Well, This Could Get Interesting
It seems that 3-D printing has achieved another milestone.
Recently, a group of gunsmiths put together a working rifle. No great surprise there.
Specifically, they put together an AR-10 – the NATO 7.62mm version of the AR-15. Again, no big surprise there, either.
However, precisely how they did it was a bit unusual. It seems they used a 3-D printer to produce the lower receiver. (The remaining parts were stock.) And after assembling the weapon, the creator of the receiver claims to have fired over 100 rounds using it without visible signs of wear and tear.
Yeah, that’s a bit . . . different.
Look for the calls for “printer control laws” from your friendly neighborhood gun control advocates any day now. Once they wake up after fainting due to hyperventilation, of course.
Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists, Guns
“Once they wake up after fainting due to hyperventilation, of course.”
Oh, my Lawd! I do believe I am sufferin’ from a case of the vapahs!
Jerks.
Definitely a “clutch the pearls” moment
Too late-
They’ve been cast before swine.
Heh!
“This is the big one” “Elizabeth, im comming to join you honey. I’ll be the one with the ban the guns- save the children tee shirt on”
Fainting couches throughout America are now overloaded with fat Gunsense harpies who, once they recover from the vapors will no doubt get to the local t-shirt printing shop in order to put in a big order of “Ban 3D Printers, For the Children” shirts.
Oh, Hondo, you are SO over-reacting to this.
It’s just a harmless toy for chidren to learn how to make interesting 3D fractal sculptures based on chaos theory and fractal maths.
Calm down.
It’s not like they didn’t get the idea from reading about it, did they?
(sigh) Et tu – missing the sarcastic intent of the last para above?
Initially, the dateline on this had me wondering…but the website dates it yesterday, so I will buy it.
Still tho, 100 rounds and no issues? Call me when you hit 1000…10000 is better…
John: they made a lower. There is very little stress on the lower. It should run for thousands of rounds without issue. The only interesting thing about a lower is that it is the piece with the serial number. The law says that anyone can make a weapon for their own use. Anyone can buy an 80% lower and finish it – if they have a milling machine. The big difference here – a guy can buy a $500 printer and make their own lower – no machining skills required or $5k for a Bridgeport mill. it is still against the law to go into the business of manufacturing for sale without a license and any lower sold must have a serial number. It is against the law to possess a lower without a serial number unless you personally made it.
Will people cheat? Sure. Is it a big problem? I would still prefer to have an aluminum lower so I don’t think it is a big deal. And we have all been saying that bad guys don’t use rifles for crime – particularly one that requires AR10 upper and $60 magazines.
Thanks for the input…based on my computer skills, if I tried to make a lower I would quite possibly end up with a birdhouse.
So. . . You buy a 3D printer. You RENT it out, for others to make their own lower. Law circumvented, but not broken.
Same as what is being done now with 80% lowers and CNC or other milling machines.
This gunsmith built his own lower as you described, but it didn’t cost that much money. Apparently he used a router with an end mill for the heavy cutting. He even says “If you’re a regular person, it’s not difficult to build an AR-15.”
Imagine the kerfuffle if they search videos on YouTube for “homemade gun”.
The gun-control folks already have their knickers twisted about this.
You do realize that the lower receiver is what contains real high-stress items like the trigger and sear, right? There have been all polymer (that’s “plastic” lower receivers available for years – the only difference is that instead of using a 3D printer to build up the receiver and parts, the plastic resin was injected into molds. If you try making all of the rifle from a 3D printer, you will discover – very rapidly – that no 3D printed parts will withstand about 62,000 psi, the working chamber pressure of a 7.62NATO round.
This is as worth getting excited about as worrying whether Junior drives too fast, not because of a big engine, but because he put one of those bare-feet shaped accelerator pedals on his car.
The key aspect that you’re missing is that the lower receiver is the only thing that has to have a serial number and have a call to the feds for a background check. If you can print in off, no serial number, no criminal backgound check. The upper receiver isn’t tracked by the gummint.
can’t shoot a serial number… I was commenting on the functionality. To be frank, though: the only reason to sweat the serial number on a gun is traceability and nowadays linking that to a background check. Bad guys don’t do background checks, and if someone does decide to do something illegal, I strongly doubt the presence or absence of the serial number would affect their decision either way.
I understand that. I was just pointing out what the anti-gunners will lose their shit about. I hear the same things involving the 80% finished lowers. If you are adept at doing machining work and have access to a machine shop, you can buy one of those 80% finished lowers without going through all the FFL stuff and have a finished lower.
