ABS/ASA performance for firearms

oliveindustry

I don't see a lot of information out there on using ABS for firearms, probably because it's considered to be difficult to print large parts without warping. However with the right printer setup it is possible. From what little I've read, it seems like ABS should theoretically be a better material than PLA. What are your thoughts Tim?

hoffmantactical

oliveindustry Great question! I was actually going open a thread like this, I think ABS deserves another look.

In general ABS / ASA have the same mechanical properties and I'll treat them together. The ABS I've tested has been significantly weaker then PLA+, as much as 25%. With a heated chamber layer adhesion may be good, but short of that and you will have problems with layers splitting.

With the new super lower designs I think they are strong enough that ABS would work, but you would be excepting a marginal level of strength for relatively small savings over using PET-CF.

Kukitan

He's mentioned it before but ABS/ASA is too weak. Even outside of his opinions (see his filament section under "LEARN") my personal experience mirrors his. While some brands may even be stronger than PLA, when they fail they fail because of poor layer adhesion. And like you mentioned, it's hard to print right.

oliveindustry

Oh damn, I totally forgot about that page. But isn't poor layer adhesion due more to the printing environment than the material itself?

DSR-48

I have had success with a ASA SL. It was before I started doing anything with fiber filled filament.

hoffmantactical

DSR-48 The lack of fibers while still having reasonable stiffness is the main attraction of ASA / ABS for sure. Helps when printing production parts by eliminating clogging issues.

ShadowMystik

FMDA dd19 Tyrannical Ty's Dagger def didn't work. Took about 30 and it started to break. SL has about 40 through it no problems. Stress tests on a mostly-complete SL give some reassurance on durability. Still working out kinks but nothing serious so I think there's hope.

ShadowMystik

So update on the ABS SL-15. Had about 100 through it and then installed a SS and ran a mag. I know that's still not a lot but it seems to be holding up through it well. Only issue I had with it was the mag catch was too low not allowing for proper feeding. Put super glue in the slot and dremeled the top a lil bit. Mag is a lil sticky when inserted bc of it but it solved the problem. In order to make the print possible the bottom of the magwell was superglued to the supports as it was printing. This keeps it from warping off of the supports.

The one that is built/tested came out with a small crack in-line with the lower plate bolt (outside wall, right-side corner-edge), so it got epoxyed around the magwell. There's two others that came out a lot better, no warping, and are not epoxyed. I'm confident that even w/o it these are really strong pcs.

I didn't think this was a very viable option until I copped a .5k roll of CF12 and realized even with the super-glue and the epoxy this is still probably a more economic option. They are about 68 hr prints, though 😬 Want to make an SL10 out of the PA-CF12, but seeing how much more spendy it is than the ABS, it's kinda tempting to try the ABS first. It's a toss-up between that and a CF dd.19 to replace a PLA+ one. Any thoughts/advice? Thanks everybody and thank you, Hoffman. Keep winnin', guys 🙏✨️

hoffmantactical

ShadowMystik If the SL-15 holds up, the SL-308 should as well. Only caveat to that is the grip mounting area. The current version is still a gen 2, without the integrated grip. As such the area around the threaded insert is liable to crack at the layers.

The magazine catch issue is odd. I had problems with the original Orca lower that I had to adjust on V5.3.D, but that was due to the lack of M4 feed ramps creating a need to angle the mag well.

FluffyUnicorn

I printed a Glock out of ASA and was able to snap it right in half with very little effort.

hoffmantactical

FluffyUnicorn At the layers I assume?

FluffyUnicorn

It was like breaking a bundle of dry spaghetti noodles.

hoffmantactical

Heated chamber should help with that, but it's definitely one of the issues with ABS.