Titanium AR Parts

[Guest adamoxtwo]

OK so I am building an AR and I am thinking about ordering a Titanium BCG, Hammer, Trigger and Selector. I know that the trigger and Selector are more cosmetic then anything else, but I have read great reviews about the BCG and Hammer (which you need a hammer because a standard will be destroyed hitting the titanium BCG. Does anyone have any experience with these parts they would be willing to share? Thanks

[Caster]

Do you mean the TiN coated parts? Titanium nitride is super hard and great stuff even if it does look a little blingy. Doing tool & die for many years, I just don't understand the myth, smoke and mirrors of titanium itself. Titanium, for all it's lightweight glory and nearly impervious resistance to corrosion is really soft material. It's a bit gummy like non magnetic stainless. It's not something that be heat treated with any success. It'll never hold a candle to a good quality carbon steel, properly heat treated, drawn and stress relieved.

Titanium has become one of those "Oooo and Ahhh" words to please the sheeple, kinda like CNC. People say, "Oooo that's CNC made!" Yeah well great! If it wasn't it would cost ten times as much unless it was made in a chinese sweat shop because someone would have to manually operate this machine to make it. The people that have the skills to do that, do not come cheap either. CNC is complicated to the programmer and setup guy, but once the program and setup have been proven, anyone can be a button monkey. Put the part in the vise against the stop, lock it down, shut the door and push the green button. Oooooooo!

Once again though, TiN coating is totally different. If you don't mind the bright gold finish, it'll wear longer than anything it touches. There's a reason they coat endmills, carbide inserts and drill bits with it. It's tough stuff.

[peejman]

I work on Ti alloy parts all the time. Caster is correct in that the primary benefits are strength to weight ratio, high temperature strength, and corrosion resistance. The drawback are cost and machinability. However he's not correct about heat treatment - Ti alloys are readily heat treated. They cannot achieve the same hardness level as steel, but do come close.

Seems like a lighter bolt/carrier would just get whacked around because the AR gas system is tuned for steel parts.

I don't understand the comment about a hammer being destroyed from hitting the Ti BCG. Only if the hammer is low grade steel. A hardened steel hammer will wear out the titanium.

[Caster]

However he's not correct about heat treatment - Ti alloys are readily heat treated. They cannot achieve the same hardness level as steel, but do come close.

I suppose I should have said no Ti I have ever worked with. That wouldn't have sounded so "knowitall" when I clearly don't:) Of course when you work with steels like CPM, T15, M2 and M42, most other materials seem rather soft. I've worked some CPM-10V parts that were around 70 rockwell after heat treat. You don't leave anymore grindstock than absolutely necessary on that stuff, it's a job to even surface grind it. Thank God for CBN wheels.

[Caster]

I don't understand the comment about a hammer being destroyed from hitting the Ti BCG. Only if the hammer is low grade steel. A hardened steel hammer will wear out the titanium.

I didn't really understand this either. Unless the hammer is made from cold rolled. AND even then, it shouldn't be hitting the BCG, just the radius of the firing pin. Even if the hammer is soft, it should only have a spherical indentation.

[Dolomite_supafly]

The hammer rides on the bottom of the BCG, not just the firing pin. I seriously doubt a regular hammer is going to get worn out by anything whether it be Ti or any other material for that matter.

If you are wanting lubricity as well as surface hardness get chrome plated rather than Ti. Personally I don't see the need for it and you would be better suited using the money on other items. I have run standard AR parts for years and never had a hammer wear out. The wear items in the fire control group are the disconnect and hammer spring. That is all I have ever seen. In the BCG the only parts I have ever seen wear are the extractor springs and rarely gas rings. I have seen lugs crack as well as the cam pin but like everything else it is rare. I have also seen hammer pins break but those are also pretty rare.

If I had to guess what the most often part to fail on a AR is the extractor spring or disconnect and either of those are $5 parts.

I am far from the expert on AR's but I have built them for a long time. There are a lot of things that people try to sell you as must haves but there are very few actual must haves in an AR.

Dolomite

[peejman]

I might sound a little less "know it all" too if I'd said Ti alloys are readily heat treated in a vacuum furnace. You can't just heat it with a torch and dunk it in a bucket of oil like you can with some steels. I'll assume you mean HRC 70 ... yeah, that's quite hard. The most common Ti alloy, Ti-6Al-4V, can be hardened to about HRC 40. Not bad, but not tool steel either. It's very tough though, low material removal rates and it eats up tools.

Commerically pure titanium (CPTi) is quite soft and gummy. Kinda like copper.

As for the hammer... I agree. If the hammer was that soft, the hardened firing pin would wear a dent in it in no time.

[Guest adamoxtwo]

Thanks for all of this Folks. And yes I did mean TiN Coated. I was reading a lot of reviews on it and everything was positive, but I don't trust anything on a Company Website. I would rather hear what people here have to say about it.

The Comment from the Hammer was from a Review I have read and talked to my Father in law who is a machinist and he said that if you are using a cheap metal for your hammer it will go out first on you. Again I asked because I didn't know. Thanks for the information I will certainly consider all points prior to purchasing my Components.