Firearms, as a category, haven’t been at their absolute best in recent years. While consumers demand more and better firearms than ever before, the market is also seeing a wave of cheap, low-quality lines that lack the reliability that every gun owner deserves.
Some blame this on the shift towards plastic as the primary material in many firearms. But this ignores the state of things during the emergence of plastic guns: a stagnant, low-innovation market that was suddenly turned on end by the emergence of safer, more accurate, more reliable firearms that happened to be made out of plastic.
Whatever your firearms needs may be, those three categories — accuracy, safety, reliability — need to meet the highest possible standards. There’s no better way to meet those standards than with top quality, thoughtful engineering with plastic injection molding. Here’s how plastic injection molding is making firearms great again:
Why Everyone Benefits From Great Firearms
Regardless of their use in a professional or leisure setting, firearms have to be as efficient, dependable, and safe as possible. Countless variables, from balancing an intuitive grip with accurate sighting to maintaining functionality under the heat stress of repeated firing, are considered in the process of designing a firearm.
- Professionals, from military to law enforcement, have extremely high standards for their service weapons. They need to be as safe as possible while being usable within a moment’s notice. They require the highest standards of accuracy. And they need to function properly in all possible conditions, meeting the standard of 600-800 rounds being fired as fast as magazines can be reloaded.
- Home security firearm owners need a weapon that requires minimal maintenance, that can sit on the shelf for extended periods of time. If they need to be used, they need to function as close as possible to how they did the last time the owner tested the weapon. And, as not all home security firearms owners treat it as a hobby, it helps to have a comfortable, intuitive grip that helps the user maintain accuracy without having to regularly fire their weapon.
- Hobbyist and competitive firearms enthusiasts need weapons that can fire thousands of rounds without disruption. They need firearms that can dissipate massive amounts of heat without notably changing basic functionality. All that, and they tend to prefer their firearms look good, too!
Innovative Plastic Injection Molding Techniques Meet These Standards
Traditional firearms built in the pre-plastic style cannot meet all of these standards at once. They produce a large amount of scrap, change their firing properties drastically from heat and moisture, require constant maintenance, and many go brittle and crack from the stress of constant heating and cooling.
But even some plastic weapons suffer from similar issues. Some plastic pistol grips can cause the slide to bind, hampering the high rate of fire one expects from a semi-automatic firearm. The cheaper firearms that make this mistake contribute to the impression that plastic pistols are in decline.
But consider how top end firearms are revolutionizing the form of pistol grips. With fully-automated plastic injection molding, every single weapon comes out exactly as the designer originally intended, with almost no variance. The result: a semi-automatic weapon that not only functions as described but with more consistent performance than a traditional firearm.
The Material Makes the Firearm
The highest quality pistols don’t choose their materials arbitrarily. And that’s why plastic injection molding is the cornerstone of the vast majority of firearms used by law enforcement throughout the United States as well as around the world.
Engineered thermoplastics, thermoplastic elastomers, colorants and various additives are carefully tested and blended to achieve the perfect result for every single component. All of the needs discussed above are addressed in every single step of choosing these materials, adding up to the highest-quality firearms available. Anywhere.
Learn More About Plastic Injection Molding Techniques
That flood of cheap plastic firearms simply isn’t relevant to the true strides taken in the industry. With an eye for legitimate innovation, quality, and consistency, injection-molded plastic firearms are the safest and best tools for professionals and hobbyists alike.
To better understand what goes into creating the molded parts that meet these extremely high standards, contact us at Proto Plastics.