technology advances the better the parts become. Different alloys are developed to increase life expectancy and overall strength of the parts.

Sintering is taking a bunch of powder, heating it up, and mashing it into the shape you want. Sounds extremely weak, doesn't it? SURPRISE! It's used to make connecting rods in the Chevrolet LS series of engines. The correct alloy makes the part really strong.

The same holds true for MIM. It's not like they are making barrels and bolt faces with MIM. I'm sure a properly designed slide would take the impact of repeated firings but a barrel would be a bit too thick with today's metals.

Who cares if a sear or disconnect are MIM? What difference does it make? The surface of the part can be made to be just as slick as a forged part while costing much less.

Ruger is willing to cast nearly anything gun related. They have developed the alloys that give the strength they need in a cast part.
S&W concentrated on using a more conventional alloy and much more expensive forging process to give their parts the strength they deemed necessary.

Technology is advancing. Demanding that gun mfgs stay in the dark ages only guarantees that costs will rise dramatically and production will fall.

Embrace the new tech. Done properly it can outlive the old stuff.

What is the problem? Fear of change? Fear of the unknown?

[Guv]

No doubt there are allot of very high output engines with powdered metal connecting rods. 5.0 Ford, EcoTech GM Turbo 4 cylinder(120 cubic inches, 275HP), LS, HEMI,etc....
Its more a mental thing than functional.

[Guv]

Doesn't Ruger also do casting for non gun related parts?

[feets]

Ruger will cast anything for anyone, assuming the price is right.
They are an innovator and a leader in that industry.

[Bob Wright]

The main idea, in my observation, is that as older methods fade away, those made in the old manner get scarcer, hence more valuable and desirable.

Me, I prefer all steel in my guns. Aluminum alloys and zinc alloys, and polymers have all proven acceptable. But I prefer the look of blued steel, color cased steel, and grips of wood, bone or elk stag; never plastic nor rubber.

Hand checkered vs. machine checkering; oil painting vs. photograph. Packard vs. Kia.

Sort of brings to mind the old story of the old violin and "the touch of the master's hand" type of thing.

Bob Wright

[mete]

Very simple !
MIM was a new process , not very well developed .
The gun makers wanted every part to be the low cost MIM ! So they made everything from MIM. Obviously many of the gun designers and the bean counters didn't know what they were doing !!! The same group that thought that they could turn a 9mm into a .40 S&W by just using a different barrel, without other changes !!!

[Crankgrinder]

This has been talked about before. What it amounted to is it's much ado about nothing. Forged is more desirable than mim to most people especially what we call purists. The notion is that forged will bend where mim will just break off (never mind that if you're stressing the parts enough to bend in the first place something's fixing to break). That said, my ruger.gp100 and sr1911 are both first rate guns to me. As for my 1911 I'd take the Pepsi challeng with any Kimber,colt, brown or baer costing three times as much in terms of function and off hand accuracy.

[TXAZ]

Anytime you introduce a new technology you introduce new and likely unknown problems. Like the V8 engine, MIM will likely progress, solve problems, get refined, solve more problems, repeat.

Like software based products, don't get stuck with version 1.0 to V 2.1

[feets]

Please explain the fear that generated this:

The gun makers wanted every part to be the low cost MIM ! So they made everything from MIM. Obviously many of the gun designers and the bean counters didn't know what they were doing !!!

It does not offer an example of a problem.

If you, personally, have experienced a problem of a parts failure that would not have happened with a forged or cast part please share.

Kindly leave out the sister's brother's father's mother's friend's widow's nail dresser who heard of a problem that might have happened 137 years ago when Abraham Lincoln's daughter chopped down a cherry tree and blamed it on Benjamin Franklin because she used a MIM axe.

[HKFan9]

I look at it like the people who refuse to have anything to do with a polymer handgun.

Or the guys who swear they'd still prefer a M14 to an M16.

Don't get me wrong.. I LOVE old guns, I LOVE M1A's, but I would much rather lug around an M16A4 or a M4 vs a M1A, specially the news retro-fit ones in Sage Chassis.

Awesome guns.. but to me it's like dragging around a boat anchor. They have their role with DM's and such, but as a main battle rifle or carbine, no thanks.

