Tungsten Carbide for Buffer Weights?

[MAHLMAN]

I have a box full of broken and dull 1/2" carbide end mills. Looking at the price of Tungsten buffer wights and wondering if cut shank pieces of these end mills would work. I do lapidary work to so I have diamond saw blades that will cut these with no problem and I can also put a chamfer or round on the edges of the cut pieces.

My main concern is will the carbide be to brittle? Anyone try this?

 

[msgriff]

There are buffer manufacturers that use crushed tungsten. If your intent is more or less a solid buffer, if might work, but that sounds like a lot of empty space around your cut shanks. I cant imagine it working well for reciprocating weights.

 

[MAHLMAN]

I have in hand various buffer weights and they are all solid rod stock cut to weight. My intent is not to crush these but make duplicates of what is being used by others currently. The bore of the buffer is 9/16" and the weights measure 1/2". My concern is the brittleness of the carbide though I guess I could put a thin piece of rubber in between weights. I have seen both with and without those rubber discs.

 

[whatsupdoc]

Have nothing to loose try them, the rubber is most likely for noise reduction and the bolt carrier
only reaches a speed of 12 MPH so I doubt the carbide would crack. I would use rubber in between though.

 

[mtrmn]

Cut a piece and compare the weight to a regular tungsten buffer weight.
My local gun store had a few LBE brand H3 buffers for less than $20 each. I bought 3 or 4 of them so I could mix/match the weights to make my own H1, H2, OR use them as is for H3s.
The whole buffer was less than the cost of 3 tungsten weights.

 

[MAHLMAN]

I found this site which was the cheapest I could find for weights only. Tungsten Recoil Buffer Weights H3 AR-15 Accesories | Shop Pur Tungsten
Like you I still found these higher then I wanted. I figure over the years I have accumulated about 30" of usable 1/2" carbide shanks. Tungsten Carbide weighs 15.7 g/cm3 and pure tungsten weighs 19.25 g/cm3 so the carbide is plenty heavy enough to work. Pure Tungsten easy to work and carbide not.