Don't bring a 3D printed gun to a gun fight...

[dud]

To quote the Bard:

Much ado about nothing ...


🙂

 

[jagec]

The first one costs $550. Every one after that is $50, once you have the plans and the printer your only cost is the plastic. This is still a long way from being practical, but that doesn't mean it's a joke. Give it a decade of refinement and improvements in raw materials and you're going to eventually get a process that ANYONE can use to create guns that would perform as well as high-end CNC models for a fraction of the price.

Sure...but the point is that we're not there yet, we won't be there for some time, and despite hobbyists having had the technology to make far better guns for some time via other methods, homemade guns simply aren't that common given the ease of acquiring commercial guns (in the US).

It's the fearmongering tone of the article that I didn't like. I think that 3D printers are all kinds of cool.

 

[corwin]

I didn't check before I posted but yeah that doesn't surprise me there's AR-15 polymer lowers. Now if these 3D printers can print with the tolerances necessary for a truly working AR lower, and use a composite polymer as feedstock, then I might be a little worried about people making their own lowers and just buying the upper and other parts online since the lower is the actual "firearm" that's registered.

And a mini-AR would be kinda cool, lol. 😉

The tolerances for a lower aren't all that hard to hit...a strong enough polymer would be another thing though. But hell you can buy (unregistered) 80% aluminum lowers shipped to your door and finish them yourself right now, this really is a bunch of whining over nothing as usual.

 

[Red Squirrel]

lol yeah, because the average bad guy owns thousand dollar machinery in their home with thousand dollar software to go with it. Ok, I can see having a pirated copy of AutoCAD but a 3D printer is not something you steal at a Walmart of convenience store. :biggrin:

Now they'll probably think of making CNC machines/3D printers illegal. :awe:

Imagine the trouble one could get into for making round ball magnets with a CNC machine, while eating kinder surprises.

 

[Childs]

Cool...a plastic gun. Worthless. Might as well just stick firecrackers in your nostrils and light them.

Isn't a plastic gun what John Malkovich used in In the Line of Fire? Seemed like a decent concept for a single use weapon.

 

[BladeVenom]

Metal 3D printing is already being done. No need to 3D print in plastic. The prices will fall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20R9nItDmPY

Interesting, but that's slow with lots of steps. Not something that would ever get popular for home use.

For something simple, why not a 3d printer using the same stuff they use in MIM or something similar, and then just bake it? You'd get shrinkage, but the software should be able to figure it all out.

 

[LTC8K6]

Interesting, but that's slow with lots of steps. Not something that would ever get popular for home use.

For something simple, why not a 3d printer using the same stuff they use in MIM or something similar, and then just bake it? You'd get shrinkage, but the software should be able to figure it all out.

It's already faster than many other types of metal prototyping, and it will get better quickly. And it will get cheaper.

 

[Bateluer]

I think I'll print up a GAU-8 Avenger.

 

[JDMnAR1]

Is the lower receiver the part that determines if an ar-15 is semi or full auto? I could see people printing that part and replacing the legal part.

Not really, no. While there is a design characteristic of the AR-15 lower receiver that allows for instalation of parts for full auto operation, it is actually the fire control group that makes the difference between semi and full.

 

[CZroe]

If I wanted to machine my own gun the old-fashioned way, could you really tell me that I couldn't even with the right to bear arms and the right to property and the right to the sweat of your own brow we supposedly have in this country? What if I wanted to start a new gun manufacturer to compete with the established ones? Free market with a legal product and all that: Smith & Wesson, watch out.

Quick and easy are almost irrelevant advancements to anyone who agrees that I should be able to do the things listed above. While it should be irrelevant to the legality, it means that there may be less incentive to doing it the traditional way or trying to start a competing company (less profit opportunity now that it requires less specialization).

 

[wirednuts]

3d printing is going to make most things someday, i think. i also think 30 years from now we will be able to go to harbor freight and buy a 3d metal or polymer printer for under a grand... and we will be making many of the parts that we currently go to walmart for 😀 if walmart didnt drive out the small hardware stores, 3d printing would have anyway😉

 

[wirednuts]

Interesting, but that's slow with lots of steps. Not something that would ever get popular for home use.

