The ultimant receiver test

[RJR]

I would like to see someone take a DSA receiver and a Imbel type 3 receiver and test them to failure. Does anyone got any idea which receiver would fail first? Thought it might be interesting to know.

[kev]

Sure, I'll do it. Send me 200,000 rds of military ball and a couple dozen barrels. Doubt that will be enough, but we'll both tire of the experiment long before the receivers give up.

BTW, to have any chance of coming up with useful data, we really ought to do at least 3 or 4 of each type of receiver, so better make that 1,000,000 rds and an even 100 spare barrels. (the receivers are the cheap part)

Realistically, either receiver is probably good for 50-100,000 rounds. That's something like $10,000 worth of ammo. Do you really want to spend that much to find out how long a $3-400 part will last?

Here's a excerpt from Peter Kokalis' SOF write-up on the FAL,....

"....The original FAL receivers were forged and milled with a projected lifespan of 80,000 rounds. Blake Stevens (personal communication) has observed one of these receivers which cracked in the locking-lug area after 60,000 rounds. Stevens has also seen a Canadian army FAL receiver (manufactured by flame cutting on a pantograph machine) which cracked after 40,000 rounds.

In an effort to lower production costs on a rifle which has never been cheap, the LAR receivers are investment-cast and mill-finished, with a hoped-for life of 40,000 rounds. The new investment-cast receivers are missing several of the lightening cuts that were milled into the older forged receivers - again, an attempt to lower production costs......"

Unfortunately, all my links to the full article are dead. Hope you find this interesting.

[ October 08, 2001: Message edited by: kev ]

[RJR]

I did,nt know you had to just feed ammo to a receiver to pressure test it. No that would,nt be very practical. I thought they had a way of increasing pressure a little at a time over a period of just a few rounds or cycles untill failure. Just an idea.

[whatnow]

DSA did a test on theirs, read it somewhere,
it could be on their website. Basicly, an obnoxious overcharged cartridge was fired
& the receiver split. Pic of rifle looked intact & the rifleman would have been still
"OK".

[kev]

You can test a gun with blue pill or 'proof loads' that run at something like 30% over pressure. It does little to tell you how long a receiver might last with normal ammo. The weak link in the chain is always the brass case itself, which is normally the first part to blow. The brass starts to flow at pressures above 60,000psi and at some point wil dump the pressure into the receiver. No gun is meant to contain that pressure and stuff starts to come apart, tho some are better than others. DSA used to have a video clip of an over-pressure test on their website. Testing a rifle in this manner is akin to crash testing your car. It might well give you an idea of how well the driver would fare, but it'll destroy the car. It doesn't give you much useful info on the car unless that's what you plan to do with it.