[Marvin]

Viggo,


I am an engineer from the mechanical side and before working for an engineering company, I worked in industry with most of my time at large machine shops as the manufacturing engineering manager. I completly agree that a Luger could be produced from quality steel, with the same precision as procuded by the Germans. BUT, it would take a lot of programming and testing, and a large quantity produced to make it economically feasible.


I am also going to jump in on the stainless steel thread. In my opinion, stainless is great for a revolver which will be carried, fired to maintain your "edge", but not with hot loads. This is great for Police duty. As to a stainless automatic, no, they are just not suited for this purpose. The tolerances must be much looser to prevent galling and you must use a high pressure grease to prevent galling anyway. Why do they gall, the stainless steel is sofet than carbon steel and stainless cannot be heat treated to provide the surface hardness and then leave the core material in a sofet state to allow for the stresses which transmitt over the entire pistol during firing. With this said, there are stainless steels with certain heat treatments that would work, but this is the type mateial used in the space industry and the firearm produced in that manner would not be affordable. The best material still for a firearm is CARBON STEEL!


Now, I want to speak about machining the steels. There are 3 ways to obtain a finished part. 1-machine the part from bar stock. 2-hammer forge the part and finish machine. 3-investment casting and finish machine. To me, the best way is the forging. This allows the part to be produced as a semi-finished part, and the part has low stress, and much stronger. Next is the investment cast part; this type produces a part that is really close to the final product after casting. many people think of casting like the cast iron we are accustomed to seeing. A high quality investment casting produces a great part, with low stress and keeps the costly maching to a minimum. Finally, the machining of bar stock is the most expensive, the part must be stress relieved by heat treating processes, then a final heat treatment and the finishing. This produces a part with the molecular construction of the steel in more or less a straight line; where forging and casting produces a molecular construction that is flowing, and this flowing is where the streangth comes from. This again, all is determined by the part. Some parts are better using all machining, some forging, some casting, so you can't say that one way for all, but a part must be engineered to properly produce the results needed for the task! Just a few of my thoughts on the subject, and my opinon only, I don't like stainless steel automatics, ha, ha, ha.


Marvin