quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
Why couldn't you just 3D print the receiver and slap off the shelf barrels/parts onto it?

I get that being able to manufacture the entire firearm would be ideal in some post apocalyptic future, but the way you guys are talking it makes it sound like a show stopper for the here and now.

The idea of 3D printing guns has been heralded as "a devastating blow to the gun prohibition lobby" (original article) or "the end of gun control" (second article).

If "they" ban guns, and people start 3D printing receivers and ordering barrels from the Sporstman's Guide or whatever, "they" can just ban selling gun parts.

For 3D printing guns to be "the end of gun control," you need to be able to use it to make a gun without having to obtain any other parts that can easily be banned.

I referenced this huge historic case a few weeks ago, https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...480072444#3480072444
Thanks for the follow-up article.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Anyone with access to a metal 3D printer can make guns functionally and aesthetically indistinguishable from any gun that can be bought in a store. Such metal printers are available for less than $2,000.

I'm pretty sure this is TOTALLY false. I think he's confusing metal printers and plastic printers.

Here's an article from a year ago that piles on the hype about a company promising "100x faster, 10x cheaper" metal printing - meaning their cheapest system only costs $120,000 instead of more than $1 million.

https://newatlas.com/desktop-metal-3d-printing/50654/

Metal printing machines are EXPENSIVE.

You can print something that LOOKS like metal in an inexpensive home 3D printer than normally prints using plastic filament - but it works by using plastic filament that has a lot of metal powder in it. It doesn't produce a part anything close to as strong as a machined metal part.

Not only are they expensive, they usually require 220 or 440 V and high amps (the fusion type use a 6kW laser or better) and they usually operate in an inert atmosphere like argon. Basically a computer controlled precision welder. Though some of the newest tech I've heard of uses a kind of powder metalurgy to deliver a metal infused filament that once printed gets put into an oven under high temp and it all fuses into the finished part (kind of like CPM ).

I suspect that high strength ceramics will be where it's at when it all settles. Modern ceramics have some great properties and all it would take is a good baking cycle in a high temp oven after printing. Eventually I expect to see ceramics that could even be recycled back into raw material with virtually no loss. (A key requirement for long space flight) My undrstanding is that ceramic printing is being used now for dentures.

Ken

Wouldn’t a gun made out of 3-D printed nylon essentially be a zip gun? Something to use as a last resort?

quote:

Originally posted by HuskySig:
Wouldn’t a gun made out of 3-D printed nylon essentially be a zip gun? Something to use as a last resort?

That was exactly the point of the Liberator.

We don't deserve Cody Wilson.