Frame Differences - Cast vs Forged, etc?

[TonyW]

OK- newbie question here. How are the best steel frames made - cast, forged, CNC machined stock, etc.? Is there much practical difference? What manufacturers use what types of frames? As an aside, I once had a 45 made with a Caspian frame and when it was blued along with the slide it came out entirely different- a brownish cast. This was some 20 years ago, and I always wondered what happened. (I no longer have this gun).

[gbw]

I'm not sure what 'best' means - some best combination of holding tolerances tight, hole size and placement, rail size and placement, and wear characteristics would be my guess.

I've only had experience building with cast frames from Essex and Caspian. Both carry a lifetime warranty (at least in .45), and I've had no problems with either. I'd be perfectly happy with either. Caspian appears slightly better in finish as you receive it, but it also costs more. I heard about early bluing problems, something to do with the metallurgy in castings, I've forgotten the exact reason, but I think that's been solved. I've had excellent results with the modern versions. I finish them the way I want them and have them blued. They match near perfectly with the slides (Colt forged) and other small parts. They are of mallaeble iron so you can tighten the rails if you want.

Perhaps others who have experience with the forged versions can speak to them. I've heard folks say forgings are 'stronger', but I don't know if that's true or what advantage it gives. I'd be interested to hear also.

[John]

I asked this question (cast vs forged) to Ted Szabo (Para Ordnance president) a couple of years ago and the answer I got was that if the casting has been made properly and if it has been heat-treated properly there is no difference between a cast frame and a forged frame (or slide or whatever).

Para's pistols use cast components and I haven't heard any complains that they have problems with them. Actually Para trusts their products enough to cover them with a lifelong warantee.

Caspian's frames are also cast, but if you search around you will see that some of the top gunsmiths use them to build very expensive custom pistols. Nighthawk Custom is using them to build their Vickers Tactical pistol, one of the most expensive models in their product line. These people would not risk their reputation if the frames were not good.

[Ruggles]

"Nighthawk Custom is using them to build their Vickers Tactical pistol, one of the most expensive models in their product line. These people would not risk their reputation if the frames were not good."

I agree. Para is using xast frames in all of their 1911s and as many Paras being shot in compition with 1000s and 1000s of rounds down range yearly I think if cast frames were an issue we would all know it by now.

Just my .02

[ArmscorBA]

Our new production RIA pistols will have a Forged slide and a cast frame. Like John said" If they are made right"
Ivan

[pa_guns]

Hi

A frame or slide is an interesting balance between being tough and being flexible. To hard and brittle is just as bad as to soft.

Within that vaguely stated range just about anything will work. You can make a good frame by any of the techniques you mention. You can also mess it up. Raw material into the process, control during the process, and heat treating after all make a difference.

Bob

[John]

LoRL, quite so. I've seen some broken forged slides at my gunsmith's. That doesn't mean that forging is a bad technic, it just means that whoever made them didn't pay enough attention, either at that particular batch, or in general.

[auto45]

All that I've "read" states forging is "stronger/more dense" than castings. Assuming it's made properly of course.
They don't make barrels out of castings for a reason. :)

For a frame, I believe few people have "issues" with well made castings. Afterall, frames are made out of plastic and they work fine.

[Herb Clark]

I'm not sure what 'best' means - some best combination of holding tolerances tight, hole size and placement, rail size and placement, and wear characteristics would be my guess.

I've only had experience building with cast frames from Essex and Caspian. Both carry a lifetime warranty (at least in .45), and I've had no problems with either. I'd be perfectly happy with either. Caspian appears slightly better in finish as you receive it, but it also costs more. I heard about early bluing problems, something to do with the metallurgy in castings, I've forgotten the exact reason, but I think that's been solved. I've had excellent results with the modern versions. I finish them the way I want them and have them blued. They match near perfectly with the slides (Colt forged) and other small parts. They are of mallaeble iron so you can tighten the rails if you want.
Perhaps others who have experience with the forged versions can speak to them. I've heard folks say forgings are 'stronger', but I don't know if that's true or what advantage it gives. I'd be interested to hear also.

Really? Mallaeble Iron????????????????

[gbw]

I asked Caspian directly. That was their answer. And I did tighten the rails. Did I misspell it or something?

[gbw]

I see. Should have said steel. Sorry.

[Deacon Aegis]

I have had nothing but great luck with the Caspian frames I've been playing with. My longslide hit round 2000 shot through it earlier today and there is literally no sign of wear on the frame with the exception of powder staining near thed breach. I have been very careful to maintain a round-count for this gun as I am truly interested in observing the life-cycle of my first ground-up full build and logging it for my own reference later. I've got some photos of the gun as it is now, at round 2000 and will be posting a report on it later this evening.

That said, when perfection was demanded for the damascus project, the only frames Ken would use were the Les Baer frames. His argument is very convincing as to the quality and consitency of machine work on these frames from LB and when the goal was perfection, the frames had to be LB or he ho-hummed alot.

