Plastic weapon furniture

In the mid-1980s the Austrian company Glock began exporting pistols to the United States with plastic frame and grip. They still have over one pound of metal in them.

Niv,

I'm trying to set up the technology level of said world and the only clue I have is that the MC is surprised by how light a gun he takes off a dead government agent is compared to the one he just killed him with, even though they're the same model. And there are no computers.

So, about when did governments start issuing firearms with plastic furniture on them? Any government, when did it start?

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H&K was the first to do polymers frames, then Glock popularized them. The problem for your story is that polymer frame handguns are not significantly lighter than alloy frames, because the slides and barrels are steel and are the major contributor to weight.

With revolvers, it's a different story. The S&W M29 .44 Mag in steel weighs almost double the M329 .44 Mag in Scandium/Aluminum alloy. The fact that the M329 is fearsome beast to shoot is beside the point.

So with revolvers, it's entirely plausible to have large variations in weight in the same calibers. Semi-auto pistols, not so much. Slide mass is important for proper functioning, so slides have to be made of heavier materials than the frames.

--Stan Evil gun geek

Oh, frames. For a second I thought you meant little peices of doll furniture in the gun.

There would not be a big difference in weight (noticable, anyway) between and m14 with wood or plastic. The difference between an m14 and m4, on the other hand, is quite noticable.

What hammerk said...

There would not be a big difference in weight (noticable, anyway) between and m14 with wood or plastic. The difference between an m14 and m4, on the other hand, is quite noticable.

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For rifles, weight matters, and tends to rise with caliber. The heavier calibers, like .338 Magnums and above, simply need more steel to contain the pressures generated, thus weigh more. Furniture tends to be heavier too, as it has to be strong enough to handle the stress of firing. I don't see that you are going to get a significant weight change between rifles of the same caliber.

That said, if you can go with a .22, there's nifty carbon fiber-wrapped barrels for the Ruger 10/22 that are as high tech as you'd want, plus light weight.

--Stan

Give your hero a Mosin Nagant M44, and give the agent a FN F2000, that would be a huge difference in rifle designs, pretty large difference in weight, too.

In Australia we adopted the Steyr F88 (AUG) in 1985, although I believe it was another decade or so before it was universally available. It's still pretty hefty despite the polymer furniture. I haven't lifted the old FN FAL, although my dad once worked at their factory, test firing off the assembly line, so maybe we should compare notes.

I'm told that cadets doing rifle drills put a couple of coins in the empty magazine, because the plastic-furnished rifles just don't have that satisfying, metal clack when they're slapped around.

Other than that I think it's all been said. Off-topic, I'm no expert but I suspect an overly light rifle would be difficult to handle when firing.