investment casting quality is more a product of the knowlege of the foundry and the quality of the steel they use. I have seen investment cast parts that could be machined and welded with no problems and some you chased pits in until you gave up and settled for a couple of small holes. it can go either way
Forged or Investment Cast - Does it Matter in Guns?
- Thread starter Phil3
- Start date
"Phil, first of all a Dan Wesson is not an investment casting, and never have been".
I found this for the Dan Wesson revolvers (no longer made). See item #5 on page 1.
http://stevespages.com/pdf/danwesson_large-frame.pdf
CONSTRUCTION
The Dan Wesson barrel is made of heat treated chrome molybdenum steel. The frame is of the finest investment cast steel. The single piece
construction of the grip is durable and offer protection to the steel frame otherwise exposed to corrosive salts from the user's hands. In addition the one piece
grip is less likely to split or break.
Also found this, excerpted from the old Dan Wesson website.
FROM DAN WESSON WEB PAGE -
All of our Dan Wesson design revolvers are
constructed with the finest domestically
produced investment castings available in
America today. We purchase investment
castings to minimize the amount of metal that
needs to be removed to fit and assemble all
the various components that make up our
revolvers. This technique allows the grain of
the metal to be preserved, and is a
significant factor in the extreme strength of
our revolvers.
The alloys we use in our frame investment
castings, as well as the omni-directional
grain strength (as opposed to uni-directional
grain strength in forged parts) make them the
strongest revolver frames in existence today.
That is why our frames are able to withstand
the repeated pounding of SuperMag cartridge
pressures, especially in the silhouette
shooter crowd (some of the hottest loaders
anywhere!), while forged frames are not. I
have seen revolvers come in for service that
have been run over by trucks or dropped from
considerable heights needing only minor
internal component replacement and/or
polishing. Perhaps this also has something to
do with the decision to go from forged to
investment cast parts for the landing gear on
the space shuttle.
Please be assured that if forging the frame
would make it truly stronger, the decision
would have been made to go that route, but it
just simply isn't so. Please also be assured
that if the ability to handle and control the
increased pressures of hot loads in the large
frame and SuperMag frame caliber models that
we produce, and the ability to do so with a
design that also produces a much more
pleasurable, versatile and accurate revolver
than anything else out there is your
requirement, than I firmly believe that your
choice is quite simple--a Dan Wesson Firearms
revolver. There is a very large contingent of
owners of the Dan Wesson design revolvers
that would give hearty agreement to that
statement.
I found this for the Dan Wesson revolvers (no longer made). See item #5 on page 1.
http://stevespages.com/pdf/danwesson_large-frame.pdf
CONSTRUCTION
The Dan Wesson barrel is made of heat treated chrome molybdenum steel. The frame is of the finest investment cast steel. The single piece
construction of the grip is durable and offer protection to the steel frame otherwise exposed to corrosive salts from the user's hands. In addition the one piece
grip is less likely to split or break.
Also found this, excerpted from the old Dan Wesson website.
FROM DAN WESSON WEB PAGE -
All of our Dan Wesson design revolvers are
constructed with the finest domestically
produced investment castings available in
America today. We purchase investment
castings to minimize the amount of metal that
needs to be removed to fit and assemble all
the various components that make up our
revolvers. This technique allows the grain of
the metal to be preserved, and is a
significant factor in the extreme strength of
our revolvers.
The alloys we use in our frame investment
castings, as well as the omni-directional
grain strength (as opposed to uni-directional
grain strength in forged parts) make them the
strongest revolver frames in existence today.
That is why our frames are able to withstand
the repeated pounding of SuperMag cartridge
pressures, especially in the silhouette
shooter crowd (some of the hottest loaders
anywhere!), while forged frames are not. I
have seen revolvers come in for service that
have been run over by trucks or dropped from
considerable heights needing only minor
internal component replacement and/or
polishing. Perhaps this also has something to
do with the decision to go from forged to
investment cast parts for the landing gear on
the space shuttle.
