It's A Christmas Miracle

I dipped my toe into an old debate over the superiority of the cast vs forged receivers on the M1A and managed to add something new. I had not even been following the debate that closely.

I feel like I just won the internet!



26th-Dec-2009 01:28 pm (local) weerdbeard

Never bothered looking into it. Does it make a difference?

IMHO for handguns a good casting with proper heat treatment and QC will be just as good as a forged reciver with good QC and heat treatment.

And do a shitty job at either and your end product will show it.

26th-Dec-2009 04:28 pm (local) mcthag

My point was that the process in 1950 was dictated by the process used in 1932 when forging the receiver was the only sure way to get a part that would be strong enough 100% of the time. This resulted in a part that's stronger than it needs to be.

Today we know a lot more about metallurgy and can cast a receiver that's strong enough 100% of the time, even though it is demonstrably weaker than a forged unit.

What got lost in the discussion was that in 1932 your choices were 125% required strength or 50%, because the processes for making that shape available to them resulted in those values.

A forged M1A receiver is about 10-13% stronger than a cast item, but the castings are strong enough and the processes used today can make this shape reliably, where the process didn't exist in 1932. I am not sure if it was around in 1950, but the M14 receiver was spec'd to be made just like the M1, without even looking to see if there'd been an improvement in technology in the last 18 years...