i would like to try printing some mags to see how they work, but I would prefer my PMAGs to anything made on a printer. I think he biggest problem would be getting them to feed properly. My mags dont take much abuse, but i also have a piston AR and not gas DI so there isnt much blow-back.
Bought 28 PMAGS a couple weeks ago.
Relevant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DconsfGsXyA
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/02/making-guns-home
My argument is basically summed up by that article. Things in the article I stated in this thread:
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Home made guns have been around long before.
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3D printing any reasonably functional gun (and not a magazine) on these cheap plastic printers is going to be impossible.
Anyhow, these articles aren’t really “relevant” so much as just a repost of what started this thread. (Disclaimer I can’t see the youtube video, but I’m assuming it’s the one of the printed magazine).
Don’t most college campuses ban all firearms, even if the person has a valid permit? If so, wouldn’t any firearm be considered “illegal”. Couldn’t it also be possible that the roommate didn’t have the proper permit at all and therefore the rifle was “illegal”?
I stated that in a later post. Turns out he was just talking about things he didn’t understand.
^ So you did. Thought it was another post about typing.
Apparently the guy on the CNBC special can make a print an entire lower receiver for an AR. The rest of the parts could be bought by anyone. I’d like to see how well the plastic lowers work though.
You can always buy a lower. If they ban the gun, in the past they’ve banned the upper as well. The lower is the non-firing portion that basically contains the pistol grip, butt stock, and magazine reciever. The upper is all of the impact parts such as the bolt, barrel, ejector, foregrip, etc. This is just bullshit reporting. The upper is the more difficult portion of the gun to create and by far the more expensive portion. Not to mention, making a lower (out of cheap plastic) and making a lower that’s actually useable are two different things.
Just to be clear, this is a picture of an ar15 lower reciever. This is exactly how much of the gun they’re claiming to have made:
Congratulations.
Anyhow, something smells like bull crap here. “infowars” is releasing this article about the lower. The video of it shooting just doesn’t look right. I don’t know if it’s the trigger mechanism being faulty or what, but the thing just doesn’t look like it’s shooting correctly. And they’re claiming 650 rounds, but their first one lasted a total of 6 rounds before it blew up. I’d probably want to see some verification that this even makes sense.
Since there are no impact parts the idea of a functional lower made of plastic doesnt seem that unlikely. The importance of the lower is that legally that is the “gun” and it is the only part with a serial number. The rest is just a collection of parts. A plastic lower makes for a potentially untraceable gun no serial #s.
Yes, I know what a lower reciever is McLeod. That being said, it still undergoes a lot of stress for that type of cheap plastic used in those 3D printers, which would explain why their first one blew up after 6 shots.
I am fully aware of the serial number on the lower. But please explain to me how this “untraceable” gun threat becomes an issue. Name one single high profile gun crime where “untraceable” guns played a signiifcant role. From a ballistics standpoint, guns are blueprinted by their barrels, which are swappable. Given that their are roughly 2.5 million AR15’s in circulation in the US, serial numbers are roughly useless in terms of using a registry for identifying a list of suspects. They play no role in any sort of investigation and really serve no purpose to investigators unless someone forgets a gun at the scene. From a willful illegal activities standpoint, you could just as easily buy a stolen gun and scrub the serial number (common practice) without too much sweat. Or from a perfectly legal standpoint, you could pick up a pre-ban era AR in a poorly documented private party transaction and pretty much be in the same boat.
In the end, what you have is the ability now to “3D print” a very sh*tty version of a single inexpensive part out of cheap plastic which you would then need the gun know how and parts and money to assemble and hope to god that hunk of sh*t still works.
I don’t have a problem with the traceability of a 3d printed gun at all. I think it is interesting how innovations like this could be used to circumvent gun legislations. The sale of any individual part could be justified arguably as a replacement piece for a grandfathered and legal AR in the event of a ban. Any part other than the lower receiver that is, because legally that IS the gun. Thats not to say replacent uppers couldnt be banned, but it would be a harder sell telling people with a legal gun that they can never buy another upper, replacement barrel, etc.
As far as quality goes, Im sure it does suck but that doesnt mean they cant get better over time if stronger composites can be used.
The whole point of cheap 3D printing is that it uses flimsy plastic, so no, stronger composits are pretty unlikely in any near future. Secondly, why would anybody have any issue saying you can’t buy replacement parts for a gun they’ve already deemed unfit to own or buy in the future by making illegal? That’s just silly. Lastly, all you’re making a fuss about is a technicality. It would be just as easy to call the bolt or the barrel the gun in the future (put a serial number on either) and wham. Problem solved. Whining for nothing.
My bro-in-law works for a design firm with a high quality 3d printer and the stuff I have seen him bring home isnt flimsy at all. I didnt test the tensile or anything but Id say it feels similar to the stuff pmags are made of. Granted that printer is very expensive, but there is a wide range of quality for the printers and their output.
