I saw this video on flax composites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD98L9XlCTU and began to wonder about making stocks or other rifle furniture out of more eco friendly materials. Assuming a non adjustable stock is fine, is this a viable idea??
Eco Friendly alternatives to gun materials
Asbestos
Old news, It was already used in some parts of guns like some bakelite, and heatshields like for the suppressed sten and also asbestos gloves for MGS and asbestos gaskets in water cooled guns
don't know if they still do but during iraq they were still using an asbestos glove for changing out the coax barrel
Asbestos is still used in some industrial purposes. Its mostly been banned from home use since the mid 80s but it can be still found in some car gaskets, clutches and brake pad material
Asbestos is great, the problem is just when it eventually wears out and the particles get everywhere. There's probably a way to encase the fibers in an epoxy, but by now the economic benefits of using it is completely gone and it's still hyper dangerous to mine and refine
It's a solution in search of a problem. A market as niche as modular weapon furniture doesn't put the ghost of a scratch in the pollution abatement problem. The only people who would buy this are the people not allowed to buy guns in their locality anyway.
micarta feels good in the hand and I'd certainly buy it
Wood
>began to wonder about making stocks or other rifle furniture out of more eco friendly materials
Had my 1st hard laugh for the day. Thank you, now I remember to hate treehuggers.
Also
Eco friendly as compared to what now?
Wood is good but one of the main concerns is that it warps and you can't control the way the grain is oriented in the stock if you need to make many stocks at a time, you could mold composites in a way that make sure there's no weak spots that could grow like with when wood cracks
Laminate. Nearly as aesthetic as hand selected wood. Nearly as stable as plastic.
and much stronger than any natural wood
The question is
>Is wood strong enough?
I have yet to break a stock on accident and I suspect most people have had the same experience. Chasing meaningless performance numbers is stupid, like complaining about the strength of the metal making up a pistol's slide. Is making it stronger better?
If you want your shooting to be eco-friendly, fire nontoxic (lead and mercury free) ammunition, that's far more important.
Btw those partly plant-based composites usually still use epoxy or other synthetic materials.
I know of attempts to use lignin instead - you'd basically be creating something with roughly the chemical composition of wood, but higher density and strength. Those materials are currently not fully matured and expensive.
Stocks aren't the only parts that are currently made from plastic.
>is this a viable idea??
LOL why bother.
Sure, you could probably do it. There's zero benefit since the toxic crap is the epoxy, and you're not substituting for that. Or even if you are, 90% of gun guys will look at your "we're eco-friendly!" marketing and say "frick that, it makes me so angry that I want to burn a tire!"
Gun stocks last basically forever, it's not like you're making windmill blades with a ten-year lifespan that are going to get bulldozed into a pit in a landfill because they're nonrecyclable.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills
People aren't dumping plastic gun stocks into the ocean. It's single-use plastics that are the problem.