The Metal Powder Industries Federation is a federation of six trade associations representing various aspects of powder metallurgy (PM), metal powders, and particulate materials with a mission of advancing the interests of the metal powder producing and consuming industries.

Winners of the 2017 Powder Metallurgy (PM) Design Excellence Awards Competition, sponsored by MPIF were announced at the POWDERMET2017 International Conference on Powder Metallurgy & Particulate Materials. Receiving grand prizes and awards of distinction, the winning parts are outstanding examples of powder metallurgy’s precision, performance, complexity, economy, innovation, and sustainability. The winning parts show how customers from around the world are taking advantage of PM’s remarkable design advantages.

An Award of Distinction in the Aerospace/Military Category was earned by ARC Group Worldwide, Longmont, Colorado, for a metal injection molded (MIM) latch made from MIM-4140 low-alloy steel for Sig Sauer Inc. The internal latch drives a subassembly for the telescoping feature of the collapsible stock on MCX and MPX rifles. The part was designed for metal injection molding as it could not be economically made using any other fabrication method.

An Award of Distinction in the Hand Tools/Recreation Category went to Indo-MIM Pvt. Ltd., India, for a set of metal injection molded (MIM) parts—barrel block, gas block, bolt catch, 7.62 NATO mag conversion bar, ejector retainer, and extractor link—that go into an MDR rifle made by Deserttech. The MIM-designed parts replaced ones that were machined, and reduced the cost by 30% while manufacturing lead-time was cut in half. MIM is one of the PM-based technologies, that forms metal powders into precision components used in applications such as auto engines and transmissions, hardware, industrial machinery, sporting goods, defense, and firearms.