3D Printed Firearms Revolution

Exciting Times....

So we are able to print simple firearm designs in plastics, that are able to fire a few rounds....
I guess what im wondering is why the baby steps? We already have laser stereo lithographic printers that print in metals with excellent resolution in a number of materials (Steel, Titanium etc).

Why, i wonder, are we not just printing a proper functioning firearm from metal? Why the baby steps? Is there some logistical reasoning for this? I gather that perhaps the barrel wouldn't function well printed in currently available 3D printable metals, as hardened steel is not possible as of yet...... and Titanium and standard steel wouldn't hold up to the pressures for as long as a proper hardened steel barrel.......

But firing pin? Upper/lower receiver? trigger assembly, springs etc etc - surely these could be printed and as functional as a CNC'd part in titanium/steel etc?

Thoughts?

Or perhaps print a steel barrel, then harden it once its printed? (Various Methods for doing so)

Originally posted by Quadraphobe
Or perhaps print a steel barrel, then harden it once its printed? (Various Methods for doing so)

Print me some cash while you're at it, will ya.

thanks.

I know I know, the pressing and important questions - why cant I print a real metal gun now damn it !!!!!

thank god for 3d printers, free guns for everyone.

The solution is simple really. Use your 3d plastic pieces to create molds, do a little research on metals and then bake them up. No they wont be perfect every time, but you can sand and harden as needed. I learned that in shop class in high school 101.

reply to post by Quadraphobe


CNC machines could make the key parts of guns a long time ago.

The reason 3D printers are such a critical issue is that they deal with distributing the people's right to produce products, just as the Internet distributed the people's right to produce media and publish. Its about empowerment, and its more about what they WILL BE in the future, not what they are right now. (remember those goofy first Apple 2e's and the 2800 baud dial-up internet? That's where 3D printers are now.) My advice? Forget about guns, you can buy a gun that's just fine at the local gun shop. Look at 3D printing for the myriad other things you need in your life, have fun and enjoy yourself. The arguments being advanced right now are that the people can never be trusted with manufacturing technology, lest they create evil tech. Why not prove those arguments wrong by creating some good stuff that helps people?

It is only a very blinkered and psychotic group of people, whose ONLY interest in 3D printing comes from the possibility of killing something with a tool made via that method. Most people who are even aware of the technology and its existence, understand that the uses of this technology are far more wide reaching. It will mean that provided one has a device which can "read" the shape of a part from a broken and patched example, then one will be able to scan that object, have a three dimensional schematic constructed from that data, and print a working, whole part.

Plastic clip broken off your shoulder bag, backpack, or coat? Never mind, just glue that sucker back together, scan it, and make a new one from scratch with your printer. Kid keeps loosing buttons off his or her clothing? Just print up a batch, rather than hunt around in the bloody haberdashers all over town for a good match, or send the poor git out with mis-matched buttons. Have an idea for a product or design, and want to test your idea before you go to anyone with it? Well you could pay some fancy pants fellow with an entire workshop to do it, and likely as not have them try and pinch the idea, or you could do it all in your spare time, in your own garage, after your tedious shift, at your mind buggeringly boring job.

Got horrible bone diseases? Heart complaints? Well dont worry too much. Yep, you might pop your clogs, but on the other hand, you dont have to wait for transplants and so on any more. Just get your doctor to print you a new organ, new bones, new pretty much any damned thing when the medical versions of 3D printers get up and running properly.

Not to mention, how awesome will this technology be for space ? Think about it. Using an adapted form of this technology (probably involving significant use of electromagnets) the human race will be able to print new parts for its space stations, build spacecraft in orbit! If they also figure a way to capture all the space junk, and reduce it all to raw material again, perhaps they could print with that medium! All sorts of madcap ideas, ones that might even work, spring to mind!

Sorry to side track but this keeps making me think when the subject comes up.

No matter how you construct something, materials are the key. Printers which print the written word are a one trick pony: Ink. That's it.

What happens when we need multiple materials to produce a widget? What would that printer look like? How many different types of refill cartridges would you need?

