Magpul to produce AR-15 receivers?
Updated: January 9th, 2013
Suburban noticed a empty webpage on Magpul’s website entitled “ LOWER RECEIVER TECHNICAL RESOURCES“.
With their expertise in plastics I would not at all be surprised if they plan on producing a plastic AR-15 lower receiver like the Calvary Arms CAV-15.
Calvary Arms CAV-15 MK-II polymer receivers
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Injection molding CAN be faster, but depending on the grade of material that is used. The harder the plastic, the hotter the mold gets on each shot, and the longer it takes to cool. Plastic has to be trimmed, and that can get costly and take a long time too. With CNC of something like aluminum, your set up is relatively easy, you can do multiple parts with a limited investment in tooling and jigs, and the parts only have to be deburred/tumbled and anodized before you sell them. It's actually a lot faster than it sounds, especially for a simple part like an AR reciever.
It might take 45 minutes to an hour and a half to cool a mold, and they cost $50,000 a piece. The more complex the mold, the more expensive. And molds wear out when you use hard material. The glass content of many plastics acts like very fine sand paper that wears the mold from the inside out, causing flashing, shrinkage, warpage, and other problems with age.
If you can CNC mill six receivers at once, tumble two dozen at a time, and anodize them on sight, you can get dozens done in a day, versus half as many injection molded ones. It might actually be cheaper to CNC them, and any minor changes can be made to the program or tooling, versus changing the mold which can be a nightmare.
This is why dozens of companies make aluminum AR lowers, and only two that I know of do an injection molded one.
For those of you who haven't seen a CNC MILL in action on Aluminum, go to youtube and search for vids on it. You will be surprised how fast one of these things go.