Shockwave Technologies

We are finishing the welding on the first batch of 1,000 today–and will be getting the mags to the metal finishers on Monday June 2nd. Should be able to begin assembling, packaging, and shipping them the following Monday–June 9th. It will take a week or more to get caught up with all the pre-orders.

Once we are completely caught up with the pre-orders, we will begin offering the mags on our website.

Thank you to all of you who have hung in there with us. And a big thank you to all the positive support we’ve received these past so many months. It does mean a lot to a small company like ours.

Thank you,
Marty

 

Two quick videos of production magazine testing. The first video is with steel-cased Wolf 115-grain FMJ. The second video is with brass-cased Winchester 147-grain flat-nosed FMJ.

 

 

Here are the first two production ZMAGs, hot off the presses. (They still need to be black zinc coated.) Just 998 to go in this first batch of 1,000. 🙂

We’re in actual production! 🙂 Here are a couple of vids showing how the feedlips and tabs for the floorplate are formed as well as how the mag body is stamped with the relevant info. Finally, there’s a pic of this small, pneumatic tool that we use to form the final bend in the floorplates—to get them to fit perfectly on the mag body tabs.

Feedlips being formed

 

Mag body being marked and floorplate tabs being bent

 

Small, pneumatic tool for forming final bend in floorplates (not mounted in pic)

We’re moving into the production phase, folks. Here’s a quick video showing the first mag body blanks being stamped out in our production pilot program.

 

Mag body blanks in the catch bin

 

Marking details on the mag bodies after they’ve been through a couple of subsequent tools

In other exciting news, we tested the ZMAG follower mold. It worked perfectly. So we will be running the first 1,000 followers this next week as well.

This past week, we got all the various tools mounted in the presses and tested. As expected, there were a few minor adjustments needed. (There always are with this kind of work.) These bits of fine tuning (mostly to the insert and floorplate tool) will be made over the next couple of days. We anticipate running the first 1,000 mag bodies, 10,000 inserts, and 10,000 floorplates next week. 🙂

 

This is the insert-floorplate tool in the press.

This is the “strip” that the tool above creates. (Toes not included.)

 

Here’s an overview of the coil going into the straightener and then into the press.

 

This 425-lb coil of steel will be 10,000 ZMAG inserts and floorplates in a week.

 

In this video, we’re testing the tool for stamping the insert and floorplate. You can see that we need to add a plastic “bridge” to the very end to keep the strip from rising up. This test was done in manual mode. Once we start this up in production mode, the press will be pushing out 53 inserts and 53 floorplates every minute! 🙂 To put that in perspective, the inserts and floorplates we need for the first batch of 1,000 mags will be stamped out in just 18 minutes.

We have finished all of the production tooling for the ZMAGs for the M11/NINE guns. We will be running samples this Friday. Look for an update—with video—this weekend. 🙂

To ensure we’re able to get out the pre-orders as quickly as possible, we will stop accepting new pre-orders on Mar 23, 2014.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. We are approximately three weeks out on the ZMAG at this point—if everything goes to plan. Here are some pics of the work in progress:

 

Body blanking and initial piercing progressive tool is 100% complete:

 

Body second piercing and initial forming transfer tool is 100% complete (partially disassembled in pics):

 

Feedlip forming transfer tool is 100% complete:

 

Feedlip forming tool with formed mag body in place:

 

Body final forming transfer tool is 75% complete:

 

Insert and floorplate blanking and forming progressive tool is 25% complete—and where all efforts are currently focused:

 

An overview of the complete tooling set in progress:

 

Artwork for marking stamps:

 

Things left to do:

• Get the marking stamps in and installed in the body blanking tool. (These stamps are still 7 business days out.)
• In the meantime, complete the insert and floorplate blanking and forming progressive tool. (This tool still needs more than a week of work to complete.)
• Once the tools are built and finalized, it will take approximately three days to run the first 1,000 units.
• Then the parts will have to be black zinc plated. That will take most of a week.
• Lastly, we will assemble the mags and start shipping them to those who have pre-ordered.

Thank you to everyone hanging in there with us. Just a few more weeks at this point. 🙂

Marty

We are hard at work on the various pieces of production tooling. The mold for the polymer followers is complete (need to get a picture of this). The different tools for the mag bodies are almost complete. The progressive stamping tool for the inserts and floorplates is the final piece we need to finish, which should go rather quickly.

The first batch of 30-round springs from Wolff is here.

The most realistic date I can give for beginning shipment is the middle of next month (mid-March). I know we’re taking longer than expected. But thank you to everyone for hanging in there with us. I believe these will be worth the wait.

Some pics of the work in progress:

Magazine body trim and pierce die in progress:

 

Feedlip forming tool halves in progress:

No one should be left defenseless. So we’re dropping the price on our Raptor Grip M500 and Raptor Grip R870 to $25.95. Now everyone should be able to build the Ultimate Home Defense Weapon.

Order your Raptor Grip for the Mossberg 500 here.

Order your Raptor Grip for the Remington 870 here.