For those of you who know what guns are and aren't afraid to own them, this is good, for those who want to be able to continue to make guns and such this is even better. http://defcad.org/ CAD blueprints without censorship in relation to firearms. Download what you like and afterward I suggest moving the file to an encrypted drive or equivalent security measure. PGP is a good way to go. You are the weapons factory. Want high capacity magazines? Make them, want a rifle the gov doesn't like? Fabricate it. Can't buy a weapon? Odds are with a little savvy you can make one. I know of no such restrictions on felons to prohibit them from buying smelting gear or bar stock, or steel and aluminum ingots, or ABS plastic. Files are editable as well. If you don't know why this is important, read about it. If after reading you still don't get it, well, (*)(*)(*)(*).
Bumping thread up for relevance sake. This is more important than people realize. The government does not want people to be able to manufacture their own weaponry with 3D printing tech for disposable weaponry. Also, if you are a female and cannot afford a legitimate handgun, this provides an inexpensive alternative for something you'll probably not use often anyways. Cheap way to get weapons, and odds are you won't need them, so why dump tons of money into something you'll rarely use? Think about it guys and girls. See the potential of this. This can bring gun prices down if it catches on - putting the power back into the consumer's hands.
Or you could just get a drill press for $90, an 80% lower, mill out the lower and throw an upper on it. Can all be ordered off the internet, no background checks required, and a lot cheaper than buying a 3D printer. (Well, perhaps not in today's market.)
If guns were ever banned in the future, I have no doubt that clandestine underground gun factories would spring up right and left. To those of you liberals reading this, it would be like back alley abortion clinics times 10. It would be far worse than prohibition. Every professional criminal who wanted a gun could get his hands on one. They cannot even stop illegal drugs from being sold on the street corners of Chicago. What makes liberals think it would be any different with guns? Organized crime in America can already get their hands on automatic guns with little difficulty, and automatic guns are (essentially) already illegal.
You are correct - it is important - but why should they care? - - - Updated - - - Tell me - how "safe" would those guns be? Would they backfire? Fire off too easily? Explode in someone's face?
Alright, you don't know anything about guns but I will do my best to explain this to you. An AR-15 is made up of two sections; an upper receiver and a lower receiver. The lower receiver is essentially a block of metal with holes in the right place for the trigger assembly, fire control, and magazine release. An "80%" lower is one that is essentially 80% complete, which means it does not have any of the holes to accept those components. All you're doing with a drill press is drilling the necessary holes. That's it. In the U.S., the lower receiver is defined as the actual "firearm" which means you can pruchase the other half (the upper receiver) without a background check. Also, guns don't "backfire" and no gun can "fire off too easily." A firearm can only fire when the trigger is pulled, fundamental fact of firearms. As for "exploding in someone's face," no, the manufacture of a complete lower receiver from an 80% receiver could not cause that. The lower receiver has no interaction with the bullets other than accepting the magazine. The magazine is attached to the lower receiver, but the bullets are fed into the upper receiver. The lower receiver does contain the trigger mechanism and the hammer, however, the bolt (the part that strikes the primer, igniting the gun powder) is contained in the upper receiver (which is already 100% manufactured). I hope I was able to clear up some of those misunderstandings you have about firearms, specifically AR-15s.
Thanks for the reply - do not know enough But tell me I know that you have to pull a trigger but in a gun that was basically "home made" like this - how much "pull" would that trigger have - small enough that dropping the gun would make it fire?
Not at all. You aren't manufacturing the trigger assembly, that part is purchased separately as a lower receiver parts kit. The amount of force required to pull the trigger would be the same as most other AR-15s. Now if you had the knowledge and know-how to manufacture your own trigger assembly from raw metal, then that's another story (which 3D printers might allow us to do very easily). However, dropping the gun would not provide enough force to cause even the lightest of triggers to go off. Triggers are usually measured in pounds, a five pound trigger means five pounds of force is required to activate it.
Really depends on who made it. Standard infantry battle rifle trigger pull is set at anywhere from 6-10ish pounds from what my armorer buddies told me. But trigger jobs can be done to lower the pull rating. Rule of thumb? Don't drop your gun - loaded or otherwise. If you are doing something that could cause you to drop your weapon, put your weapon away and complete the task. No sense in risking a negligent discharge. Bullets cannot be recalled back once fired. Nor can people get un-shot.
