Titanium Weapons

[Ole Humpback]

You're going to have to describe the burning in a 100% nitrogen atmosphere for me.

Nitrogen is not a noble element. Its outer electron shell has only 5 electrons. Titanium on the other hand has only 2 electrons in its outer electron shell, but one can move down into a lower valence shell if needed. Noble elements have 8 electrons in their outer shells which means they are unreactive with any substance. When Titanium & Nitrogen combine at 800* C, they oxidize. The Titanium atom gives its electrons to the nitrogen atom to complete a shell of 7 outer electrons. The result is Titanium Nitride (TiN). Burning is oxidation that we can see in real time.

The reason that Titanium oxidizes with Nitrogen at 800* C is that Ti's outer electron shell has been energized to the point that it can readily swap electrons with the Nitrogen. Going beyond this would mean me getting my dad for an explanation and a long paper by Einstein & Teller on the nuclear & EM forces that are at work inside an atom.

Manco, you're dead on about stiffness. A good way to judge stiffness is to look at a materials Modulus of Elasticity. Titanium has a modulus of 16800ksi whereas 4130 Steel (target barrel steel) has modulus of 29700ksi. Therefore, steel is generally twice as stiff as Ti.

 

[osteodoc08]

I was under the impression that there have been issues with light primer stokes if the springs aren't changed, galling issues, elasticity issues. As far as trigger groups, the sear engagement angles are not preserved like they are in tool steel due it's properties over the long haul as well. The average shooter would probably never notice though

Besides. I thought the ti small parts were mostly gimmick type stuff anyhow for the average shooter. I'd never notice a 10 millisecond faster lock time.

http://www.armalite.com/images/Tech...ium Firing Pins ArmaLite considers Gener….pdf

 

[Agent Orange]

http://www.sviguns.com/1202.php

Around $8K iirc..

 

[willypete]

My understanding of the weakness of the Russky subs was do to continual stress cracking because of deep dives and dissimilar metals in an electrolytic solution. I could be wrong, though. That was mostly word of mouth.

Titanium also dissipates heat incredibly quickly, from personal experience in heat exchangers and machinery applications.

I've read about stress corrosion cracking in airframe applications due to dissimilar metals. Probably the same deal with the subs.

 

[Jim Watson]

There was an outfit that made a very lightweight "sheep rifle" with titanium barrel and action.
Barrel life was VERY short. Sight it in as quickly as possible, shoot a bighorn every hunting season, and you would be ok. But any ordinary use would erode it out very soon.


Titanium will burn in about any atmospheric environment, although it takes a lot of heat to ignite it. Titanium burning in air produces both titanium oxide and titanium nitride. I have read that a titanium fire hit with a carbon dioxide extinguisher will form a cloud of black smoke as it reacts the oxygen right out of the CO2 leaving the carbon.

 

[Dan Bear]

The S&W 340pd is a scandium aluminum J frame revolver with a titanium cylinder. I was very interested in this lightweight .357, until I read about all of the corrosion issues people were having when shooting the 38+p's.

 

[mnrivrat]

My Taurus model 731 is made of total titanium according to Taurus. I believe they also made a couple other models in Total Titanium . They no longer make my Model 731 in this material but I have had no issues/problems with the gun I have.

It was bought about 7 years ago, and was a discontinued version at that time already. I believe they only produced them for a year or two, and they were $100+ more money than the non titanium versions.

 

[Ole Humpback]

My understanding of the weakness of the Russky subs was do to continual stress cracking because of deep dives and dissimilar metals in an electrolytic solution. I could be wrong, though. That was mostly word of mouth.

Titanium also dissipates heat incredibly quickly, from personal experience in heat exchangers and machinery applications.

I've read about stress corrosion cracking in airframe applications due to dissimilar metals. Probably the same deal with the subs.

You're close on all points, no doubt about that. But there is misinformation here as well.

The Alfa class hull was all Titanium. There is no way that the hull could suffer from dielectric corrosion unless there was a pressure hull micro-fracture that allowed for for seawater to interact with the hull & its support structure OR the sub had a poor environmental controls and allowed for a humid environment inside the pressure hull. I don't know 100% either way how an Alfa class sub was built inside, so perhaps our comrade Marko Ramus could give us a pointer or two I can't speculate on the Typhoon or Akula class beyond both subs having multiple pressure hulls. One thing is for certain though, the Russians did make the reactor pressure vessels for subs out of Titanium and Ti is not able to withstand the kind of nuclear bombardment from nuclear fission in any kind of reactor.

Titanium will dissipate heat quickly, but not quickly enough from what I've seen. When I was cutting the halfshafts on a lathe with flood cooling on the tool & part, the Ti built up heat so fast that the chip was glowing bright orange coming off the part. If it gets that hot under flood cooling, I wouldn't use it anywhere where repeated heat cycles in an air cooled environment are expected.