Even though our building technology has progressed, we still use wood, various metals, various ceramics (we'll throw plastics into that category), etc. If one were to "print" a new cell phone, any idea how many different materials go into one? Everybody would need there own giant storage barn for all the raw materials that go into their printer.

Want to make quality stuff? Humans have faced that very problem through out history. Anybody can buy cheap-o garbage steel at the hardware store. Need some super strong, top secret, military grade steel to take over the world? You ain't getting it in the future any more than you can get it now.

What about economics of scale? What would it cost me to print a pound of nails versus buy a pound produced through traditional means?

Maybe if I needed a new heart valve and the hospital could make an artificial one quickly, that avenue has merit. But the idea some whacko will print an assault space shuttle and tear up the local mall is ridiculous.

This sounds more like a paradigm shift and those currently benefiting from the status quo don't like it. So bring out the boogey men and the scare tactics.

reply to post by Quadraphobe

Why, i wonder, are we not just printing a proper functioning firearm from metal? Why the baby steps? Is there some logistical reasoning for this? I gather that perhaps the barrel wouldn't function well printed in currently available 3D printable metals, as hardened steel is not possible as of yet...... and Titanium and standard steel wouldn't hold up to the pressures for as long as a proper hardened steel barrel....... But firing pin? Upper/lower receiver? trigger assembly, springs etc etc - surely these could be printed and as functional as a CNC'd part in titanium/steel etc?

Who is we? 3d steel printing is too expensive for the consumer market right now and if you own such a machine you probably own a CNC ,machine too.

The most important part of a gun is the barrel, and a decent barrel needs rifling, something you can't do with a 3d printer.

reply to post by Tribunal


You can print anything with a 3D printer - printing a barrel with rifling is not the issue - that's not even complex in terms of the geometry - the only issue the ONLY issue is can it print in a metal that can take continual expansion and retraction of the metal from continual rounds being fired....

I'd say yes - it is possible - but not financially viable - at the moment..........

Quad,

First off I'd like to preface the following diatribe with a disclaimer that I live, eat, sleep, and breathe guns (to the point that if my gf ever leaves me for "cheating" it will be because she thinks I love what's in my gunsafe more than i love her)!

Now that that's out of the way though...

WTF MAN!!!! You are being PART OF THE PROBLEM when you fixate on "printing" firearms using desktop manufacturing technology!

The reality is there is and has been tools PERFECTLY capable of building you even a fairly high tech modern sporting rifle or 200 without you having to spend 4 years in school and 8 years honing your craft as a machinist for DECADES! Yes sir, you heard me right, DECADES!

The reality is "3d printing" is dangerous because they have the potential to make MILLIONS if not BILLIONS of other established and entrenched High profit margin low overhead widgets and doodads that make modern society what it is!

Not only that but they are emblematic of the no longer able to be swept under the rug paradigm shift that certain people in power have been sweeping under the rug for the last 50+ years! (Yes I'm being really conservative with that number) The only reason the whole defcad 3d printed gun thing even showed up was because public acceptance and, more importantly, integration of this technology into daily life all but drives the final nail in the coffin of the thought process that says centralization is inherently better than distributed efforts!

And as if this is not bad enough! How long do you think it's going to take for people to realize that their power grid should be local and decentralized too? Once their power grid is decentralized how long until people realize their education should not be directed from afar? What about their tax money next? What about having to send representatives to washington DC where their voice will be promptly ignored if they aren't allied with other representatives from high population density areas?

I submit to you that the reprap coming on the scene was an event very much in the spirit of the Boston tea party, but on a level that makes the upheaval and restructuring that came in the wake of the tea party look like a tempest in a teapot (heh)!

The reality is centralization, big corporations, big government, and big everything else was always a bastardized "solution" that any idiot can tell you is far from optimal but because of our limited ability to produce the stuff that made modern life possible, (and the tools that make the stuff that make modern life possible even more so!) no matter how much you were willing to pay for said machines and etc, it was the best solution we had!