Drones and printed guns, not so sci-fi anymore.
While the current 3d printers are not making real weapons grade gear there is a specific tool on the market at $1500 that does the trick in metal as a CNC finishing device for lower receivers. Ghost Gunner takes your 80% lower to completion…there are a lot of people finding that useful.
3d printers will get better and the ghost gunner will too, pretty soon homemades will be able to be created by just about anyone.
With all the new energy, LASER and soundwave technology and everything else, I’ve begun to wonder which war will be the last fought with ‘old-style,’ projectile-firing weapons. I have begun to think that we’ll see it in our lifetime.
LASERs haven’t been useful as hand-held weapons yet because of the difficulty in expending a mega-watt or more of power in the short enough period required to do significant damage. But good-old human ingenuity is about to change all of that. Graphene supercapacitors could hold a megawatt of power in a small enough “battery” to carry around, and discharge that energy in a split-second. Viola Star-Wars blasters. Because lasers are line of sight, if you can see it, you can hit it…on the moon!
http://www.graphenea.com/pages/graphene-supercapacitors#.VRx3dfnF_EE
And the best part of that release was that they were using/trying to use carbon fiber in the 3D manufacture.
There are bullets that can be programed to exploded at the desired distance so as to “get the guy” around the corner.
The modern battlefield is a scary place.
Buckyfibre guns and gun parts? That was MY idea!!! I can prove it!!!!!
It’s bad enough the Army and Navy are both testing laser weapons that I thought up first.
When are these people going to stop stealing my ideas????
Maybe one day they”ll give you an ARCOM 😉
Well, the railgun that’s being mounted was completely my idea– I’m not bitching for my ARCOM. (*snicker*)
(whining) But I don’t want an old ARCOM. I want a NAVCOM. It was my idea and they stole it and my feewings are hurt! Hurt, I tell you!! Hurt!!!
Take yer ARCOM and quit whining. It was good enough for someone else we know when they whined, wasn’t it?
(ducks for cover behind a Jersey barrier to avoid the fireball . . . .)
It would seem that the ARCOM is the more coveted award these days. Unless you are lying about a Purple Heart or BSM.
OH, yeah??? Eat my flameballs!!!
Here ya go, Ex-PH-2:
http://www.maxvelocitytactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Hurt-Feelings-Report.jpg
OK, but where do I submit it?
If I send it to Lilyea, he’ll just shitcan it.
If I send it to Master Guns, he’ll read me the Riot Act and tell me to wipe my own ass for once.
If I send it to Master Chief, he’ll tell me to go pound sand sideways and STFU, and bring him some hot buttered popcorn.
So where am I supposed to submit it? To Moerk from Oerk?
OK, fine!! 1534 years from now I invented a computer game that is based on 20th and 21st century video games. It creates an alliance of many species to fight a lethal enemy that is supposed to destroy life in this Universe. A gaming manual is found in the library archives, constructed out of carbon molecules so tightly packed that releasing the energy in just one quarter of a page is the same energy released in a 25-megaton nuclear explosion.
There are 6 copies, but the original was my homework for my 6th grade maths class, ‘Analytical Skills in the History of Mathematics’. That was ONLY available on a Zettabyte drive that I gave my mathematics teacher and she gave it back to me. But someone stole it and started a war in the 24th century.
Let’s see those thieves come up with THAT stuff! 😛 😛 😛
(Sticks hands in pockets and pouts excessively.)
Well, you win
“Officials for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told FoxNews.com that they are monitoring developments in 3D printing technology.”
Yeah, I bet they are, but there’s a backlog of work. I hear that they’ve nearly completed field studies comparing the relative destructiveness of Mentos/Coke versus Mentos/Pepsi.
I would like to be able to use a 3-D printer to produce my own functioning Fart Gun from “Despicable Me”
Me too. I aready have my minions.
I had cinnaminions, but I ate them… with lots of butter.
Again, you win…..
well I can check “Google the term fart gun” off my bucket list. I guess you really never know what a day will bring 🙂
That toy is a piker. Check these out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=n9PMD8fcvAk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LMzAS9SsMBw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7Ydv9Ef-99I
(smile)
They make a toy fart gun; my 4-year-old saw one when I took her to Walmart to buy a toy with her birthday money. She had to have it, and spent the rest of the day pulling the trigger and blaming it on her older siblings. We drew quite a few disgusting looks that day. 🙂
Just great. Now I want a 3-D printer. *kicks rock*
Military is already looking at 3D printers and mills to create repair parts in the field rather than having to order and wait.
