Steel mags are difficult to duplicate in plastic. Possible but you’re gonna have to be very creative.
Some things that worked for me when i designed the m&p mags:
The largest forces are from the stack pushing outwards, especially where it squishes from double to single stack. You want solid hoops of material to resist that. I had best luck with orienting the body perfectly vertically so the lips are actually at about a 15 degree angle relative to the bed and cross through many layers.
Reduce the gap between the lips as much as possible so the rounds are pushing more upward than outward at that location.
Measure the breach area to see if there is extra space for more material, fill it up! Can also try lowering the presentation height and increase feed angle but this might not work well without a tilting barrel.
Use esun pla+, it us the only pla suitable for magazines. he layer adhesion is much better.
Thank you, all seem like great tips. I figured this project might be difficult or impossible with the original being steel but I wanted to learn CAD and even 2 rolls of pla+ is cheaper in some cases than one of these mags I’ve seen. So far this has been my biggest issue thankfully and was able to fit around 5 bullets before the layer gave up. I’m going to play more with printing on its back but so far has been a challenge as the mag latch is a tail latch rather than a button. I plan on getting PLA+ once I think I’ve maxed the potential with my remaining roll of pla.
Latest print was 30mm/s printing at 230° and 80-100% cooling. I may try try your settings out and see if I can get things better. Re-measured some stuff and got a few dimensions wrong in an unrelated area that I’m fixing up for now then another print. Total of 7 prints and first few were very crude as i am and was learning how to use Fusion 360
Lowered print speed and cooling along with increasing the fillet as per another comment and only issue now is friction jamming. Going to work on that till I see more cracking. Thanks for passing on your wisdom
u/tavelkyosoba · 2022-10-18 16:39:22 UTC · score 9
Steel mags are difficult to duplicate in plastic. Possible but you’re gonna have to be very creative.
Some things that worked for me when i designed the m&p mags:
The largest forces are from the stack pushing outwards, especially where it squishes from double to single stack. You want solid hoops of material to resist that. I had best luck with orienting the body perfectly vertically so the lips are actually at about a 15 degree angle relative to the bed and cross through many layers.
Reduce the gap between the lips as much as possible so the rounds are pushing more upward than outward at that location.
Measure the breach area to see if there is extra space for more material, fill it up! Can also try lowering the presentation height and increase feed angle but this might not work well without a tilting barrel.
Use esun pla+, it us the only pla suitable for magazines. he layer adhesion is much better.
u/ByteU · 2022-10-18 17:06:21 UTC · score 3
Thank you, all seem like great tips. I figured this project might be difficult or impossible with the original being steel but I wanted to learn CAD and even 2 rolls of pla+ is cheaper in some cases than one of these mags I’ve seen. So far this has been my biggest issue thankfully and was able to fit around 5 bullets before the layer gave up. I’m going to play more with printing on its back but so far has been a challenge as the mag latch is a tail latch rather than a button. I plan on getting PLA+ once I think I’ve maxed the potential with my remaining roll of pla.
u/tavelkyosoba · 2022-10-18 17:14:36 UTC · score 2
Happy to share my experience, learn from my mistakes lol
Also, make sure you are printing very slowly with minimal cooling. I usually run 20mm/s outer perimeters with around 15-20% cooling.
I was working on a shield mag and there just wasn’t enough space to add any reinforcement and it ended up being a dead end…for now lol
u/ByteU · 2022-10-18 17:27:02 UTC · score 1
Latest print was 30mm/s printing at 230° and 80-100% cooling. I may try try your settings out and see if I can get things better. Re-measured some stuff and got a few dimensions wrong in an unrelated area that I’m fixing up for now then another print. Total of 7 prints and first few were very crude as i am and was learning how to use Fusion 360
u/ByteU · 2022-10-19 13:10:35 UTC · score 1
Lowered print speed and cooling along with increasing the fillet as per another comment and only issue now is friction jamming. Going to work on that till I see more cracking. Thanks for passing on your wisdom