Peek as a baffle material

[cncjerry]

Anyone taken a look at PEEK? Was just kicking around the idea of using it for baffles within a carbon fiber tube. It would be for semi-auto rimfire. I picked up some 1" rod at a surplus store not knowing what it was. Some guy came in after me and bought the whole 55gal drum of 1" x 48" rods for $50. Each rod would sell as new for around $200. Seems like it has a problem with hydrocarbons though.

PEEK is a semicrystalline thermoplastic with excellent mechanical and chemical resistance properties that are retained to high temperatures. The Young's modulus is 3.6 GPa and its tensile strength 90 to 100 MPa.[4] PEEK has a glass transition temperature at around 143 °C (289 °F) and melts around 343 °C (662 °F). The thermal conductivity increases nearly linearly versus temperature between room temperature and solidus temperature.[5] It is highly resistant to thermal degradation as well as attack by both organic and aqueous environments. It is attacked by halogens and strong Bronsted and Lewis acids as well as some halogenated compounds and aliphatic hydrocarbons at high temperatures. It dissolves completely in concentrated sulfuric acid at room temperature.

I'm still reading everything I can find. The biggest challenge is I live in California, have a house in Pennsylvania, but all the machines are in California.

Jerry

[M40A1308M]

We have some very high temp carbons and thermoplastics here also that I would think would make a light low round use can. I think it would be use over time that would be a problem. Every body today wants the indestructible suppressor {I know I would buy one}. But as a low use one, I think technology is getting up there to start seeing the all plastic or carbon cans. I,m sure some 02/07's have toyed with the idea before.

[HandyMan]

I have machined a stack of K's from PEEK. They were left quite thick for obvious reasons. Sound testing showed a great deal of promise, but durability was poor.

After approx. 100 rounds, the baffles all had cracks radiating from the boreline on the rear face. The rear faces of these baffles were almost 3/16" thick.

I think it would be a very neat design if the baffles could be injection molded with 30% glass fill. They might last long enough for some users who wanted the lightest can possible.

To the ear, the sound was 'dead' for lack of a better word. They were on par with the Element on the meter, but sounded much softer to the ear. And this was with quite a bit less internal volume than the Element due to the thickness of the baffles.

[57fairlane]

I have machined a stack of K's from PEEK. They were left quite thick for obvious reasons. Sound testing showed a great deal of promise, but durability was poor.

After approx. 100 rounds, the baffles all had cracks radiating from the boreline on the rear face. The rear faces of these baffles were almost 3/16" thick.

I think it would be a very neat design if the baffles could be injection molded with 30% glass fill. They might last long enough for some users who wanted the lightest can possible.

To the ear, the sound was 'dead' for lack of a better word. They were on par with the Element on the meter, but sounded much softer to the ear. And this was with quite a bit less internal volume than the Element due to the thickness of the baffles.

The EXACT person I was thinking of when I saw the word "peek" in the title

[cncjerry]

this all makes sense as I've seen it fracture when tapped.

Back to the drawing board.