Printed firearms

Reports are that a completely printed firearm can be made from internet plans. How can this be done for the barrel, chamber, firing pin, springs and such? Are these single single shot, single use? I was under the impression that printing was parts like frame, handle and such.

You can probably tell I am not a gunsmith or for that matter, a gun owner.

Tom

TDegenhart said:

Reports are that a completely printed firearm can be made from internet plans. How can this be done for the barrel, chamber, firing pin, springs and such? Are these single single shot, single use? I was under the impression that printing was parts like frame, handle and such.

You can probably tell I am not a gunsmith or for that matter, a gun owner.

Tom

Click to expand...

Yes, it can be done, no, it really isn't much gonna change the world, other than to continue to scare the jeebers out of those too ignorant to understand just how limiting the affordable and readily available printing tech is.

The firing pin is really about all that needs some metal. A piece of a nail, IIRC. Chamber and barrel are just a hole in material, with enough added around the outside, it holds together. Springs are, well, printed coils of plastic which will release energy when the firearm is fired.

Search images of 3D printed guns, and you will likely get a feel for just how overblown this is, as far as it being any kind of threat to anybody, let alone being any kind of a game changer.

Oh yeah. Search out some pictures of the AR15 lower, made out of Ikea cutting boards.

Yeah, you can make a 3D printed gun, but you can thread together a hand full of plumbing in Home Depot and make a better one. If you really are that desperate to have one.

Single use.....definitely not....anti gun campaigners use them to frighten the feeble minded (joe average voter) endless numbers of times.

TDegenhart said:

Reports are that a completely printed firearm can be made from internet plans.

Click to expand...

I would imagine that would be perfectly possible. After you spend the million or so dollars on a metal 3D printer there are plenty of things you could print.

TDegenhart said:

Reports are that a completely printed firearm can be made from internet plans. How can this be done for the barrel, chamber, firing pin, springs and such? Are these single single shot, single use? I was under the impression that printing was parts like frame, handle and such.

You can probably tell I am not a gunsmith or for that matter, a gun owner.

Tom

Click to expand...

First of all realize that the American news media is overwhelmingly anti-gun and really doesn't care if their "news piece" presents incomplete or misleading information. As long as the viewer thinks "Oh, this is bad", that's all they care about.

In the piece I (and likely you) just saw they showed someone with a "3D printed" AR-15. Understand that every single piece of that AR-15 except for the lower receiver was a standard, non-3D printed part that was manufactured and sold through normal channels. Only the lower receiver was 3D printed.

Nice how they made a big deal out of the fact that these guns are not traceable as they have no serial numbers. As if somehow stolen guns with the serial numbers ground off are traceable.

Many of the 3D designs only fire .22 rimfire or are single or few use guns. A few years ago a company in Texas (?) printed a fully functional, steel 1911 handgun. And, in a surprising display of journalistic integrity, they even showed the company owner explaining how this was a just a technology demonstration as no one was going to buy a $1,000,000+ printer to make an illegal firearm.

Steve

Just don't let them find out what you can build with a $200 clapped out old Southbend and a Rong-Fu mill/drill, or they'll ban 'em.

Conrad Hoffman said:

Just don't let them find out what you can build with a $200 clapped out old Southbend and a Rong-Fu mill/drill, or they'll ban 'em.

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ThAT IS JUST TOO FUNNY! Keyboard error, but I will let it stand.

Conrad Hoffman said:

Just don't let them find out what you can build with a $200 clapped out old Southbend and a Rong-Fu mill/drill, or they'll ban 'em.

Click to expand...

(In my best Monty Python accent) Sheer Luxury!

All I had to work with was a drill press and files. Seemed to work well enough. The perils of being bored, in High School Shop Class!

Saw a picture of a firearm made from rolled up National Geographic pages, which was made inside a prison.

This whole poo-show about the dangers of 3D printed guns is a masterful bit of stirring being done by a professional shit disturber that has found a pretty good sore spot to poke at.

"High tech" weapon manufacturing documentary: Liveleak.com - Pakistani Gun Making..
Another one - even more "high tech" (sadly in German ) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmow_aB00Ww

But to be honest - these people work with very limited means but are quite skilled and motivated. The problem with 3D printed gun will - probably in a few years - be that owner of consumer grade 3d printer will be able to download and print it. Hopefully most of them want find a way to acquire munition.

Ps. I wonder what a feeling will be to realise "i forgot to set print quality to high" after first shoot...

Actually it looks like a good thing to see the ITAR falling apart. Just mentioning how to accurize a gun or making screws that make an 1898 Krag work better could have been construed as a violation.
I am thinking the fellow that spearheaded this just kicked the teeth out of ITAR. Not sure if that is a good thing or not as there may be pressure to come up with a law that is worse because of the scare tactics.

Well it was scary enough to cause our Pennsylvania
leglislatures…..
"The move followed threats of legal action from Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Josh Shapiro."

