“Grimes”, who I had no idea existed until this came across the gunternet for the random minor virtue signaling, was at Met Gala with a big shiny sword that was made from a ‘Melted Down Colt AR-15A3’. Because take your range weapons and turn them into melee ones… or something.
Grimes, since you probably don’t know either, is a Canadian musician/influencer of some manner. Cool.
Her outfit? Dune.
Not some metacommentary on violence and guns or anything like that (actually the opposite, Dune encompasses literal galactic jihad). The whole look wasn’t anything to do with gun control and the sword seems to have been an add-on afterthought and is simply a shiny accessory.
Frank Herbert’s, Dune. The book series, 1984 movie, Sci-Fi series, and soon to be released movie (that looks very well done).
As to the viability of melting down CMV steel, 7075-T6 aluminum, and… plastic? into a sword…
TL;DR – casting is a valid but very expensive and impractical way to get nice steel to start forging, but forging results in a stronger end-product anyway. So there’s no point to casting a sword blank, and you don’t even need cast steel as a starting ingredient to make a good sword, so why bother.
So, that’s not how a useable sword works.
As to making an AR-15, a useful modern firearm often used for home defense, hunting, recreation, and any number of useful things, into a sword with a questionable metallurgical makeup, really shiny, and that is vaguely 15th century because it’s kind of a cool prop? Your money, I suppose.
Ultimately, she just thought it was neat. I can respect that. I can think it is a ridiculous way to go about it and doesn’t really convey a clear message. I can believe it instead just turns a useful tool into a shiny prop, but okay. People buy weirder and more useless things.
So before the internet tries to make this a big deal. This was literally Grimes saying, ‘ooh, shiny’ and then a typical celebrity ‘Oh, a melted AR-15? Yay, peace.’ but the point was entirely on the fact it was shiny, put eyes on the Dune dress, and that was the goal. Influencer marketing, ladies and gentlemen.
So that’s the sword.