New things scare people. Forging is known to be good, where is MIM is new fangled technocrap. BOTH can be good, BOTH can be bad, MIM is the future, more or less.

Kindly leave out the sister's brother's father's mother's friend's widow's nail dresser who heard of a problem that might have happened 137 years ago when Abraham Lincoln's daughter chopped down a cherry tree and blamed it on Benjamin Franklin because she used a MIM axe.

I think we just became best friends.

[HKFan9]

The main idea, in my observation, is that as older methods fade away, those made in the old manner get scarcer, hence more valuable and desirable.

Me, I prefer all steel in my guns. Aluminum alloys and zinc alloys, and polymers have all proven acceptable. But I prefer the look of blued steel, color cased steel, and grips of wood, bone or elk stag; never plastic nor rubber.

Hand checkered vs. machine checkering; oil painting vs. photograph. Packard vs. Kia.

Sort of brings to mind the old story of the old violin and "the touch of the master's hand" type of thing.

Bob Wright

I think Bob hit the nail on the head. While admiting the newer tech and newer materials are well proven, some guys do just prefer classics, hand made, and gorgeous material.

I can definately get behind that, however.. My old Pre-Garcia Sako's now stay in my safe for hunting season while the stainless synthetic ones generally get taken out and dragged through brush or falling down hills.

I love classic handguns as well, but I would much rather strap my Glock on as a carry gun every day.

I can appreciate fine craftsmanship, to the point I don't want to ruin it, I let the ugly guns carry that burden. They arent safe queens, I still shoot them, I just baby them.

[James K]

Like many other new techniques and materials, MIM had some problems in early applications, not just in guns, but in other uses as well. Again, as usual, some manufacturers used MIM in applications where it was not appropriate, and it got something of a bad reputation.

Once the bugs were worked out, designers and manufacturers began to treat MIM as just another manufacturing method, to be used where it is appropriate. Example: Polymer is well established today for pistol frames, but AFAIK, no one uses it for barrels or sears because it would not be right for those applications. Likewise, no one would make a scope sight tube out of forged and machined steel; it would not be right or necessary.

Jim

[HiBC]

James,you and I were writing the same thing at the same time!
I think there is also an issue around design for the method of manufacture.Great functioning parts can be made MIM,but its best if the parts are designed for MIM.
A part designed for a forging and machining process might run totally afoul of injection molding process.
To retro a 100 yr old gun design to MIM may have pitfalls.
To design a gun around the MIM process might well produce a better combination of "good,cheap,fast,pick two"
To have a group consensus on the definition of "quality" is an interesting exercise.

Is a mirror polished stainless steel toothbrush price $750 higher quality than the $4 good one at the grocery store?Quality is defined by the customer.A $750 dollar toothbrush with the same bristles,IMO,is not higher quality because it does not better meet my needs.

Part of the success/popularity of the AR system is Stoner did a brilliant job of applying the current manufacturing tech to firearms design.IMO,its aesthetically better "quality" than stamped sheet metal and spot welds.Yet,in their time,the Sten and M-3 had their own "quality" of producability and lethality.
The Glock,M+P,etc are an expression of manufacturing methods and materials.

IMO,a Mauser crf extractor is not the best application for MIM,yet the Classic M-70 by whatever name Winchester was using at the time used an MIM extractor...So Darcy Echols made a replacement.I don't think the 1911 extractor is just right for MIM either...notice some mfgr's changed the extractor design on their 1911's?

Its in the application of the technology as much as the merits of the technology

[James K]

Straying a bit, but 1911 internal extractors should be made of the best quality spring steel; many clone makers cast them out of inferior steel and they lose tension rapidly.

Jim

[Hal]

I don't understand why people fear MIM parts. It's worse than the whole cast vs forged frame thing.

I don't fear MIM - I simply don't like MIM.

As long as I'm spending my money on something, I'll try to get something I want - unless I'm forced to take what I have to because what I want is no longer a viable choice.

[Nathan]

Firt of all, MIM is just a process. My understanding is it was developed to get great materials into their final shape easier. I.e. You don't have lots of machining to get to a final shape. Purpose is to make steel, Al, ti, and exotic metal parts. If I remember right, this has a lot to do with exotics not liking to be machined.