Things are getting interesting for sure. Just wait till someone hacks their files and steals all those parts blueprints.
But, but WHAT IF they 3D printed a *GASP!* knife or something else that could hurt someone? OH, THE HORROR! /sarc
Liberals never quit finding things to howl, fret, and scream about.
A polymer knife? I wouldn’t put my trust in something like that– gimme heavy steel.
Also; yet again, accidentally hit Report Comment instead of Reply first– we REALLY need to move that damn button! I haven’t caffeinated yet!
Steel? WIMP!!!
Stone knives have permanently sharp edges and can be created on the spot by smacking two rocks together and then getting busy with knapping.
Rocks can be used for making knife blades, arrowheads, axes, spear ponits, fishing weights, jewelry – the possibilities are endless and the materials are everywhere.
Oh, yeah – ceramic blades are also very popular as kitchen knives. Never lose their edge.
Y’know, I’ve seen some absolutely beautiful stone knives before; but I never figured out an entry point for making stuff like that, like what would one need to knap a blade?
I dunno, I’ve always liked steel for sheer fact that even if the edge is lost, sharpening a knife always brought my stress levels down. Kinda like oiling and re-stringing my guitar, with a bit more of a tactile sensation to it. But a 3d printed polymer knife would kinda put me off a little just because as of right now, I have no idea how reliable they’d be.
The rock has to be the kind that produces large flakes when cracked. There are many types of rock. I’ve made a hand axe that way. The edge is VERY sharp.
Knapping starts with using another rock to chip off more flakes, then deer or other antler is used to refine the knapping, especially when doing the shaping and the edges.
I have two stone arrowheads; one is chert and the other is granite.
Wow. Didn’t know you could use granite! Kewl.
I didn’t either.
I found the chert arrowhead on a hike with my camera, and the granite was from my uncle’s property in Wisconsin, before he sold it. The chert point is big enough to bring down a small deer and the granite point looks like a small game or large bird point, maybe for geese or waders like herons or cranes.
I have been paying close attention to 3d printing with respect to firearms for awhile now.
It very exciting to be able to produce a part that will allow a modification or repair to be tested without incurring the cost of a machinist or mold maker during the prototype phase.
It is important to understand that no parts such ar sear, hammer trigger or bolt assemblies have successfully been printed, only the out case such as the lower receiver.
That in and of itself is a pretty incredible feat of engineering and science. To my knowledge no success has been had in any attempt to print the upper. The stresses far exceed the current physical limits of the polymers used.
The “plastic” guns on the market now are not all plastic, the frame is the only plastic piece, their is always an metal insert that holds all other parts and takes the stress of the shot fired in reality they are no different than a shotgun or rifle with a plastic or fiberglass stock.
Weaponsman has been following the 3D developments pretty steadily. It’s worth doing a search of the posts on his blog to read up on it. It is already progressing past lowers. And yes, the control freaks are definitely trying to stop or at least obstruct this stuff.
So, can I use a 3D printer to make a 3D printer?
THAT’S the question.
Which came first, the printer or the build file?
WHOOOOAAAA, NELLY! WHAT IF your 3D printer printed ANOTHER 3D Printer that “printed” *GASP!* GUN PARTS? I think I can already hear liberals bawling for a National 3D Printer Registry!!
We need a 3D printer to start cranking out some ammo. I heard the Feds need some more.
Einstein lacked imagination, you know.
Two Scottish physicists have slowed down photons in their lab with filters.
http://scitechdaily.com/physicists-slow-speed-light/
They’ve also increased it in 2005.
http://www.livescience.com/396-scientists-mess-speed-light.html
Then they found neutrinos moving faster than light speed at CERN in 2011. That kind of solves interstellar communications problems.
Now all they have to do is figure out how to manipulate the various parts of light (photon = wave or particle or both?) and make it solid, and you guys will have a light sabre for your very own.
And Han Solo cheats at cards.
I think the apparently FTL neutrinos turned out to be due to experimental error–there were loose cables on some sensors or some such.
No free lunch today; check back later: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html.
Just to help the Anti-2A’s Pants Shitting Hysteria (PSH), google the following “wood ar 15 lower”. Using a CMMG complete .22LR upper, a wood (or 3D printed) lower will last forever.
The antis will have to ban hardware stores, forest, houses, etc.
Gives “getting a woody” a whole nuther meaning… 🙂
I LOVE the sound of liberal moonbats bawling and shitting in their pants!