I recently ordered some Morandi green esun matte PLA for something not related to guns. I noticed that it seemed to have some really nice mechanical properties. It had to be printed at higher temps than most PLA variants that I’ve used as well. Skirts and purge lines coming off of a 60C bed were rigid, which leads me to believe that it will be pretty good even when it warms up a little.

So, I fired up the ender 3, and wanted to see what this material would do. This is just a variant of the artillery boi that is easy to make UFA compliant. It’s sporting a 4.5" barrel, using a solid printed breech, and had the striker fired FCG. The green parts are the matte pla, the sear is also matte pla. Just used black on the non structural parts for looks.

It does seem a bit too flexible. I managed to rupture a couple cases using high velocity ammo. My action could be a little tighter, but that probably wouldn’t keep it from rupturing a case every now and then. Fired standard velocity and shorts just fine. Even with the case ruptures with high velocity ammo, the breech is no worse for wear. There is a tiny chip out of the printed barrel portion, but it is just cosmetic. I will end up making a brass bushing for the action and seeing if it will do better with the high velocity ammo.

But this material would probably be good for many things we use PLA+ for. I have to print it pretty slow for some reason, but it does print very well, with an amazing surface finish.

I don’t recommend people use this to make guns, I just like to test new materials to see how they hold up. Last material was PLAF, which performed very well in the exact same test, although it isn’t something that will hold up to heat as well as PLA+. Up next is a “High Impact” variant of PETG-GF.

If there is something weird and new that someone wants to see compared that is affordable and doesnt require more than 270C I let me know, I might try it out.