Daily Caller
“What we make will just be the gun at its most essential”
According to Wilson, 24, the group used a 3-D printer to print a plastic lower receiver. The piece was then attached to the rest of a real gun. In a test that was unverified by any independent observers, the plastic piece broke, but not before the gun fired six live rounds.
“What I’m doing is showing people, okay, this is something that can be done right now with this technology, and we’re changing this in the software, and we’re making modifications and customizations and testing with different rounds and different guns, but what we make won’t look like a plastic AR-15,” Wilson told WVUE. “What we make will just be the gun at its most essential, something that just is a firearm practically speaking.”
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Be sure to distribute the 3d files freely and widely. Never know when I might need.
AH_C on December 25, 2012 at 10:19 PM
“Ban the third dimension!!” — lunatic leftists.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 25, 2012 at 10:20 PM
They think they are operating in 4D where they can turn the 2nd Amendment inside out without breaking it.
davidk on December 25, 2012 at 10:25 PM
Heh. If only the leftists were that intelligent, but the Klein they’re working with is Ezra Klein, who can’t tell the difference between his azz and a hole in the ground.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 25, 2012 at 10:31 PM
Simple?
Glock.
Also, from elswhere on the net, without 3-D printing… it’d not be very accurate, fast or great, but it’d work in a pinch:
Logus on December 25, 2012 at 10:33 PM
This is much ado about nothing. While some parts of a firearm can be printed there are many more essential parts that cannot.
Try printing:
a rifled barrel
a trigger mechanism
springs
This could be an advancement for owners of discontinued firearms (or most anything else discontinued) to replace non-essential components. Regulate it if absolutely necessary but find a way to make it “safe, effective, and legal”.
mad scientist on December 25, 2012 at 10:40 PM
We’ve been through this routine before. The lower receiver is the part which is regulated, has the serial number, and is traced when sold. The rest you can buy without permits, ID, or anything else. If the government loses control of the lower receivers (under current law), they lose control of the whole gun.
Mohonri on December 25, 2012 at 10:54 PM
I’ll stick with the milled/ machined stuff. No thanks. Paper is for targets. I guess the ole saying will be modified. Keep your powder/paper dry.
Bmore on December 25, 2012 at 11:36 PM
I’ve seen AR lowers made of wood. oak, if I remember right.
time to ban trees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
AR’s are perfect for this sort of thing because the regulated part (lower) doesn’t really have to endure that much stress..and all the real problems are in the upper.
they should make a Liberator-type pistol. use seamless metal tubing as barrel/chamber instead of going all-printed, which is probably going to be impossible.
http://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com/2008/07/vanderboegh-handgun-against-army-ten.html
warhorse_03826 on December 26, 2012 at 12:04 AM
Partially finished AR type receivers can be purchased and finished by hand, if you’re good. Or you can go to a shop witht eh proper CNC setup and they will rent you time and show you how to finish the receiver that way. The rifle can then be completed with a readily available parts kit or selected parts.
Perfectly legal, so long as it is not transferred. No record.
novaculus on December 26, 2012 at 12:13 AM
It doesn’t need to work well, it simply needs to work.
One of the things that is amazing about watching 3d printing technology is how people experiment with different ideas to build more and more sophisticated objects. These printers have a lot of problems. For one thing the plastic is hot at the print head but cools rapidly. So half the object will be cool and part molten during construction. This leads to warping and distortion. It’s the single biggest problem with this sort of manufacture. But it’s something they modify designs to mitigate. They will often have the printer build frames or structures around the object as it builds out which limits that sort of thing. You can also heat the whole thing while it’s being made so that while some of it might be hotter then the rest the whole object never really cools until it is done.
Suffice to say, once you have a working model people start tweaking it and improving it. There will be many many many more versions and every version that is propagated will have a REASON it is used over the last one. Small improvements that over time compound. If they get a poorly working BUT working model out sometime in 2013, I suspect there will be a pretty reliable version in wide distribution within two years of that. And that point, the fire arm is beyond the control of the government. And the only solution to gun violence will either be a complete police state or arming the law abiding.
This technology is checkmate for the gun control advocates.
Karmashock on December 26, 2012 at 7:44 AM
Still waiting for them to print the munitions.
ProfShadow on December 26, 2012 at 9:07 AM
But how do they handle hot loads? Don’t think I would ever put my face anywhere near one of theses but that’s just me, I like my face and eyes just the way they are.
D-fusit on December 26, 2012 at 9:36 AM