>>64058931>Isn't it the same shit die-cast toy cars are made from? There's a bunch of shitty bicycle parts made from that shit floating around the market like a turd floating in the bowlNo.
“Die Cast” metal, usually refers to items made from metal with a low melting point, where the metal is cast in reusable dies, which are typically steel.
The “Die Cast” alloys vary, but Zinc alloys like Zamak are incredibly common nowadays, as is aluminum, but usually used for higher price items, and lead used to be common.
Technically bronze/brass, and copper alloys can all be die cast, as can other metal alloys, but it’s usually way less common.
MIM, ie. Metal Injection Molding, is a mire modern process, that involves mixing finely powdered metal, into a binding agent, usually some type of wax, and then injection molding the mixture into dies like plastic injection molding.
These metal powder/wax molded parts, are then put in an atmosphere controlled oven, then first burns away the binder wax, and then heat the metal ip to the temperature were the metal powder fuses.
The parts shrink during the process, but highly complex parts, which in some cases could not be machined, can be made using the process.
Another advantage is that metal alloys that cannot be forged or easily machined, can be potentially made to correct tolerances, or close enough that minimal subsequent machining is necessary.
The problem, is that the shrinkage and other factors have to be properly calculated, the dies can be expensive, and the wax molded parts can get damaged due to poor handling, so proper tolerancing and scrapping of “bad” parts need to be done, and SIG obviously was using parts that should have been scrapped, or was not reworking dies if parts came out slightly off.
For complicated parts for a complicated but cheap door lock, it’s a pretty good process.
It’s a bad process for critical gun parts if a manufacturer is unwilling to tweak the process, and scrap parts.