Stress corrosion cracking, SCC, was due to issues within the material itself. A prime example of this is 7075-T6 Aluminum. Its an alloy of 96.5% Aluminum, 2.5% Magnesium, and 1% other elements. The Mag was susceptible to SCC is a corrosive environment such as a carrier deck or salted airport runway. The natural fatigue cycles in landing gear accelerated in the presence of salt water, which lead to landing gear trunnions with unusually short operational life spans when the math said otherwise. Turned out that the mag had been corroding away inside the alloy at the microscopic level. Its for that reason that 7075-T6 is no longer used in aircraft.

 

[kozak6]

Another issue is that some parts, such as pistol slides, actually need to be heavy for proper operation. At that point, you are trading weight for bulk.

 

[willypete]

Hull may be made of titanium, but I'll bet all the heat exchangers and seawater system piping weren't

Thus, you'll get dissimilar metals with electrical contact in an electrolytic solution.

Never bothered to see if neutron embrittlement was more or less of a factor with Ti than with other metals. Our solution (USA) was just to over-engineer everything that went into the reactor

Russky subs have weird designs overall, and a lot of stuff that is common sense to us was completely overlooked by them. Steam pipes with no bends or curves will expand under operation and blow welds? No way! Yeah, they did that among other things.

 

[Ala Dan]

I like the weight of Ti guns; but certainly not the price~!

 

[fletcher]

Titanium doesn't have particularly good wear properties, and has a tendency for fretting and galling when in contact with other surfaces. High strength Ti alloys are also notch and surface texture sensitive, resulting in lowered fatigue life in applications where the surface may be affected (which is pretty much contact with anything, being scratched, etc.). This can be addressed by various means, but would be a design challenge.

 

[Art Eatman]

Bought a Rem 700 Ti fairly early on. 7mm08; 22" barrel. Sub-MOA from the gitgo. 6.5 pounds, fully dressed to go hunting. Made my ancient legs real happy. Call it an Olde Phart's savior.

Don't think I'd want one in .300 Win Mag, though.

 

[Water-Man]

Taurus M450 T 2" .45Colt

 

[brickeyee]

Actually, titanium seems to be more like steel in that regard:

Better tell the aircraft engineers that have used the stuff.

The firmly believe the useful flight alloys have fatigue characteristics similar to aluminum.

 

[Remo223]

the thing is....there is really no need and or market for titanium.

its somewhere in between steel and aluminum, both of which are heavily used in firearms....

titanium is as strong as steel only 40% lighter.......and it is twice as strong as aluminum only 60% heavier........


we have aluminum used heavily in firearms and they suffer from no ill effects.....a well made firearm will last several lifetimes.......so there is no need for the added strength from titanium.

that coupled with the fact that it is difficult to machine and it would undoubtedly increase the cost of the firearm significantly make it a relativity poor material to make guns with.

incorrect.

aluminum, titanium, and steel all have approximately the same strength to weight ratio. The only structurally useful metal that has unusual strength the weight ratio is magnesium and that metal is no good for long term use. It corrodes too fast and burns too easily.

I'm convinced the ideal cylinder design is the stainless "cloverleaf" cylinder of the ruger lcr.

btw, steel frame handguns generally last at least twice as many rounds as aluminum frame handguns.

 

[Manco]

Better tell the aircraft engineers that have used the stuff.

The firmly believe the useful flight alloys have fatigue characteristics similar to aluminum.

Well, it does depend on the specific alloy and how it's used, that's true. In firearms, even some steel parts may be stressed beyond their fatigue limits, meaning that they can suffer from the effects of fatigue as well.

 

[redneck]

You're close on all points, no doubt about that. But there is misinformation here as well.

The Alfa class hull was all Titanium. There is no way that the hull could suffer from dielectric corrosion unless there was a pressure hull micro-fracture that allowed for for seawater to interact with the hull & its support structure OR the sub had a poor environmental controls and allowed for a humid environment inside the pressure hull. I don't know 100% either way how an Alfa class sub was built inside, so perhaps our comrade Marko Ramus could give us a pointer or two I can't speculate on the Typhoon or Akula class beyond both subs having multiple pressure hulls. One thing is for certain though, the Russians did make the reactor pressure vessels for subs out of Titanium and Ti is not able to withstand the kind of nuclear bombardment from nuclear fission in any kind of reactor.

Titanium will dissipate heat quickly, but not quickly enough from what I've seen. When I was cutting the halfshafts on a lathe with flood cooling on the tool & part, the Ti built up heat so fast that the chip was glowing bright orange coming off the part. If it gets that hot under flood cooling, I wouldn't use it anywhere where repeated heat cycles in an air cooled environment are expected.

