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Old April 22, 2017, 04:08 PM   #21
fastbolt
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Join Date: June 9, 2002
Location: northern CA for a little while longer
Posts: 1,930
I just had my brother ask me how long Ruger has been using MIM hammers in the SP101. Told him I didn't know. He sent me a picture he found of one, but I don't have it handy. I found this online pic (Ruger forums is the source, I think).
http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_3667.jpg

I'd have no problem with buying a new Ruger with MIM.

I remember when S&W had first started using MIM, and they were discussing it in armorer classes. I also learned a bit more about when talking to the LE contacts for customer service for parts and repair. They said that S&W owned their own MIM molds, so they could control the quality of the molds. The molds were said to be really expensive at the time. They said the actual MIM work was done by a "MIM house", and they took care to explain that it wasn't an offshore MIM house, but one located in the US.

Dunno know if or how they may have changed in more recent years, as they've been busy buying businesses. I learned they finally decided to buy their own equipment to do their own nitrocarburizing (instead of outsourcing parts for Melonite processing). It will save them money in the long run, give them better control of the process, and is something they can offer to other gun companies (who can call the hardening process by any name they wish for their own product lines).

Hard to keep up with all the rapid changes among gun companies and their vendors. For me, anyway, as I'm much less interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff than I was as a younger man.

Sometimes I'll think to make notes of such trivia during armorer classes or conversations with factory folks, and other times I'll think it's something mildly interesting at the moment, but not make a note of it and forget what it was soon thereafter.
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