Bayonet Bonanza

[Bruce_in_Oz]

One of the more entertaining machine operations i have ever seen is that for making STANAG / M-16 mags.

I don't have any pix because we were not allowed to take any, or even carry cameras inside the facility.

However:

Start with a big roll of the appropriate metal and punch some "starter" notches on both sides of the "tail"

Feed this into a set of guides and "toothed" rollers and hit the start switch.

The material is fed through a series of stamping stations that start with "blanking, ( basic outline forming) and move on from there. The trick is that the "blank" sides are NOT shorn (sheared?) away from the tractor-fed sheet but held by numerous tabs like sprues on an injection moulding.

Thus, synchronised by the tractor feed (VERY like your Daisy-Wheel printer, circa 1970's) the "panels" are subjected to various punching / stamping operations, like the forming of the guide-ribs, folding the front and rear edges, forming the feed lips and mag-latch feature, etc.

At the final station, the finished sides are punched clear of the well-perforated parent metal sheet and dropped into appropriate bins, ready to be inspected and then jigged up for the assembly welding operation, de-burring and surface coating.

Meanwhile, automatic spring 'winders", something like this one; are spitting out completed springs by the truck-load.