Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Well, that wasn't optimal. Wouldn't a perfectly good zip gun -- or a Liberator -- work better, easier and surely cheaper?

3-D printed gun fires 6 shots — then falls apart. I have a two-volume set of small hardbacks that I picked up in the 70s or early 89s -- J. David Truby's Improvised Modified Firearms. It is easy enough to make a Liberator level zip gun that works for quite a while, certainly long enough to get a better one.
Improvised Modified Firearms by J. David Truby, a useful book to own.

20 comments:

Larry said...

10 It didn't work so well.

20 Design a better one and test it.

30 Go to 10

Anonymous said...

Many .pdfs are available on SCRIBD.

One can learn to make anything from a simple full auto 9mm to a liberator to a suppressor, if one had the desire.

AP

Anonymous said...

This is just the beginning.
There will be an improvement in material and design to make an at-home printable gun assembly kit feasible in the near future.
Meanwhile, we still have the CNC aluminum (good) BATFEces registered (bad) guns.

B Woodman
III-per

Maddawg308 said...

The whole concept of 3-D printing guns, uh... I just was never sold on it. Give me forged steel any day.

Anonymous said...

There are actually seven different types of 3D printers available today. One prints with aluminum sintered particles. I've seen a metal "rook" chess playing piece that had been printed. Very interesting. The technology will advance but it will take time. For those who want additional information, the industry terminology for 3D printing is "additive manufacturing". The terminology initially threw me. It does not mean additives for plastics but manufacturing an article bit by bit via targeted deposits, in layers.

Unknown said...

I can see why they do it, it will eventually produce something usable. Until then, I can take that well-shaped plastic lower as a mold, pack it in sand, and cast an aluminum lower, which I then finish with hand tools. This I think is the more important aspect of this development.

Allen said...

I've read about AR lowers made of wood (oak, if I remember right) that lasted longer than that one did. a few magazines, anyways.

still, not very useful. better off with something that shoots .22 shorts or CB's that's small and concealable. sure, you'd need big brass balls to use it to take someone else's gun...but desperation tends to make those sorts of anatomical differences happen.

Anonymous said...

This seems to have more to do with the "cult of the AR-15" than anything else. The only wepons this works on (so far ) are ARs and glocks(the last thing I want is a plastic wepon) So who cares?

Anonymous said...

The Wright Flyer wasn't a very good airplane either. It didn't need to be. It just needed to show that the concept worked. One improvement led to another until we saw 767's, F-35's and Shuttle Orbiters. Just be patient, Dutchman6. Maybe you won't be able to "print" a fully functional M4 in your basement, but someday, somebody will.

greygrandpa said...

For a first attempt, 5 or 6 shots is commendable. Further experiments and engineering will ultimately be successful.

Miles said...

The material used by the printer and the AR's design was the problem.

More than one person I know said that it would fail in the receiver extension area (which it did) just the round counts were different.

I heard someone had machined a lower from a block of lucite a few decades ago. Lasted about 200 rds before the same happened.

The problem is the buffer impact on the end of the receiver extension.

I'd bet with extra reinforcement designed into that area, this method will work quite awhile longer.

And, like the idea behind the Liberator pistol, be an excellent 'Liberator Rifle".

Gun 'control'?

Gun 'ban' ?

Ha! Hahahahahahaha!

The barn door has been left wide open and it's ooo-ver.

Anonymous said...

This worked much better-

http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DIY-Shovel-AK-photo-tsunami-warning

Anonymous said...

The lower broke at a stress concentration point. Redesign an improved piece to allow for the placement of some metal/graphite stiffeners or reinforcements epoxied in place. Then try again. The 3D printing technology isn't going away. It's just getting better and new printing materials will be invented. This is just a baby step in a new revolution of technology.

Chuck said...

The value of this thing is not whether on not it actually works, but how much it scares the living daylights out of the statists.

Kevin Wilmeth said...

These developments should be encouraging. Any advance in DIY weapons, whether that is new technology or new people rediscovering old technology, is a welcome sign. Give me all of it.

Okay, so the first ones might not hold up. That doesn't much faze me; if it gets people trying again and new people inspired, the greater the chances are that another John Moses Browning (or the design genius of your choice) will take notice.

Nor does it really matter what the pattern is; at this stage it's about the concept. I'm not much of an AR fan myself, but that design probably has more available technical information than any other, is already wired in to the interchangeable parts and plugins concept, and of course is an Evil Black Rifle, which of course offends all the right people.

As long as people are thinking outside the box, I would think that after the basic concept is vetted and materials improve, we might turn some attention to going further toward "do-it-ALL-yourself" concepts that do not depend upon the availability of gunpowder and primers

Take, say, high-pressure air.

Anonymous said...

Hi guys. In light of the fact I have been a daily reader here for quite a while, but have never owned a gun, I recently decided on purchasing one. I just came across this video while researching what to buy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y88VNIeNSZo&feature=b-cat-science

Can anyone comment on these gentleman's opinion. And what would be a good first choice for a novice gun owner to acquire and train? Frankly I'm concerned about the way things are going lately, and feel it's time to exercise my 2nd Amendment right...before it's too late.
Also...what good is the "grandfathering" issue, come time they want to take ALL guns away?


Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Without doubt rapid prototyping(AKA 3-D printing) is interesting and rapidly developing technology. It has uses today and probably will make fully functional parts for some uses in the future.
For right now, however, anyone with the same skills, same CAD solid model, a billet of 7075 Al, and a machining center can produce a real functional part. All of that is available in small shops and even garages all over the country. What am I missing here?

CowboyDan said...

Kevin, I've thought of high pressure air or flammable gas propulsion. There's a SCUBA driven air rifle on the market, but it's almost $700 stripped down; over twice that tricked out with a scope, lights, etc.

Ever since I first started working with gas torches forty odd years ago, I've thought propox or oxy/acetylene would make a wicked sort of weapon system.

I suppose I should clean out the garages and get to work. I'd like to use as many methods as possible, old and new.

Allen said...

cowboydan...there was a paintball gun that used propane a few years back, the Tippmann C3. might be a good starting point. neck down the front face of the bolt, mate it to a smaller barrel, and fire marbles out of it. would be a good tinkering gun to work with to come up with ideas for a more useful one.

Joseph P. Martino said...

I think using compressed air instead of gunpowder is the way to go. It won't melt the barrel. Don't rifle the barrel, either. Leave it smoothbore and use rifled slugs. Wrap the outside of the barrel with steel wire, fiberglass, or some such thing, under tension, to reinforce the plastic barrel.