The point is that people find ways to legally get past laws they find unreasonable. Just like with the original Brady bill and limitations on # of “assault rifle style” features. 3D printers just provide another potential option for beating them.
Passing any restrictions on guns has proven to be very difficult. The more stuff you have to tack on to make it work (like banning replacement parts) the less likely it would be to pass.
My bro-in-law works for a design firm with a high quality 3d printer and the stuff I have seen him bring home isnt flimsy at all. I didnt test the tensile or anything but Id say it feels similar to the stuff pmags are made of. Granted that printer is very expensive, but there is a wide range of quality for the printers and their output.
The point is that people find ways to legally get past laws they find unreasonable. Just like with the original Brady bill and limitations on # of “assault rifle style” features. 3D printers just provide another potential option for beating them.
Passing any restrictions on guns has proven to be very difficult. The more stuff you have to tack on to make it work (like banning replacement parts) the less likely it would be to pass.
Seems to me that the “the gun sucks” is a weak part of the argument. Do you seriously think that 3D printers will never get substantially better? It seems a bit like saying that publishing isn’t ever going to be threatened by computers, because dot matrix printouts are ugly and take forever to print out.
Sure gun lovers will likely not find a plastic gun printed out nearly as satisfying as “the real thing,” but a kid who doesn’t like his teacher or sister doesn’t need to have a gun they love. They just need to have a gun that functions.
And just because un-traceable guns haven’t been part of major gun events to date doesn’t mean that making guns available to anyone who feels like printing one up on a moment’s notice isn’t likely to change this. If it were suddenly possible to print up nearly-undetectable counterfeit currency, would you say that it’s an unreasonable concern because it hasn’t been a problem in the past?
i don’t know what the solution is here, but its almost certainly not to deny that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned.
See, here’s why I get annoyed at this overblown, silly media argument. You have a sh*tty gun that sucks so bad no one would hold it to test fire it. It’s as likely to blow up the shooter’s hand as to hit the victem. It shoots a .380 which is just barely bigger than a .22. It’s innaccurate, and it is meant to be a one shot gun. It also takes access to a printer that is $8,000 second hand. Guns like this have been available since the dawn of time to anyone that wanted to look up plans on the internet and make a cheap pistol out of a peice of metal using a hacksaw, a rubber band and a nail. Not only that, but such a device would have been easier to make, cheaper, and more reliable, but no body threw a fit. The only difference is that without the media there to overhype it, all the clueless liberals based in XYZ city, had no idea that they should be getting their panties in a proverbial bunch over nothing. So there is NOTHING NEW to this. But now a bunch of people are having fits over some “cutting edge” technology that could “potentially” allow kids to do what they could have been doing for a century. (Google homemade 22 pistol - they’re made from brake lines, kitchen pipes, etc) But you know what? They don’t. They use AR15’s that frankly are better quality than what most professional soldiers around the world carry.
Well, but what if some kid “really didn’t like his teacher”. So? Like I said, he could have done this for a century out of pipe, nail and rubber band. I have a friend that made a small rifle out of parts in his garage. He’s in the Rangers now. Or a kid could make a knife, grab a crowbar (which I would prefer to this plastic shit heap), build a bomb, but nobody gives those things half the coverage. Because to an extent, you can’t eliminate that possibility and secondly, it hasn’t really been a major factor in any of the mass school events where kids are just using real guns, and we still gotten a fix on those situations yet.
And yes, to be clear, I do think the plastics used will limit the effectiveness of any gun produced with this methods. All I know, is using all the fuss around here and the fact that more kids in the country can use a shop class lathe than a 3D printer, we need to start governing metal lathes as well.
Again, if you’re going to throw the word around, what does “Traceable” actually mean, and how do you think it impacts crime stopping. Serial numbers are worse than useless in an investigation.
Anyhow, this is one guy in Texas playing the media to prove a point using something that’s been around for ages and he’s doing a good job of playing people. This feels like every time newspapers run one of those “Dangerous trends your teenager may be involved with” sensationalist peices that you always read in high school and laughed at because of how out of touch it was.
Agree that the media is probably focusing on the wrong things, but the point is that 3D printers do change the equation for who controls the means of production. Your friend, who is now a Ranger, build a working rifle in his garage. Great, I made all kinds of weapons growing up with my friends and it was fun. The difference is that with the right 3d printer a person with the proper CAD file can, with very little expertise, produce an exact replica of the original design. That goes for things as diverse as toothbrushes to parts for high impact explosives. 3d printing is a rapidly developing technology that has a ton of money behind it now, so a reasonable person would expect there to be continual developments in this field.
Currently 3d printing is being used for medical and dental applications (http://3dprinting.com/materials/metal/3d-printing-metal/), and the parts printed for these purposes are extremely durable metals. As the tech develops it will likely become cheaper and easier to make durable parts, and the impact form IP to firearms could be large.