Advanced 3-D Printing Technology on the Verge of Making Gun Control 'Impossible'

Seems the progs are at it again, not actually accomplishing anything you could call 'progress' re. gun violence while pig-headedly attempting to fix yesterday's problems with solutions that never worked in the first place...

It's a long-running shtick with liberals, where they claim the ability to control the uncontrollable: now they're out to 'control' weapons-possession in the US just as 3D computer technology is making 'printed guns' a reality- a democratization of weaponry they're never going to put the kibosh on, obviously:
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Forbes via Doug Ross:

Three months ago, the gunsmiths behind the group known as Defense Distributed announced their intention to create a working, lethal gun anyone can download and 3D-print at home.

Now their experiments with actual 3D-printed firearm components and live ammunition have started. And they’re documenting their progress on video.

Over the weekend the project’s founder Cody Wilson posted a YouTube clip of the group testing an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon Defense Distributed assembled with a 3D-printed lower receiver, the highly-regulated component that serves as the body of the gun onto which the barrel, stock, magazine and other elements are attached...

...The result of Defense Distributed’s experiment: Their home-printed AR-15 piece cracked and fell apart after firing just six rounds. But Wilson still considers their first test of a partially-downloadable weapon a successful learning experience...

...A lower receiver has special significance to gun enthusiasts: It’s the central part of the weapon that’s regulated by gun control laws and trackable by serial number. Print your own lower-receiver at home, and in many states all the other parts can be obtained without background checks or even identification...

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And did you scheming Obammunist tools at DHS note the 3-D printed guns are made of plastic? MAYBE it's time you all stop putzing-around, fomenting war with the TEA Party and get to work on a way to deal with the undetectable AR-15 clones
Al Qaeda and Hamas operatives are going to have printed-up by the vanload the minute they waltz over the porous Mexican border you intentionally created.

Prices on 3D printers are dropping fast, but one capable of producing the AR-15 lower receiver used in the test above would run in the $10,000-range... not cheap, but hardly prohibitive, either.

For any who scoff at the fact that at the current state-of-the-art, printed guns tend to disintegrate after a few shots, you know that's going to change as the technology advances- something that never seems to take very long these days.

fwiw, in the 1940s the US Army found plenty value in distributing one-shot, throwaway guns to aid the European resistance behind Nazi lines, more here...

Video/more at Reaganite Republican...

Here's the situation ~ we are rapidly moving toward a day when we are as good at building metal-like layered products as easily as a termite hardens its jaw ~ by adding metal nano particles ~ check up on termites eating gold nano particles and excreting them since they wanted zinc and copper ~ eventually there's quite a bit of gold in a termite nest eh!

That's where this 3D printing is going ~ where the bugs have been for hundreds of millions of years.

We can also put a 'mind' in the bullet ~ currently the correct positioning of the weapon, and techniques for estimating wind-age result in a bullet hitting the target.

Now, turn that bullet into a server driven device with an internal direction adjustment device (there are some designs for micro miniature inertial guidance systems that seem applicable).

Put that on the 'bullet' and all at once you don't need so many bullets ~ and maybe you can make it a bit larger and add explosives ~ plus you can steer it from the firearm!

Your firing platform could start looking remarkably like your cellphone or pad. The firing mechanism might tend toward looking like one of those plastic holders for the screwdriver blade attachments. The bullet could look like whatever you liked from a jellybean to a pencil!

All the parts could be ginned on your 3-D printer. I think even low heat layered sequential burning propellants could be easily manufactured with your own home-printer ~ replace the explosion with a longer burn and you get to the same target ~ with a computer controlled internal inertial guidance every single time.

FUTURE EVENT: Officer ~ don't show me your wallet, Driver ~ ok officer ~ that's just my tool box, Officer ~ don't open it. Officer ~ keep your mouth closed.

this is why the age of composits is upon us.

the “on demand” production is at home.

Imagine what 3d printing does to countries that need to sell their cheep labor.

Imagine what happens when production can be one off without the need for unionized labor.

it is not the specific item, it is the ABILITY TO PRODUCE which is a threat to government.

It is just a horrific to the DC country club as a country without a monarchy was over 200 years ago.

3-D printing technology can also make things out of metal. As I understand it, the process involves fusing powdered metal into a solid shape.

While metal, the finished part is far from solid and is relatively porous and not all that strong in tension or torsion. One could look to conventional powdered metal fabrication for some help here. Powdered metal parts have been around a lot longer than 3-D printing. Compacting the powder in a die yields a "green part" which has almost no strength. Green parts are "sintered" by heating in a hydrogen atmosphere to just under the melting point of the metal used. The 3-D part is at about the same strength at this point as the more conventional PM part.

The PM part undergoes some slight shrinkage when sintering and may be brought to final dimensional form by re-striking it in a finishing die, forging the final part to finished dimension, increasing it's density and strength.

For the highest strength parts you may take the re-forged part and pass it thru a furnace in contact with a small copper block. Furnace temperature should be just above the melting point of copper with a reducing (hydrogen) atmosphere. The copper melts and capillary attraction draws the liquid copper into the porous PM part where upon cooling it brazes the powdered matrix into one solid piece.

The copper infiltration procedure could be adapted to add final strength to 3-D powdered parts to produce a stronger, near net shape part.

As an alternative I would look for plastic that could be used in the 3-D process yet remain soluble in a suitable solvent (styrene and acetone for instance). Post printing you cement on some gates and vents (made of styrene rod stock using acetone as a glue), Coating your model part with refractory plaster by dipping the model into the plaster which should be about like thick cream. Then inspect for air bubbles which should be popped with gentle blowing. Then use something like a tea strainer to dust the coated model with tiny glass beads (craft shop?? or bead blasting shop) and let air dry. Repeat five times to build up a shell. When dry dissolve the pattern with the solvent. Support your dry plaster pattern in a bed of dry sand with the vents and gates facing up. Preheat the pattern to red heat and pour anything you can melt. When cooled and the plaster removed you will have a solid metal part that can hold dimensional tolerances of +/- 0.001" per inch. This form of casting technology dates back to the bronze age and was lately used by Saturn to turn styrene pellets into engine blocks.

Regards,
GtG

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