It has worked in airplane engines, etc.....but how many per year do they make?

Now with 1911 parts, the design requires parts which have a high polish finish and sustain regular impacts. Also fatigue can be an issue.

So basically MIM has been around for a few years and has proven to fail due to random breakages. They can say bad batch, but I say misapplied process to the design. MIM guns, like Sig or S&W M&P, don't seem to have this issue as far as I can tell. 1911's do. The process is too old. There is a fundamental failure here. I wish I were the guy analyzing it!

End result is MIM in 1911 is no go. Possibly just a bad fit for guns in general. Trouble is MIM is a huge investment. How does Kimber quit using MIM and retool for forged and machined?

[James K]

Hi, HiBC,

True about designing around the material, but many companies don't have that luxury. S&W, for example, has megabucks invested in forging dies and tooling for their revolver frames. To change things to accommodate MIM wouldn't be feasible. So what they have done is to keep the basic shape and design of the part, while tweaking it to not only use MIM but to take advantage of it to turn out parts that cost less than parts made by forging, etc. A comparison between the old style hammers and triggers is pretty interesting; their designers have done a good job of using the strengths of MIM to do what would have been very difficult with forged parts, and use that to keep costs down. Just the way they made the double action sear (hammer strut) is educational - they eliminated a machined part, two drilled holes and a pin, plus reduced assembly time, and the user can't tell the difference.

Jim

[peggysue]

Same reason some people don't like poly firearms. MIM is used in all production including Aerospace. I had plant owner once who almost fired me for using a electronic micrometer. He was old and believed everything must be measured with a manual one. He despised battery operated power tools and CNC machinery. He has since passed on.

[feets]

Nathan, I must disagree on the 1911 bit.

Some parts of a 1911 are readily adaptable to MIM. Most of those are found buried in the frame. An extractor is not the best idea due to the high degree of modulus required in the part.

[qwiksdraw]

This should hep in understanding MIM :

http://www.mimaweb.org/About_MIM.htm

One thing you will come to understand that if a MIM part is manufactured to the same production and performance specifications for cast or forged parts it will perform just as well.

[WVsig]

One has to ask themselves why is MIM showing up in guns and other products where forged or cast parts were used in the past? It is not the MIM itself that is the issue it is the mentality that drives a company to use MIM. It is not about improving the product. It is not about making it better. It it about making it cheaper to produce with a piece of material that is "good enough" to get the job done. With MIM you can take what used to be a complicated hand assembled/fitted part which might have had multiple pieces and components and simplify it into a single molded part that is good enough to get the job done but that creates a slippery slope.

More and more gun manufacturers are realizing that the avg gun simply do not get shot that often. IMHO the avg pistol sold in this country gets fired less than 1000 time in its lifetime. I know people are going to jump all over this and say I put 1000 rounds down range just last week..... yada yada yada but I will remind people that we are the major minority when it comes to gun ownership.

Most people buy a gun shoot it when new throw it in a drawer next to the bed and call it a day. They might take it out a few times a year shoot a few rounds and then back in the draw it goes.

Knowing this manufactures have adopted a "pinto principle" mind set. Build it good enough for the vast majority of buyers those who exceed the avg usage and experience breakage fix those under warranty. These will be few and far between this all equals increases to the bottom line. Even if you know there is a potential failure down the road it is easier to keep producing the product as is and deal with the warranty claims if and when they come up. Guns manufacturers are no different than auto makers or any other manufacturer for that matter who have been doing this forever.

The manufacturer uses MIM because they reduce production cost over the long run which may or may not be passed on to the consumer. MIM done will get the job done but the issue is that every company is trying to squeeze as many pennies out of every unit the sell. This causes them to cut costs which means that more and more MIM is used and overtime cheapened to the brink of failure or in some cases developed from jump to barely get the job done ="pinto principle".

Remember MIM was not introduced to make the pistol better it was introduced to make it cheaper to manufacture. It is a perfect example of what I call the "pinto principle".... Add to that more and more manufacturers are outsourcing their MIM parts to the lowest bidder. So you have compounding factor in the race to the bottom.

