Posted on 05/20/2013 8:44:44 PM PDT by marktwain
When high tech gunsmith group Defense Distributed test-fired the world’s first fully 3D-printed firearm earlier this month, some critics dismissed the demonstration as expensive and impractical, arguing it could only be done with a high-end industrial 3D printer and that the plastic weapon wouldn’t last more than a single shot. Now a couple of hobbyists have proven them wrong on both counts.
One evening late last week, a Wisconsin engineer who calls himself “Joe” test-fired a new version of that handgun printed on a $1,725 Lulzbot A0-101 consumer-grade 3D printer, far cheaper than the one used by Defense Distributed. Joe, who asked that I not reveal his full name, loaded the weapon with .380 caliber rounds and fired it nine times, using a string to pull its trigger for safety.
The weapon survived all nine shots over the course of an evening, as you can see in the YouTube video below. (The clip was filmed by Michael Guslick, a fellow Wisconsin engineer who helped Joe with his tests and who is known for printing one of the first working lower receivers for AR-15 semi-automatic rifles.)
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
“Full auto battery shooting air gun 600 rounds per minute “
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6Gs2mKNjV0
BFRL. Interesting!
IIRC:
3/4” pipe = 12 gauge
1/4” pipe = .22 cal
>>It was a normal thing for kids to do in that era.
That’s because we had parents and grand-parents who’d fought and survived multiple World-Wars and who recognized the progressive wolves sharpening their teeth at the treeline.
I find it amusing that they chose the name “Liberator”, after the Liberator pistol dropped during the resistance in Europe.
The wannabe overlords know the tale as well as we do.
They may have the full auto MP5’s on their myrmidons, but those guys are subject to a well planned ambush with Liberators, and then the resistors have some nice MP5’s as well.
The developers of these guns should name them after gun grabbing politicians....”The Schumer”, “The Bloomberg” and new to the market “The Toomey Gun”.
Will any of them hold up to as much pressure as a piece of plumbing pipe?
The named their AR-15 magazine the "Cuomo" and the AK-47 version the "Feinstein".
There are a great many types of plastics. Some are brittle, while some are quite rubbery. It would be quite easy to print an outside layer of “rubbery” plastic around the hard interior plastic. That way, should the hard plastic fail, there would be no flying shards. This is essentially the same principle used in automobile safety glass (except that the stretchable plastic layer is sandwiched between two hard brittle layers of glass).
Yes. Some of them are being used to MAKE Schedule 40-rated pipe fittings.
I believe there are hybrid plastic/ceramic type materials out there.
Once a durable material is developed to be used in 3d printing....watch out.
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