Now though it's becoming blatantly plain that the underlying factors that made centralization necessary then, even though we've always known it's profligately wasteful beyond certain thresholds, no longer exist and quite frankly those trying to hold us back from moving on are doing immense damage to our long term survival outlook as a species.

I suggest highly that you read some of the collected works of robert Buckminster Fuller and ruminate on his commentary about the death of the scarcity paradigm for awhile, and then reapproach the subject of desktop manufacturing with an eye to the big picture instead of an eye towards building ten dollar guns in your basement.

Also I'd like to add that the whole 3d printed firearm thing is DIRECTLY equivalent to when the pharmacorps and big medical funneled untold sums of money through religious and other opposition groups to create a groundswell support for legislation designed to hobble the nascent biotech industry, except this time they have most likely caught the phenomena too late to be near as effective at shutting down ubiquitous acceptance of the technology from the public at large.

The reasoning behind the attacks is even the same. Not only does desktop manufacturing threaten the entire paradigm as we know it from a profit standpoint, but it also negates the "need" for large monolithic entities be it governments or mega conglomerates!

It does this by subjecting the sum total of human physical technology to Moore's law just like the computer industry! Now this is a very scary phenomena to companies used to sitting on revolutionary technologies and eking every single penny out of incremental upgrades before letting the next one come to market!

Unfortunately though, until we can undo some of the damage that is PURPOSEFULLY being done to the credibility of biotech we won't even see the truly staggering potential these technologies operating to create a synergistic effect have to offer for quite some time.

But that day will come as well!

Just remember technology is neither intrinsically good or intrinsically evil, it's the user's intent and use of the technology that determines whether a given technology does more harm than good in the world! Will people use these technologies irresponsibly? ABSOLUTELY! Will people die because of this? OH FOR SURE! So then how are these technologies a good thing?

Well kids gather round your granpappy has a story to tell you.

Back in the dark days of world war 2 scientists around the world were looking for ANY technology that would give them a clearcut advantage over their enemies working for opposing powers. This directly resulted in the race to develop nuclear weapons.... At one point during the race scientists from both the Allies and the Axis powers both realized that, theoretically, given an energetic enough reaction a nuclear detonation could turn the entire planet into a runaway fusion reaction! This was a distinct and VERY REAL possibility in their minds! yes they went back through the math and they were fairly certain it wouldn't happen given the size of their test detonations, but it was still an acknowledged possibility! Long story short they still detonated the trinity bomb even though they really had NO idea exactly how powerful it would be and whether or not it could cause something totally out of control!

That's the blessing and the curse of technology in a nutshell though! technology can either make your life unimaginably better or snuff it out in an eyeblink all with no remorse, no pity, and no do overs!

But here's the rub ladies and gents! WITHOUT technology we are GUARANTEED a short, brutish, painful, and pitiful existence!

Bottom line: Life is fatal in ALL known cases .... SACK UP AND DEAL WITH IT! And if you can't do that then at least stay out of the way of people willing to do so.

reply to post by Quadraphobe


Hi Quad, I see a complete weapons revolution with the availability of 3-D printing. I would not limit my self to just guns. I see the development of devices which could use shotgun shell primer or some other striker to make IEDs.

think about it and make a list?

slingshot
any type of pointed projectile which even could be hollow to put crap or some other toxic substance in it.
knives

defcad.com...

search angine for 3d printet gunz

forums.defcad.com...

forums

Until everyone has a 3D printer that can properly print working guns that won't break after a few uses then I'd say that would be the revolution. Right now anyone can build their own gun, bazooka, or what have you in their garage. That's how it's been since the dawn of time. Weaponsmiths existed since the Bronze Age, maybe even earlier, I don't really get the timeline that well. There are AK47 blueprints online I'm sure and maybe even in the public library. The only thing separating someone from building one is just their will to go and do it. I don't think a 3D printer will really make a difference on this, but I'm sure it will for those that want a gun but can't obtain one or are too poor for it. Then again, buying a 3D printer isn't a sign of being poor. haha