Re: Announcing Crispin Arms, and Crispin Fabrication
Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 9:23 pm
I looked long and hard at the Camp 45 bottom metal isssue - and like Chris, it boiled down to money. If you could justify a large enough run, having them cast and then broaching the rough opening for the magazine would probably be the way to go, but you're talking tens of thousands of parts to justify that.
Machining from solid stock presents it's own issues - first is the mag well. unless you make it in multiple pieces and then weld/screw them together, you're probably going to have it wire edm'd. This is not cheap - it will probably cost you upwards of 30 bucks each to have it done by an outside jobshop, and that's not in volumes of one either.
The reason why they did it originally ABS is easy: It's cheap to do, especially in a complicated part. They can turn them out rapidly for little cost - I wouldn't be surprised if actual cost per part, even with amortizing the injection die(which are seriously not cheap, especially complicated ones like this would require).
Frankly, If I was going to make one, I'd offer a modified version that took grease gun mags or perhaps Glock Mags, considering both are available with much higher capacities than a single stack 1911 magazine.
Machining from solid stock presents it's own issues - first is the mag well. unless you make it in multiple pieces and then weld/screw them together, you're probably going to have it wire edm'd. This is not cheap - it will probably cost you upwards of 30 bucks each to have it done by an outside jobshop, and that's not in volumes of one either.
The reason why they did it originally ABS is easy: It's cheap to do, especially in a complicated part. They can turn them out rapidly for little cost - I wouldn't be surprised if actual cost per part, even with amortizing the injection die(which are seriously not cheap, especially complicated ones like this would require).
Frankly, If I was going to make one, I'd offer a modified version that took grease gun mags or perhaps Glock Mags, considering both are available with much higher capacities than a single stack 1911 magazine.