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Fun with Stainless

925 Views 12 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  kernelkrink, 
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Been wanting to build a receiver out of stainless steel for some time now. No real reason other than "because". Any rate, here's the progress so far: One is a standard AKM fixed stock based off of a flat as a template. The other is based on a Yugo M95 flat template.

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1biggun
Its been done in fact at one pint there was a a guy selling flats in stainless. its been years but do a search here and you will likely find the info.

One of the things reported is that the stainless will gall. I have a flat cut out to do a 308 build on but there are a lot of other projects first. I was going to jewel/engine turn the sides on mine.

Good luck on your build
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zteknik
nice job Chris!!!i see you have the bug again:)
ill try to catch up with you this week-been busy as all heck
im gonna build the underfolder i got from you when i get out to Colorado for vacation
you should pm some of those guys-they might have some spares of what ya need
talk to jreifsch80 damn good guy!!calls me all the time!!has a lot of crazy ideas!!!but sounds fun to try em!!
you gonna do an all stainless finish an all the other parts as well-well match it??
keep us posted!!
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Hey 1biggun. Yeah, I've seen where others have done so, but I just wanted to do something different (for me) for a change. I thought that if I was going to try my hand at building one from a piece of sheetmetal, why not do it with stainless? The stainless I selected from McMaster -Carr had good wear, welding, and formability specs, so I'm hoping that I don't have any problems with the bolt galling up on the top rails. I intend to use Duracoat SL on several places, as that's what I've used on my last few builds, and that teflon is slick as snot.

I tell you though, you really have to account for the springback on this stuff, as it sure as heck won't bend to 90 degrees with your regular bending jig. Took me awhile to rig up some stuff to get the sides all the way to 90, but I got 'em!!

Hey Zteknik, what's up Brother?!?!?! Good to see you on here again. I was wondering. Not sure how I'm gonna finish it yet. I'll see after I get to the test firing stage, and get her all dialed in. Take it easy!!
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1biggun
what grade of stainless are you using?? Im going to build one for my many stainles barrels i have aquired was planing on doing the rest of the parts in electroless nickle. i likely will polish the carrier. I think some jeweling would look really good as well. I bought some stainless tubing for a gas tube from aircraft spruce and was looking into stainless 10-32 torxbit screws to do a screw build with it. I was going to go witha a alloy dropin trigger group and guard.

I have some .060 stainless but Im not sure of the grade of it. Its the stuff usesd in milk tanks.
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W
Nice build, I like your style! I'm in the middle of a rivetless SS AK pistol build, Hope this isn't to big of a thread jack.



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Wow, looks great Woody!!!! Not hijacking at all. I look forward to anyone else replying with some pics/info from their experiences with stainless.

1biggun, I'll have to go back and look at my order. I got with an engineer at work, and he helped select the best type for my purposes. I'll reply as soon as I find the invoice, and let you know.
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muttman
dam, keep posting them, I thought a SS reciver would catch on.
big gun,
that .060" milk tank (food grade SS) you have there will work realy nice. the only down side is the higher nickle in the mix will make it even harder to bend. the only real problem I found with bending this stuff was it really does not like to bend that well.
woody,
your trigger guard looks way better than what I did, please do tell how.
muttman
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F
Woodey - DUDE, what a great project! ;-)

NOTE: As another poster in this thread warned - Stainless Steel GALLS!!!!

Make sure and use a Stainless Steel Rated Grease (as I was warned by an old boy when he saw I bought an AMT)!!!

I use RIG when it first came out and it greatly helped in preventing GALLING on CAST Stainless Steel AMT Pistols (Hardballer, Javalina, Hunter, etc....)...

Rig +P Stainless Steel Lube 1.5 Ounce Tube

HTH,
fast_dave
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muttman
If one uses the better grade of SS then gualding should not be an issue. Muttman
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kernelkrink
IIRC, early stainless steel guns galled because they used the same grade of stainless for both slide and frame. Later on they learned if they used different steel specs for each part the galling stopped or was greatly reduced. A stainless receiver with carbon steel reciprocating parts should not gall even with minimal lube.
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