Carbon fiber in firearms?

SkiShoot · April 28, 2008, 08:45 AM

Have manufacturers looked at carbon fiber as a material for firearms? In most of my browsing and shopping I haven't seen anything carbon... a lot of other performance industries embrace carbon fiber and are replacing metal with it... just curious if the gun world is or will be. I have never seen a carbon fiber pistol frame or something like that for example... is something like that on the market? Just curious about the "state of the art".

brickeyee · April 28, 2008, 09:25 AM

A number of stock makers for rifles have been using carbon fiber for a while now.

There are also tension barrels available for .22 RF that have a thin steel tube held in tension by a carbon fiber outer layer.

no1_gun · April 28, 2008, 09:54 AM

Bushmaster makes a line of AR pistols and rifles that use carbon fiber materials. It cuts weight and makes them rustproof. Other than that its steel, aluminum and polymer. Traditional pistols can have carbonfiber frames but it would be more cheaper and easier to use polymers. Can't be used in the slides because of the recoil (lack of weight). Barrels will always be metal for rifling. Bushmaster bought a small outfit called Professional Ordnance I think who started using carbon fiber. They got AR rifles down to 3.9 pounds, but they couldn't get it just right and people were alittle leery of their rifles. It felt like a toy. Bushmaster snatch them up and made them more rugged and dependable with their Carbon 15 line.

bushidomosquito · April 28, 2008, 12:47 PM

I have been working with carbon fiber for years and I don't think it can do anything that polymer cant do much cheaper and better for a pistol frame. The reason we haven't seen it in pistol frames is because every company does a cost benefit and the polymer always comes out on top. You can squirt polymer into a mold at a rate of several parts per min. because it's an endothermic plastic which melts with heat but cf has to be hand layed into a mold and takes about a day to cure because it's an exothermic plastic and hardens with heat. Polymer costs a few pennies for the few ounces in a frame, that same amount of cf costs much more. Finally, cf's biggest plus for the applications it shines in is extreme stiffness, and you want a gun frame to flex a bit to absorb shock. It does make for one sweet rifle stock but the guys who use it for that purpose always add some kevlar or something to cut down on the stiffness because a bone stiff forend hanging under a free-floated barrel makes for a great tuning fork and that ain't good.

April 28, 2008, 08:45 AM	#1
SkiShoot Member Join Date: February 8, 2008 Posts: 45	Carbon fiber in firearms? Have manufacturers looked at carbon fiber as a material for firearms? In most of my browsing and shopping I haven't seen anything carbon... a lot of other performance industries embrace carbon fiber and are replacing metal with it... just curious if the gun world is or will be. I have never seen a carbon fiber pistol frame or something like that for example... is something like that on the market? Just curious about the "state of the art".

April 28, 2008, 12:47 PM	#4
bushidomosquito Senior Member Join Date: November 14, 2007 Location: Kansas City Posts: 434	I have been working with carbon fiber for years and I don't think it can do anything that polymer cant do much cheaper and better for a pistol frame. The reason we haven't seen it in pistol frames is because every company does a cost benefit and the polymer always comes out on top. You can squirt polymer into a mold at a rate of several parts per min. because it's an endothermic plastic which melts with heat but cf has to be hand layed into a mold and takes about a day to cure because it's an exothermic plastic and hardens with heat. Polymer costs a few pennies for the few ounces in a frame, that same amount of cf costs much more. Finally, cf's biggest plus for the applications it shines in is extreme stiffness, and you want a gun frame to flex a bit to absorb shock. It does make for one sweet rifle stock but the guys who use it for that purpose always add some kevlar or something to cut down on the stiffness because a bone stiff forend hanging under a free-floated barrel makes for a great tuning fork and that ain't good. __________________ "Jack Bauer sleeps with a pillow under his gun." "Bush is listening, use big words."

April 28, 2008, 09:25 AM	#2
brickeyee Senior Member Join Date: December 29, 2004 Posts: 3,351	A number of stock makers for rifles have been using carbon fiber for a while now. There are also tension barrels available for .22 RF that have a thin steel tube held in tension by a carbon fiber outer layer.

April 28, 2008, 09:54 AM	#3
no1_gun Member Join Date: April 2, 2008 Location: Northern Virginia Posts: 46	Bushmaster makes a line of AR pistols and rifles that use carbon fiber materials. It cuts weight and makes them rustproof. Other than that its steel, aluminum and polymer. Traditional pistols can have carbonfiber frames but it would be more cheaper and easier to use polymers. Can't be used in the slides because of the recoil (lack of weight). Barrels will always be metal for rifling. Bushmaster bought a small outfit called Professional Ordnance I think who started using carbon fiber. They got AR rifles down to 3.9 pounds, but they couldn't get it just right and people were alittle leery of their rifles. It felt like a toy. Bushmaster snatch them up and made them more rugged and dependable with their Carbon 15 line.