Stress corrosion cracking, SCC, was due to issues within the material itself. A prime example of this is 7075-T6 Aluminum. Its an alloy of 96.5% Aluminum, 2.5% Magnesium, and 1% other elements. The Mag was susceptible to SCC is a corrosive environment such as a carrier deck or salted airport runway. The natural fatigue cycles in landing gear accelerated in the presence of salt water, which lead to landing gear trunnions with unusually short operational life spans when the math said otherwise. Turned out that the mag had been corroding away inside the alloy at the microscopic level. Its for that reason that 7075-T6 is no longer used in aircraft.

I can back this up with my experience making knives with titanium liners/frames. My benchtop under my grinder is lined with sheet metal. Running a 40 grit ceramic belt at top speed throws white hot sparks from titanium that would otherwise set the workbench on fire. I wear glasses in a #3 welding lense while grinding the stuff. The grit left under the grinder (mostly steel filings) occasionally catches on fire and will smoulder until its spread apart so the heat can dissipate.

 

[M-Cameron]

incorrect.

aluminum, titanium, and steel all have approximately the same strength to weight ratio. The only structurally useful metal that has unusual strength the weight ratio is magnesium and that metal is no good for long term use. It corrodes too fast and burns too easily.

courtesy of Wikipedia.

Commercial (99.2% pure) grades of titanium have ultimate tensile strength of about 63,000 psi (434 MPa), equal to that of common, low-grade steel alloys, but are 45% lighter.[6] Titanium is 60% more dense than aluminium, but more than twice as strong[6] as the most commonly used 6061-T6 aluminium alloy. Certain titanium alloys (e.g., Beta C) achieve tensile strengths of over 200,000 psi (1,400 MPa).[10] However, titanium loses strength when heated above 430 °C (806 °F).[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium#Physical_properties

 

[offroader1006]

strength is relative depending on the forces at work.

i know Ti firing pins are much more brittle than their steel counterparts.

in any case, i think "titanium" firearms parts are not pure Ti. finding a pure Ti part is rare.

 

[hardluk1]

Titanium works well when it comes to makeing the highest flying and faster jet in the world . SR-71 It had a skin temp of over 600* for extended flights.

 

[brickeyee]

Titanium works well when it comes to makeing the highest flying and faster jet in the world . SR-71 It had a skin temp of over 600* for extended flights.

Only parts of the SR71 are titanium.

Most if the airframe is aluminum alloy (very high crbide type that breaks beofre bending unless heated before forming).

The skin is almost completely titanium though.

A special paint was used to avoid embrittling problems (CO2 propellant with iron oxide pigment).
All the mechanics tools had chrome platting stripped off also to avoid embrittling issues with the titanium fasteners.

Markers were not allowed near the plane either.
If a marker was used on the back of a titanium panel it would cause corrosion cracking when the panel was subsequently heated in flight.

There were still some steel pins and fasteners in a few places also.

The JP-7 leaks made the hanger stink all the time (it had to be squeegeed up and then removed using a coal shovel).
It destroyed rubber shoe soles if you stepped in any on the floor.

 

[Manco]

in any case, i think "titanium" firearms parts are not pure Ti. finding a pure Ti part is rare.

Well, the same would be true of iron (of which steels are the most important alloys) and aluminum. Alloys generally make these metals more useful.

Only parts of the SR71 are titanium.

Most if the airframe is aluminum alloy (very high crbide type that breaks beofre bending unless heated before forming).

The skin is almost completely titanium though.

There were still some steel pins and fasteners in a few places also.

Is it true that other Mach 2+ and Mach 3+ aircraft, such as the B-70, MiG-25, and B-58 successfully used mostly steel (nickel or stainless steel) in their structures, though?

 

[hardluk1]

90% of the yf-12 and sr-71 series were titanium. They had to learn how to make the large frame sections and devolope new press's, and hammer forgeing machinery to work titanium peices as large as they needed.
Yes the russians were very good at makeing mainly steel aircraft. That is one reason so many of there aircraft had a short fly time before haveing to refuel. But darn sure have some fast and highly maneuverable planes. Good thing most of there pilots suck. And we bought the titanium needed in our country from russia.

 

[Remo223]

courtesy of Wikipedia.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium#Physical_properties

to post #44: I hope you don't really think you just made a valid point. You didnt.

Aluminum, titanium, and steel, each have a RANGE of tensile strength. Take an average value for each and compare. Take an extremely high value for each and compare. You will see that my statement is correct...all three have approximately the same strength to weight ratio.

btw, steel is produced in the 400,000-500,000 psi range and slightly higher is possible. Aluminum alloys with a miniscule amount of scandium added achieves 85,000psi.


I'm convinced the best design for a revolver cylinder is something like the thin walled STEEL "cloverleaf" shape of the ruger lcr cylinder.