All of which are true points. But not tons of people know how to operate these things. To my understanding, all one needs to do is get the drawing uploaded into the printers and it takes care of the rest. But any serious manufacturer would get himself a good whitney lathe in my opinion, and a good mill as well. But if you have a mill, I don't see much need for a drill press in all honesty. Unless you just want to save time changing bits out. Which can get tedious I admit.
I am specifically trying to address the OP That manufacturing a gun in the home is feasible and it occurred to me that weapons manufacture has a lot to do with ensuring you have good quality steel in the first place I know children have been harmed because the trigger mechanisms are too easy I know guns have exploded to remove fingers and damage hands How much more likely in a home made gun?
I'll try to answer if I can. Unless you're an engineer it's really hard to say how much more likely it is to fail. What the other posters are trying to tell you is that the only part of the gun that would need to be manufactured, is not a part that has to withstand any of the explosion or force, so the danger isn't there. The problems would be in not having the measurements of the part come out close enough to work functionally. In other words the part that holds the trigger would not attach to the upper reciever, or it would not be able to cause the gun to fire. The trigger you are talking about is decreasing the weight(literally how many pounds of pressure it takes to move the trigger the full length to fire) to where it only takes a light pull to go off. Just by taking apart a magazine for an AR, I know someone who replaced a smaller spring in it and it now holds more rounds than intended. It has to be the magazines that have extra space in them. It was like a twenty round mag that was actually the same size as a thirty. Also, with a little sanding you can create a high quality trigger if you know how to take them apart and where to sand them.
The best way to make a gun safer is to educate the operator. You're asking me what I can do to make a car that doesn't drive that well because driving is unsafe. Teach someone how to be safe with it, just like you would a car, power tool, bulldozer, stove, toaster, bathtub, etc.
NO, research shows that does not work - not with children Gun locks work And I can imagine a home engineered gun using possibly substandard steel might be more than a little problematic Meanwhile - we put a LOT of money into making cars safer - why not guns?
One more reason gun control is a bad idea. Chances are it would kill more people than it would save. Liberals have long been complaining about women who died from back alley abortions. So why do they support gun control?
You know what really works, reading information on a subject before jumping head first into a conversation with speculations. They are using a schematic that is identical to the manufacturer and you can buy blocks of all types of steel I imagine. You read shotty research, you need to make sure the source of information you are using is credible. I grew up in a house with over twenty guns in it, some of them loaded, none of them had locks. I was a trouble maker of epic proportions, if I was told to not do something it was automatically first on my list of things to do. I NEVER played with the guns in my house, it was known to me that was completely off limits and my parents would have punished me in a way comparable to nothing else. As a teenager I would go shooting with friends in the hills, in my experience the people who were the most careless and irresponsible with guns were the ones who hadn't been around guns as much. Just like clockwork if my friends father wore a cowboy hat and hunted all year long, they had the utmost respect for guns and never treated them like toys. I've had people point a gun at me, and tell me it wasn't loaded when I got furious with them. I never went shooting with them again, and they were always the person who had been hunting a handful of times, not the friend who had been hunting their whole lives.
Know the difference between anecdotal and statistical research Yours is anecdotal - THIS is research based information http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/guns.htm
The "gun" is the serialized part and can be printed using a 3D printer. AR-15 lower receivers are a relatively low stress part and is the part being printed. The upper receiver is the high stress part and is not manufactured at home but bought from a reliable machine shop unconnected to the home printer. As far as other guns, I wouldn't trust them if they contained parts that required high tensile strength like chambers and barrels. There is no reason to think that a CNC machined slide with a milled barrel on top of a printed pistol frame wouldn't work though. I would shoot that in a heart beat.
I don't know what you mean by this comment. How is building something from the base components not right?
Weaponizing technology is always a bad thing in my book. 3d printing could be one of the greatest advancements of our time, but it's going to get a bad rap because of gun nuts.
So your entire argument is that the technology *might* be abused by a small minority of the population and you think that is going to ruin 3D printing? You sound paranoid. No one has introduced legislation that would outlaw 3D printing because of a perceived threat to... what are you afraid of again?