I'd really like to get my hands on a couple different types of STI frames in the single stack series. They have a forged frame and a cast frame called the "Master" series frame that both look very intriguing for my purposes. Considering the general quality of their slides and excellent machine work on them, I would be very interested in playing with a few of them.

Honestly, I am not really impressed with Essex or much else so far as the Essex frames tend to wander around their specs in my experience (hands-on with only 3 Essex frames so far, but each had a little quirkiness of their own on the macxhined specs.The Essex slides look decent, but zero experience on them. I'm picking up Ken's fixation for certain parts and methods, though some standards I'm really beginning to adopt are of my own taste, yet well within the category of excellence in parts, such as the LB ambi-thumb safety for example.

When discussing the alloy that Caspian had been using in that did not take a blue well, it was probably pretty heavy in nickel content in those particular parts. Ultimately, I think the cast frames I've been handling from Caspian are probably the best bang for the buck. The LB frame starts in price where two Caspian frames could be had.

(lots of opinion in the above with little experience yet and a long way to go to truly achieve a level of proficiency in metallurgy.

[pa_guns]

Hi

There are two very basic ways to forge a piece of metal. You can forge it while hot or you can forge it while it is cold. A hot forged pice of steel is pretty similar to a casting, not identical, but close. A cold forged piece of steel has some properties that are a bit different than a casting or a hot forged item. We don't seem to keep track of weather our slides are hot forged or cold forged.

In order to do a forging you use certain alloys and after the forging you heat treat it in a specific fashion. With a casting you use somewhat different alloys and heat treat it differently. In some ways the casting can be better because you can alloy better stuff into it.

Most pistols are designed with frames and slides that have a lot of "design margin" in them. The subtle differences here don't make a real big difference if the process used is done correctly.

Barrels are normally pushed a bit closer to the "edge". Also barrels are exposed to a lot of pressure on a regular basis. Some barrels are even cold forged to put the rifling into them. Despite that many pistols wear out the barrel well ahead of the frame or slide.

Bob

[George Smith]

Lots of good info as usual.

Some random thoughts.

BHP frames were at one point machined from solid forgings, they went to castings and reported less failures. Me thinks the internal stress of taking a chunk and machining everything away that is not a frame leaves less than half the origional weight and a lot of internal stress.

My background is Competition guns. Guns that see 50K to over 100K rounds
(Koenig has a 45 with 105,000, the barrel rifleing is gone for the first half inch but the barrel still shoots at 50 yds)

We weld on frames too, Caspian frames are cast by Ruger and the quality and lack of perocity speaks well of them. No so for several other cast frames that you can not weld a checkered front strap insert into without dealing with pits in the metal.

Para slides are cast, I have seen a total of ONE failure in Para slides Ever since 1990 that is a LOT of slides.

As stated frames should not be too hard Nor dead soft, some are in the 15 rc range. 25 to 34 Rc would probably be a good range.

Slides want to be over 39 rc and 4340 is king, far better than 4140. if you study repititons to failure this will bear this out.

The Springfield XD the front rails are steel the rear rails are plastic, this tells us the business end is the front and the area is the side stop, barrel block and front rails. Aside from Egging link pin holes in soft frames there are not a lot of failures in this area. above the slide stop lock up window (not a big concern) and the sides of the dust cover where they meet the thick part of the frame. (this may be partally from shock buff's doughnut effect squishing out against the sides flexing. Also a constant concern on guns are Inside Square corners. A radius where they meet makes a big difference.

first place to see casting flaws on frames is the radius above the front strap. if you see small pitting here the underlying area is probably a mess. this seems the hardest part to cast on the 1911 frame. having Cut open some frames there are often voids here on cast frames.

Caspian has earned a Very Good reputation for there frames people and products in general. The value of a gun built on a caspian is higher than most component makers.
geo

[gbw]

An interesting thread,

I have 9 cast frames, 3 Essex and 6 Caspian. I use more Caspian because everyone seems to say they are 'better'. And while I give a lot of weight to the experienced opinions presented on this Forum, I'm not completely persueded one is 'better'. Both are excellent products, and values, in my experience - which is admittedly limited, see below. The Caspians appear more carefully finished, but they cost more. As far as assembling guns, I've had no problems with either.

I can't really speak to longevity. One of the Essex has the most use, but still approaching only 5000 rds. Both take polishing and bluing well.

I've done considerable metal removal in the barrel bridge areas for timing, under the trigger guards, beveling mag wells, and to fit BT grip safeties on most of the frames (especially the Essex frames). I've seen no porosity, and found only one casting void. One the Caspians has a small, unimportant but cosmetically annoying void on the rear of the grip area.

I normally use Colt slides, so I have no experience with the other makers.

[pa_guns]

Hi

If Ruger makes all of the Caspian frames that's a good thing.

Ruger is basically a high end casting company that also does a few firearms on the side. They are one of the top, if not the top casting houses in the country.

Bob