To this:
*** PING ***
CNC machines make gunmaking easy, and nothing is easier to make than a fully automatic sten gun, using a fixed firing pin and firing from an open bolt. Heat harding and castings are more complicated, but not that difficult.
The issue is ammunition. Making smokeless powder, primers, and cartridges is more complicated than making the gun they go in. Try making even a good copper jacketed bullet at home.
Barrels, upper receivers, bolts, bolt carriers, and cams can't be made of printed plastic. Only the lower receiver, and possibly the butt stock and pistol grip, and maybe some of the small trigger group parts (disconnector).
You watch: after they ban AR-15's, they will start banning or at least requiring a federal license for 3D printers. They don't give a rat's a$$ what the effect on the economy is. They have a purely fear-driven need to enforce a state monopoly on deadly force.
This should be good news to all the libtards who think of humanity as a plague on the earth. Now we can give every one of them a simple, effective way to remove themselves.
Shocker to Libtards who wet their pants at the thought of printing guns at home: IT IS PERFECTLY LEGAL. It is not legal to do it as a business, but you are allowed to fabricate your own non-Title II firearm for your own use, and even to sell it later.
There is one simple reality to all this that few have mentioned.
Because of the sheer number of guns and people determined to keep them, the Admin will run out of police military and whatever else before a fraction of them will actually be confiscated.
How many glory hounds are going to put their lives on the line every hour of the day as known confiscators? They will quit. Fast. And The admin will not find enough people to replace them.
The Matt Bracken story posted here on FR a couple months back is EXACTLY what will happen IMO.
Plastic is nice but this is the direction for future manufacturing ATM. When the “corner” machine shop / store can make anything you want then it is the end for control freaks. The following description is from the company that makes the machine:
Additive Manufacturing (AM)
Additive Manufacturing is the process of producing parts by successive melting of layers of material rather than removing material, as is the case with conventional machining.
Each layer is melted to the exact geometry defined by a 3D CAD model. Additive Manufacturing allows for building parts with very complex geometries without any sort of tools or fixtures, and without producing any waste material.
Hence, choosing an AM technology for production provides great benefits for the entire production value chain. The geometrical freedom allows you to engineer/design your part as you envision it, without manufacturing constraints. This can be translated to extreme light-weight designs, reduced part counts or improved bone ingrowth for a medical implant. It is also a fast production route from CAD to physical part with a very high material utilization and without the need to keep expensive castings or forgings on stock.
In addition to its cost-efficiency Additive Manufacturing is, due to its high material utilization, a very energy-efficient and environmentally friendly manufacturing route.
http://www.arcam.com/technology/additive-manufacturing.aspx
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.
>>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...
The Liberator was shipped with 5 rounds of .45ACP. There’s a big difference betwen single-shot and one-shot.
Watch what will happen in countries with limited or no firearms access. What does a criminal care if he uses a printed gun for a crime. A criminal stealing or trying to stop the local corrupt government is the same in an authoritarian society.
As a small scale modeler the 3D printer is like the Holy Grail of devices, instead of buying a plastic model kit you just get the software and the material and it makes your parts. The perfect retiree at home manufacturing plant.
Even with a plastic part you could attempt whats called a lost wax casting, you place your part in a casting sand box and you pour metal into the mold, it burns out the wax part but leaves you your part in metal, after some cleaning amd fitting you have your part in metal.
Lets get real...For what it would cost to buy a 3D plastic printer you could get 100 guns from your local gangbanger...let alone one that uses powderized metal for the price on that and the per unit cost for guns you would produce you would make Fast and Furious look silly.
Now lets talk about the price of ink cartridges..
New explosives-—Makes the idea of the letter bomb more real or new ammunition:
Invention: Exploding ink
A very unusual ink-jet printer cartridge, containing explosive ink, has been patented by Qinetiq, the commercial spin-off of the British Ministry of Defence.
The ink is a mixture of very fine aluminium particles, each 1 micrometre in diameter, particles of copper oxide 5 micrometres wide, epoxy varnish and alcohol. The ink is stable in liquid form, making it safe to print onto conventional paper, but forms an explosive fuse once dry.
An engineer can easily sketch out a printable fuse using computer imaging software, modifying the delay in milliseconds by changing the length, thickness and pattern of the line on the paper...
New Scientist
14:00 07 February 2006 by Barry Fox
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8690-invention-exploding-ink.html
Lets just call these things what they are:
3-D Assault Printers
This won’t stop them.
Their solution will be 3D printer control and registration.
Secondly: The AR15 that was printed fired 6 rounds. that's fantastic. The next one may fire 10 rounds. And after that, 20 rounds. and eventually, a virtually indestructible polymeric weapon will emerge and material costs will decrease. This is the future of everything.
Lastly, should they manage to get this ban through, we will adapt, we will improvise, and we will most certainly overcome. We will do this because we are Americans and that is our nature. This ban will not stop us, it will inspire us and propel us to the next level of weapons development.
$500 Solidoodle 3D printer
http://www.solidoodle.com/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2970084/posts?page=15
3D-Printed Weapons & the Consequences
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1394&doc_id=255741
An AR-15 lower receiver is 3D printed and used to fire 200 rounds without catastrophic failure.
3D print your own personal electronics
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=255795
Simple. Just ban any machine capable of making a gun. Ahem.