DIY Guns

Sort of. Some of it's the usual media scaremongering, "ZOMG YOU CAN PRINT ASSAULT RIFLES." The only part he made of the rifle was the lower, not the barrel or chamber or anything.

It's an awesome step up in technology (I posted about it elsewhere, myself) -- but I hate how sensational some of the media coverage has been.

Isn't that par for the course, though? Media's done that kind of crap for years.

The thing I see (which the media totally ignores, of course), is that some parts of an AR can't be ABS plastic. They need to be metal and/or ceramic to withstand the heat (like the barrel and chamber) or repeated wear (like the hammer). The .22 pistol going for over 200 rounds is pretty cool, though.

Admittedly, they may have over simplified, but the story seems to say he made parts of the assault rifle and the entire .22 pistol from the printer.

That is astounding to me, if true, and I've been tracking 3d printer technology for 6 years or so, since I first heard of it. (In a story about printing organs, oddly enough. Different medium than plastic, obviously.)

So, yeah, anyone being able to make a .22 pistol in their basement by using commercially available technology will change a whole lot of social/legal dynamics. It makes gun control laws and weapons licensing... problematic.

And being able to fire 200 shells through the pistol... that's not a flimsy zip gun. That's a real weapon. (Interested in what it fires, though. Standard .22 or rimfire cartridges?)

And if you're looking to outfit some kind of rebellion... grab plastic, shred it, make guns. Yeowsh.

Interesting times.

Revolution? No, definitly not.
Sucks a bit more to be a police officer? Yeah, thats true.

Depending on who you ask, like the USA's ATF, the lower IS the gun.



-k

.... perhaps all of the pistol except the barrel, bolt, and firing pin (you know, the really important bits. But there's no way a 3D-printer-able plastic is going to stand up to even the comparatively-"meager" pressures of a .22 short. Just. No. Way.


Gimme a machine shop, a library card, and enough metals to practise on and I won't just be making .22 pistols, I'll be making Thompson SMGs. Complete with drum magazines, too.

...

And yes, allthe parts that used to be wood, I'll probably make out of plastic. With a 3D printer. Because I suck at woodworking. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The whole "plastic don't work for guns" is irrelevant anyway since 3D printers that can print in metal already exist. From what I gather they fire small particles that stick together then they run a charge through it that fuses it together into a solid piece.

@Shortstraw
Yeah, but the point is, that with a CnC you will be much faster... And those printers are REALLY expensive and use up some energy...

Depends on the type of printer.

Most (for metal, anyway) use a bed of fine grained particles and use lasers to heat up the desired sections to near-melting point to fuse them together. The extra is used to support the object as it's constructed.

It's called sintering.

Does the end product have the same strength as a solid piece of metal?

"Strength" is hard to define in such broad terms, as metal will have varying stress capabilities depending on how it's forged (compare cast iron and a samurai sword).

To the specifics of your question, I have no idea. According to the wikipedia article on sintering, possibly. "[Sintering has the] capability to fabricate high strength material like turbines."

My Grandfather was a Master Tool and Dye maker who taught at a high school back home.

I asked him how many dangerous things he could make in shop: "Everything." was his one-word answer.

The right tools, a supply of materials, a little knowledge...and you can make just about anything.

(My uncle is a woodworker, and he's done some things that his teachers told him wouldn't be possible).

Yep. Exactly my point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(By the way, he was a Master Tool and Die maker; "dye" is what you use to color things like cloth ...)

I know that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Wrote that before my nap. See what happens when you get a tired writer?

Did he also make dyes? Because that would have been awesome.





You know, I think it's just hit me... Perhaps this is (or played a part in) the reason why American high schools stopped teaching trades? So as to render homemade weapons a virtual impossibility for most people?



On the topic of the 3d printed weapon... That sounds interesting. It's rather obvious that you can make a gun's non-firing components with this process. Hell, that's nothing new, a skilled woodworker can do the same, or basically anyone capable of taking plans from paper and turning it into a 3d object which will stand up to the basic requirements of being roughly handled and maintaining its integrity whilst doing so.

Where I see this becoming interesting is in the gunsmith's craft; you could readily, rapidly prototype a number of different furniture for a weapon. play around with what you get until you have something that perfectly fits the person who's going to own it, whether that's yourself or a customer. Potentially, you could make a gun look like something other than a gun, or make a gun look like a different gun, or just make a gun look hella tacticool.

Without going into the sintering build-with-metal versions, I wonder if it's possible to make a magazine from this kind of stuff? Even if you just have to add the springs yourself, is there anything particularly stopping you from designing a magazine out of this kind of material that will properly engage and disengage from a firearm's magazine well? Would be a pretty simple way to bypass laws that limit legal magazine size. "Simple" not meaning "cheap" or "practical for most," of course, but once you have the kit, it would be pretty simple.


As for the .22 he claims to have made entirely out of the 3d printing material, I wouldn't really doubt it would be possible for a gunsmith playing around with this technology to fabricate a .22 rimfire pistol with a breach-loading mechanism. I'd think the hardest part would be getting a hammer to strike the round hard enough to set it off; though he might have rigged up some kind of electrical firing mechanism somehow; or maybe these things can actually produce reasonably strong springing mechanisms.



And yeah, this kind of weapon wouldn't be any good for battle, especially, obviously, if it was a .22. What it could potentially be useful for is to make something like the Liberator pistol dropped on France in bulk in WWII. Sure, a .22 doesn't have the killing power of a .45, but assuming you couldn't scale it up to something similar, you could work around that (if you were devious and murderous) by making a .22 pepperbox that would shoot a small smorgasbord of lead into someone, up-close and personal.

And of course, you could make this kind of thing a holdout. The tiniest weapon in the right (wrong) place makes a world more difference than a massive gun back at home.

Possibly, I wouldn't put it past him, but I doubt it.More likely just more budget cuts. Shop is an expensive class to teach because of the materials used.I was thinking more of the Sten Guns and M3-Series "Grease Guns" of WWII, which had most of the parts made from pressed sheet metal in lamp and toy factories. "Made for $5, feels like it was made for $3." is one quote I remember from somewhere.

Sten-IIs were dropped all over France as well, and IIRC, they could be modified (or were designed to) use MP-40 magazines. They were in 9mm Parabellum, so they could certainly use captured German ammo. The M3 had a modification kit for 9mm to convert in the field, but I never heard of any references of it being used (Although it does show up in Fallout: New Vegas.).

Honestly, using ballistic plastic for furniture doesn't scare me. As a lot of folks here have pointed out, you need gunmetal and metal shop equipment for the actual parts that are necessary for a firearm to be a FIREARM. As also pointed out, those aren't hard to find, it's the skill of a person to use that equipment and materials that can be.

Unless, of course, those metal-printing ones can make metal that can hold up to repeated use...

And get cheap enough for public purchase.

So far, it's only the plastic models that are affordable.

Then again, a criminal organization that wanted to make "Saturday Night Specials" or "Streetline Specials" could certainly benefit from these...

Really, all you need is for it to hold up for the 50 or so rounds you'll be firing with it. Then you can either ditch it (it has no identifying marks after all) or grind it down and use it as the raw material to resinter a new one.

It's certainly going to be fun for the police when every gun becomes one use only and gets ground up to make a new one after use.

You mean *gasp* we might actually have to explore new ways of addressing violence than just punishing offenders after the fact?

That and it makes gun control laws kinda pointless.

I...I've created a monster!