Posted on 05/05/2013 8:34:55 PM PDT by marktwain
Edited on 05/05/2013 9:22:46 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Alright. One two
Before three arrives, a shot reverberates across the overcast central Texas landscape. A tall, sandy blond engineer named John has just pulled a twenty-foot length of yellow string tied to a trigger, which has successfully fired the worlds first entirely 3D-printed gun for the very first time, rocketing a .380 caliber bullet into a berm of dirt and prairie brush.
[snip] A! yells John, who has asked me not to publish his full name. He hurries over to examine the firearm bolted to an aluminum frame. But the first to get there is Cody Wilson, a square-jawed and stubbled 25 year-old in a polo shirt and baseball cap. John may have pulled the trigger, but the gun is Wilsons brainchild. Hes spent more than a year dreaming of its creation, and dubbed it the Liberator in an homage to the cheap, one-shot pistols designed to be air-dropped by the Allies over France during its Nazi occupation in World War II.
Unlike the original, steel Liberator, though, Wilsons weapon is almost entirely plastic: Fifteen of its 16 pieces have been created inside an $8,000 second-hand Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer, a machine that lays down threads of melted polymer that add up to precisely-shaped solid objects just as easily as a traditional printer lays ink on a page. The only non-printed piece is a common hardware store nail used as its firing pin.
Wilson crouches over the gun and pulls out the barrel, which was printed over the course of four hours earlier the same morning. Despite the explosion that just occurred inside of it, both the barrel and the body of the gun seem entirely unscathed.
Wilson scrutinizes his creation for a few more seconds, then stands up again. I think we did it, he says, a little
And at that point, the plastic doesn't matter, and the same freedom will devolve to traditional metal guns. Why not?
Now we see why lezbo so badly wants to control AMMO, right?
I’m glad this guy is embarking on this effort. I hope he escapes the resulting rage of the PTBs who are scared shiiteless by his progress.
A side note, this will be a boon to people who like to restore old cars too. If you need to replace a door handle, a strut or part of a frame to a 1965 Buick Special, all you have to do is have the blueprints, computer and 3D printer and you’re good to go.
Would need to mic the barrel to see if it was still okay.
Looks like a hi-tek zip gun to me.
“the Liberator in an homage to the cheap, one-shot pistols designed to be air-dropped by the Allies over France during its Nazi occupation in World War II.”
Bit of trivia about the Liberator pistol. It was unusual in that it took longer to use than to it did to build one. The production specs estimated that it would take an average of 8-10 seconds to manually place a round in the chamber, prime the plunger, and then pull the trigger. Assembly time for each Liberator (using pre-stamped parts) at the Anderson, Indiana factory was just under six seconds per pistol. Spent casings were removed with the use of a dowel rod.
Yes but the only even remotely difficult thing about making ammo is the propellant. I am not sure if it is still the case but but original smokeless powder was made by soaking cotton in nitric acid to create cellulose-nitrate and then mixing it with a stabilizer so that it it didn’t explode when you dropped it.
If it becomes possible to “Print” a rifle then producing ammunition is certainly possible
Metal barrels/liners are fine, but hardware store products such as JB Weld (perhaps something better, just an idea) could be used on the exterior, or the plastic barrel could be made larger so that the JB Weld could coat the interior.
Anyway, you are still talking about products so common that regulation is not feasible.
Moreover, future 3D-Printed guns might follow the high-speed Metal-Storm design for full auto and digital firing...maybe datalinked to iphones when remote firing is desired.
Tyrants can’t stop technological progress once the genie is out of the bottle.
Alternatively, I'm sure a good engineer could come up with a modern interpretation of a Lewis & Clark type compressed air rifle. Let the Feds try and regulate air or buy up all the air. Ha!
Try buying nitric acid.
I was trying not to get my hopes up, but now my hopes are up.
Get your 3D printer now, before King Barry demands registration, licensing, and eventually confiscation.
But, as the technology evolves, 3D printers will be used to replicate themselves.
Checkmate.
There is a market for 3D models. You can buy or sell the plans for different items
3D Burrito is a new design marketplace where people can buy models for 3D printers
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/30/3d-burrito-is-a-new-design-marketplace-where-people-can-buy-models-for-3d-printers/?fromcat=all
We already have 9mm and 50 cal airguns. Ive been thinking of getting one.
The corrupt govt. officials will double down on demand for even more rigid gun control more hoops to jump thru . The reason is that freedom is hateful to the govt. & political class it is despised above everything else.
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