Yup, last week, our goobonore passed a law allowed
thugs with criminal records to have them expunged
so you can't see them (like if you do a background
check prior to hiring them, or employ them in your
house)
Defense Distributed: 3-D-printable gun files temporarily blocked from Internet in Pennsylvania after legal pressure - The Washington Post


I wonder what part of the supreme court ruling
Mr. Shapiro he thinks he can "dis-allow"
for us special people here in Pa ?

So, my understanding is that you can own the information[duh] but not own the product.

Lessee how popular this hero of the 2nd amendment is when they start arresting all the morons who print one up

gustafson said:

So, my understanding is that you can own the information[duh] but not own the product.

Click to expand...

On the other extreme, having forbidden images on your computer,
will get you 40 years or more in jail.
Not creating them, not acting out the images, just having them on your hard drive.

Local news the other day, young panhandler, known to police,
slashes the throat of a passerby, almost dies, injured for life.

They are charging the perp with "simple assault"...

One of the local states here has made possession of code that would allow the creation of a firearm a jailable offence.

Conrad Hoffman said:

Just don't let them find out what you can build with a $200 clapped out old Southbend and a Rong-Fu mill/drill, or they'll ban 'em.

Click to expand...

Wouldn't that be nice!

grg12 said:

Ps. I wonder what a feeling will be to realise "i forgot to set print quality to high" after first shoot...

Click to expand...

"Disassemboweled" perhaps?

Darwin must have anticipated 3-D printing when we ran out of Dodo birds, yah?

digger doug said:

Well it was scary enough to cause our Pennsylvania
leglislatures…..
"The move followed threats of legal action from Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Josh Shapiro."

Yup, last week, our goobonore passed a law allowed
thugs with criminal records to have them expunged
so you can't see them (like if you do a background
check prior to hiring them, or employ them in your
house)
Defense Distributed: 3-D-printable gun files temporarily blocked from Internet in Pennsylvania after legal pressure - The Washington Post


I wonder what part of the supreme court ruling
Mr. Shapiro he thinks he can "dis-allow"
for us special people here in Pa ?

Click to expand...

Didn't y'all just jail a State's Att-horny General?

Maybe you should just keep doing that until you get really GOOD at it.

digger doug said:

On the other extreme, having forbidden images on your computer,
will get you 40 years or more in jail.
Not creating them, not acting out the images, just having them on your hard drive.

Click to expand...

Fair enough

That is a bit of an exception, kiddie porn etc having no lawful reason to exist. [And evidence of a de facto crime]

My point is that, from what I have learned here, the owning of an un-numbered receiver is a federal offense, and we are going to see some weeping geek moms on TV when Jimmy in the basement thinks its a neato idea to print one up.

But maybe I have that wrong

RC99 said:

One of the local states here has made possession of code that would allow the creation of a firearm a jailable offence.

Click to expand...

I wonder if they have cleared out all the Gunsmithing books from the public library systems yet.

Even the ChiCom Government has not managed to stop the information that they wish stopped, from getting out to the people. At least, those that can be bothered to go looking for it.

It looks a lot like a bunch of really concerned, well meaning, but dumb, folks running around a prairie field trying to chase the gophers back down into their holes. Lots of motion, not much progress!

Here in Canada, as a direct result of a Muslim nutbar shooting a bunch of folks with an illegal Handgun, our bunch of useless idiots is actually floating the idea of a total ban on handguns, Yeesh. Would that they punished Criminals, or do something that directly relates to gangs.

I got my first lathe, a 9" Logan, when I was 13. I made the set of candlesticks my father designed for me, then started making guns. The last was a primitive bit of ironmongery at best, but the 22 LR bullet came out of the barrel at the same velocity as any other .22 barrel that length. That was 69 years ago, so I hope the statute of limitations has run out.

The changeover from muzzle loaders to modern firearms came in the latter 1800s, peaking about 1890 to 1910. Many of the designs from that era are still in use, the Mauser 98 and 1911 come to mind. When you consider the type of machine tools available then and now, it is obvious that any decent machinist is quite capable of making a fully functional gun. I don't need a 3D printer. My Sheldon lathe, Promax mill and Boston Digital CNC mill will do nicely, thank you. There are countless members of this forum better equipped than I am. If you put them all to work making guns, they could quickly equip a battalion from scratch.

The best defense is that anyone with the intelligence and mental stability to make a gun from scratch is not likely to want to kill grade school children.

As I have said before, the two brothers I hunted with when I was a teen and I both had gun racks in our rooms with belts of 12 ga shells hanging on them with the guns. I never felt the slightest apprehension in the many hours we spent in one room or the other because I knew that the boys had been taught early on to handle guns. It wouldn't have mattered if there were a loaded M16 on their rack because I knew they would not use it. That is real gun control, not banning this or that.

In St. Louis the concentration of shooting incidents tracks roughly along a street named North Florissant that starts from the central corridor and wanders through the north side to the infamous Ferguson. The difference between that area and some of the others where the murder rate is virtually zero is cultural and the availability of guns just makes murder easier.

Bill