Again it is not that MIM cannot produce a good part. It is not that MIM can't be used in guns and aerospace etc... it is that the mentality that is driving the use of MIM is a race to the bottom in terms of cost which in the end can only bring down quality. The same can happen to forged and cast parts as well but MIM seems to take the brunt of the criticism in the gun world.

If I have the choice between MIM and forged steel I will pay a little more and go with the forged part but I understand not everyone else would agree. I personally wish it was not used but I understand why it is. The avg consumer keeps demanding more for less and MIM is one of the ways the gun makers achieve this. So in a sense we have done it to ourselves. End of soap box rant!!!

[James K]

And what if MIM is not just "good enough" but better than forged steel? And is "forged steel" always forged?

That S&W hammer I mentioned above has not been forged for decades; they were punched out of sheet steel. And what makes you think MIM parts won't hold up as well or better than forged or stamped parts? The old hammers were soft steel, case hardened against wear. The MIM parts are hard all the way through and extremely tough. The case hardened parts did sometimes wear enough to expose the soft inner core; that won't happen with MIM; which is better?

And anyway, what is so bad about "good enough", and how do you define that term? If I expect a car to go 100k miles without a major repair and it goes 100k, is that "good enough"? If it goes 200k, or 500k, is that "good enough"? Nothing lasts forever; everything mechanical will wear out eventtually, no matter who made it, how it was made or what it was made from. If it meets all reasonable expectations of the user, is that "good enough"? Or does a gun, because it is a gun, have to meet some arbitrary idea of absolute perfection before it is "good enough"?

Jim

[Mystro]

If it meets all reasonable expectations of the user, is that "good enough"? Or does a gun, because it is a gun, have to meet some arbitrary idea of absolute perfection before it is "good enough"?

This is brilliant. MIM to a bunch of self taught engineers is like introducing a bic lighter to the cave man. Scary at first but once you understand it, its quit useful as opposed to rubbing two sticks together.
MIM has been perfected to the point it is equal and in some aplication superior to a forged part. S&W at least thinks so.

[WVsig]

That S&W hammer I mentioned above has not been forged for decades; they were punched out of sheet steel. And what makes you think MIM parts won't hold up as well or better than forged or stamped parts? The old hammers were soft steel, case hardened against wear. The MIM parts are hard all the way through and extremely tough. The case hardened parts did sometimes wear enough to expose the soft inner core; that won't happen with MIM; which is better?

It is a matter of opinion. MIM with defects will crack immediately. When everything is done right MIM can and does work. You are assuming that it is done right everytime or at least more often then not. In the case of S&W that might be the case but for every example of where it works you can show and example where the part was cheapened to the point of failure.

Look at the front sights on the Ruger 1911. Right out of the box they were problematic. Sheared right off from shooting at very low round counts.

Again not saying MIM cannot work just like a do not assume it will always fail I think you are giving way too much in the opposite direction believing that they will always work or be better. Also just because they work now does not mean S&W or their suppliers down the road will not change the mix to save a penny and introduce failure.

And anyway, what is so bad about "good enough", and how do you define that term? If I expect a car to go 100k miles without a major repair and it goes 100k, is that "good enough"? If it goes 200k, or 500k, is that "good enough"? Nothing lasts forever; everything mechanical will wear out eventtually, no matter who made it, how it was made or what it was made from. If it meets all reasonable expectations of the user, is that "good enough"? Or does a gun, because it is a gun, have to meet some arbitrary idea of absolute perfection before it is "good enough"?

This speaks directly to my point. The number of rounds or miles is often dictated by the consumers needs and I believe that the gun manufacturers in over the last 5 years which was a time of tremendous growth realize that the "good enough" expectation of the masses is really low because they simply are not used that much.

In the end we have enough guns in the market place that we can each choose to purchase what we feel is best. You like and accept MIM I do not, when I can avoid it, and IMHO both stances are reasonable and OK.

[WVsig]

MIM has been perfected to the point it is equal and in some aplication superior to a forged part. S&W at least thinks so.

If that is the case why are older S&W guns more valued than the new?

I mean look at Kimber one of the earliest adopter of MIM. They did a great job initially with the process. They produced great guns early on. As time went on and they grew their business and the moved to a volume model that reduced the quality of these MIM parts to the point of failure. Cohen is now running the same playbook at Sig.

Again I am not against the process of MIM I am against its execution.