For something simple, why not a 3d printer using the same stuff they use in MIM or something similar, and then just bake it? You'd get shrinkage, but the software should be able to figure it all out.

there is. theyre many different types of 3d printers. the really exciting ones are nanoscale 3d printers. they can even print with living cells, and they are trying to actually make living human organs.... just imagine that!

they already did skin i think...

 

[CZroe]

Electronics printing is what I want. Lost your remote? Print another! Buy standard rubber membrane #23X and a couple IR LEDs from the printable electronics supplement aisle for $0.50, print the replacement housing off an online DB, and throw it all inside.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Electronics printing is what I want. Lost your remote? Print another! Buy standard rubber membrane #23X and a couple IR LEDs from the printable electronics supplement aisle for $0.50, print the replacement housing off an online DB, and throw it all inside.

1) In my entire life I have never ever ever lost a remote to the point where it needed to be replaced. And I'll bet the vast majority of people are the same. The remote might wind up in the refrigerator or between the cushions on the sofa, but it never disappears entirely. And if it happens enough that a person needs a 3D printer specifically for that purpose that person needs to grow a brain, not a new remote.

 

[CZroe]

1) In my entire life I have never ever ever lost a remote to the point where it needed to be replaced. And I'll bet the vast majority of people are the same. The remote might wind up in the refrigerator or between the cushions on the sofa, but it never disappears entirely. And if it happens enough that a person needs a 3D printer specifically for that purpose that person needs to grow a brain, not a new remote.

It was not meant to express how useful it is to a limited scenario as if that scenario happened all the time. Rather, it was meant to express the opposite: solves many trivial little things that may happen.

Broke your remote? Don't like the placement of the keys? Don't like the grip? Want discrete power and input controls or other features? Don't like the color or button captions? Broke it? Cracked it? Scratched it? Dog chewed it up? Same answer to all: Print another!

Missing the thumbstick cap on your Playstaion controller? Print another! Scuffed up your cellphone's battery door/housing? Print another! Disappointed that Nintendo never feleased the attachment for turning the Wii Remote Classic Controller into a motion gamepad ala SIXAXIS/DuslShock 3? Print your own! Virtual Boy stand cracked in the middle like everyone else despite never using the replacement and replacements no longer being available? Print another! Tired of the external HDD connected to your soft-modded PS2 or Wii flopping around? Print a new console housing with an internal bay! Get the screw posts from the supplement aisle at the department store or use a design that snaps together. Similar designs will be shared EVERYWHERE.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

The 3-D printer company took printer for various reasons. :c no printable gun anytime soon

 

[sdifox]

I think you guys are missing the point.

Unlike CNC which requires fairly expensive tools + a skill that 99.9% of the population doesn't have, with 3D printing anybody with a $1000 machine can print the federally regulated part of a gun with no skill whatsoever.

While it is obviously not a full gun it IS what the law considers to be the gun, and the rest of the parts are easily obtained.

Now I'm not saying this is a bad thing, in general I'm all for gun ownership. But it does make the existing laws somewhat more difficult to enforce since you're no longer dealing with a relatively trackable number of devices (since the cost/skill barrier is high enough to thwart the average person).

It's mostly just interesting.

Viper GTS

I think it is just a matter of no one bothering to write a program to control CNCs the same way the 3D printers are controlled.

 

[MonKENy]

how can no one have missed the most useful reason to make a plastic one shot gun

You want to assassinate something or hijack something. You have a weapon that is untraceable and can pass through metal detectors. Who cares if its only one shot. you get close enough thats all you need,

 

[BlackTigers]

how can no one have missed the most useful reason to make a plastic one shot gun

You want to assassinate something or hijack something. You have a weapon that is untraceable and can pass through metal detectors. Who cares if its only one shot. you get close enough thats all you need,

And you can burn it right after.