Please be assured that if forging the frame
would make it truly stronger, the decision
would have been made to go that route, but it
just simply isn't so. Please also be assured
that if the ability to handle and control the
increased pressures of hot loads in the large
frame and SuperMag frame caliber models that
we produce, and the ability to do so with a
design that also produces a much more
pleasurable, versatile and accurate revolver
than anything else out there is your
requirement, than I firmly believe that your
choice is quite simple--a Dan Wesson Firearms
revolver. There is a very large contingent of
owners of the Dan Wesson design revolvers
that would give hearty agreement to that
statement.
Raythemanroe
Bullet Whisperer
Question? Whats the difference of investment vs general castings?
Raythemanroe
Bullet Whisperer
Investment casting is used in the aerospace and power generation industries to produce turbine blades with complex shapes or cooling systems. Blades produced by investment casting can include single-crystal , directionally solidified , or conventional equiaxed blades. Investment casting is also widely used by firearms manufacturers to fabricate firearm receivers, triggers, hammers, and other precision parts at low cost. Other industries that use standard investment-cast parts include military, medical, commercial and automotive.
Phil3 said:
my data came friom two independtent sources that got their info from Dan Wesson himself. Plus a third party that supplied powdered metal for a pressure cast gear, also supplied materials to Wesson (what he said). Now technically a pressure casting made from powdered metal can be called an investment casting, but it really isn't. If you go back to the mid 1970's there was a lot of talk about his hand guns and this form of technology.
gary
raythemanroe said:
parts investment cast are usually much smaller in size than say an engine block. Also usually much simpler in design. Each has it's purpose. We cast gas turbine blades via the lost wax method, and how you do it is very closely guarded. Interestingly, the V1710 cylinder heads were done off the lost wax method, and was probably one of the largest lost wax castings ever done. Prior to that it was nothing but jewelry. A gas turbine blade after casting is not done contrary to popular belief. There are several grinding operations that follow. But the main thing is that it takes all the roughing operatings out of the picture. That's also closely guarded, and will take a security clearence just to get to watch that operation being done.
gary
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
It sure wouldn't cloud my decision.
Phil3 said:
they may have changed their process somewhere along the way; I don't know. I've looked at them before, and they don't have the look of an investment casting to my eyes. They best way to tell is to find a junk one and send it to the lab. I kinda questioned this myself at the time, as most all pressure cast pieces I'd been around were pretty hard (in the 50rc area). His barrels looked like they were made from somekind of a high grade 4xxx series steel, but like I said I never looked it over that closely. I had a friend that was a dealer for him, and supplied a lot of revolvers to IHMSA shooters. He would swear the frames were powder metal cast if he were still with us. He should have known as he was a tool maker and made the gear molds that we used for pump gears. Really not all that important anyway, as either system would work fine.
gary
The benefit of investment casting is that the part is done. The drawback is that is exorbitant at first. On the off chance that the greater part of the standard systems are taken after, there is nothing amiss with venture castings.
Both forgings and investment castings are considered near net shape processes. That means the part is much closer to the final configuration than starting with a block of steel or a rough casting. As long as the design is sound it makes little difference to the function.
The degree of secondary operations is where people complain. If you machine the skin off of a casting or forging all over so that it has a nice finish you will be happy.
If you leave either a forging or a casting as forged or as cast people are going to complain about the finish.
Investment cast medical knee joint replacement implants look like crap on the sides that are cemented to the femur so no one cares. The functional bearing side of the component is ground to profile and is polished to a 4 finish- like a mirror.
The best way to detect an investment casting is examine the unfinished surfaces. There will be usually be parting lines and ejector pin marks where the wax was removed from the mold.
I have worked with a lot of investment casting designs that were used to make millions of parts.
I have been in the foundries were very large castings were made. The least important castings I have seen made are the heads of golf clubs. For the most part they could be used as cast. The most important castings were the big rotating parts of the engines in the DC-10. One of these castings cracked due to an inclusion and cause the crash of UAL 232 in Iowa. This was a titanium casting about 4 ft across and 10 inches thick.
The degree of secondary operations is where people complain. If you machine the skin off of a casting or forging all over so that it has a nice finish you will be happy.
