Originally Posted by Yondering
Originally Posted by SBTCO
Originally Posted by Yondering
Originally Posted by kingston


Titanium galls.


There's the problem with dumbed-down blanket statements like that - it's true about one condition, but not everything, but people repeat stuff like that without bothering to learn the truth. It's no more accurate than "aluminum galls" or "stainless galls" which are also true in certain conditions.

Most grades of titanium can tend to gall against titanium. But, it works very well without galling against steel and other metals. It can potentially be a very good material for scope internals, but the material itself is expensive, and it's even more expensive to machine parts from it. It'd work, but would people pay for it? Some would, for sure, as we see from other titanium parts in the gun industry.



The increase in cost of Ti internals is negligible when compared to the overall price of a quality scope. You're talking maybe $5 for Ti compared to $0.50-$1.00 for brass or aluminum stock material to machine the internal parts. Yes, 5-10x the cost but still only $4 added overall.

As to the machining of Ti, it used to be an issue years ago but with modern 5 axis cnc, better programming, high speed spindles, new coatings on tooling etc. etc. Ti is being machined on a regular basis all over the world with little issues.

I'm sure the manufacturers have already looked at Ti and skipped it for reasons than cost or some inferred complications of machining.



I machine Ti myself and am well familiar with it, and also have an engineering career that deals with manufacturing and am familiar with that side of things too. I would not make that assumption in your last statement. Ti can absolutely be used for scope internals if people wanted to pay for it, but it would definitely increase the cost. You don't think places like SWFA use brass internals because it's the best material available, do you? They use it because it's cheap to manufacture their scope internals that way and they aren't trying to build a light weight scope.

One example of Ti not galling in regular use is suppressor threads, like on my Gemtech .22 LR suppressor which has a Titanium insert for the barrel mating threads. Ti is used there because it is resistant to wear against steel for repeated installations and removals, and it definitely does not gall in that application. I've used it for the same purpose on my own suppressor builds with great results. The galling is really only an issue with Ti on Ti, and even that is not as bad as a lot of 300-series stainless steels, and can be alleviated by lubricating the surfaces.


I wasn't thinking of the galling issue, more along the lines of thermal expansion/contraction due to temp changes in different materials. I don't know just guessing.

So what would the difference in time/cost be to machine Ti vs brass? The materials cost, as I said, in percentage terms is high, but actual cost is only a few dollars more per unit of material for each part. I just don't see how the labor is going to be so much more working with Ti that a manufacturer is going to avoid using it over brass to meet a price point for customers when we're talking maybe a $20 increase(if that) for a scope that comes in at less wt.?.. especially in today's world of gram counting mountain hunters? Maybe not enough pressure yet from customers to get manufacturers building lt. wt. scopes that function properly as do the NF and SWFA ss's?






Last edited by SBTCO; 12/14/19.
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