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by 7075-T7
Wed Feb 23, 2011 1:26 pm
Forum: General Gun, Shooting & Equipment Discussion
Topic: Lightweight 1911s
Replies: 19
Views: 3697

Re: Lightweight 1911s

An alloy frame gun will not be as durable as a steel frame one. While the alloy may be said to be "as strong as steel" they're usually only looking at ultimate strength of the material and not the yield strength, %elongation, notched izod test, etc.

During a moment of high stress, steel will bend, and if the force is below the yield strength it will rebound to it's original position (minus hysteresis) but if it exceeds the yield strength, then it will plastically deform until the ultimate strength, and any plastic deformation will not be recovered when the force is removed. For steel the lefel of force between yield and ultimate is large, so it bends and absorbs energy, without breaking.

The AL alloys used in "alloy" framed guns might have the same ultimate strength, but they will not yield as much as steel, they tend to break shortly after the plastic deformation takes place. That's just the nature of the beast and the tradeoff for it being lighter. The exotic alum. alloys also tend to delaminate and shell more than the lower strength ones, which steel usually doesn't do.

Overall, the alloy will not be as resilliant to abuse as the steel framed guns. and the recoil forces are more rotational due to the raising of the center of gravity relitive to the barrel.

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