If you leave either a forging or a casting as forged or as cast people are going to complain about the finish.
Investment cast medical knee joint replacement implants look like crap on the sides that are cemented to the femur so no one cares. The functional bearing side of the component is ground to profile and is polished to a 4 finish- like a mirror.
The best way to detect an investment casting is examine the unfinished surfaces. There will be usually be parting lines and ejector pin marks where the wax was removed from the mold.
I have worked with a lot of investment casting designs that were used to make millions of parts.
I have been in the foundries were very large castings were made. The least important castings I have seen made are the heads of golf clubs. For the most part they could be used as cast. The most important castings were the big rotating parts of the engines in the DC-10. One of these castings cracked due to an inclusion and cause the crash of UAL 232 in Iowa. This was a titanium casting about 4 ft across and 10 inches thick.
It should be noted that Caspian, who most major 1911 builders consider the best frames and slides being made today, are cast.
Its not the process used, its the engineering and quality control that makes a difference.
ITs funny, in the 90's when the M14 still ruled the highpower game, I shot a "state gun" from the dcm. It was a trw with the sear welded up. IT shot ok but I lusted after a brand new Springfield Double lug gun that all the " rich" shooters had. Funny how none of them opted to get a state gun and shoot that instead of building their own rifles. When I finally did get my Springfield Reciever double lug gun built by a former usmc NM armorer, he told me that he only built guns on Springfield and Smith Enterprise recievers, but that has since changed to Springfield and Fulton Armory as the last batch of Smith ENterprise were very problematic.
When asked what he though about the difference between forged and cast, he stated that he had yet to see a receiver fail from a factory defect, but that he had seen several, usgi included, fail from slamfires, bad ammo, poor maintenance, etc.
IN addition studies have been done that a while a forged receiver has an expected life of 450,000 rounds or so, a cast receiver has an expected life of 250,000-300,000 which is still way more rounds than any shooter could put in a lifetime of highpower shooting.
Moral of the story is that a well made cast receiver is much better than a poorly forged one.
Caspian 1911 frames would be better if they were too spec.
Cast vs. forge doesn't matter.
Cast vs. forge doesn't matter.
>>>Moral of the story is that a well made cast receiver is much better than a poorly forged one.<<<
There is one disadvantage inherent to investment castings that I don't really like.
When the hot wax is injected into the wax mold, the mold is opened and the warm wax part is removed and allowed to cool. When cooling the wax parts shrink and if not supported they will twist and warp as the wax cools and shrinks. A lot of this is caused by the varying section thicknesses and the junctions where 2 different wall thicknesses join.
If the foundry does nothing to keep the wax parts straight then they cast warped parts. When the molten steels cool they also warp and twist based on the different cross section thicknesses and differential shrinkage of the metal. So you have 2 different shrinkage and warping processes. I was always pissed at our suppliers that did not use forms to maintain the accuracy of the wax when it cooled.
Many of the investment casting suppliers said they preferred to beat and bend the warped castings back into shape after the fact. They were just cheap, lazy, ans some what stupid organizations that had a million excuses for not making the best possible castings.
There is one disadvantage inherent to investment castings that I don't really like.
When the hot wax is injected into the wax mold, the mold is opened and the warm wax part is removed and allowed to cool. When cooling the wax parts shrink and if not supported they will twist and warp as the wax cools and shrinks. A lot of this is caused by the varying section thicknesses and the junctions where 2 different wall thicknesses join.
If the foundry does nothing to keep the wax parts straight then they cast warped parts. When the molten steels cool they also warp and twist based on the different cross section thicknesses and differential shrinkage of the metal. So you have 2 different shrinkage and warping processes. I was always pissed at our suppliers that did not use forms to maintain the accuracy of the wax when it cooled.
Many of the investment casting suppliers said they preferred to beat and bend the warped castings back into shape after the fact. They were just cheap, lazy, ans some what stupid organizations that had a million excuses for not making the best possible castings.
Over the last few years we've learned to investment casting. but you can do some nice investment. than i suggest you investment casting.
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