Kelly: The Coronavirus Emergency Has Created a Receptive Audience for 3D Printed Guns

“Bucket of water”

She would likely melt. But would at least get slippery.

That’s what people said about Glocks when they first came out. Now everyone makes a plastic gun.

Do some research.

There are DMLS 3D printers, and there are 3D printers that will print in a form of wax, that can then be used as a heated/dissolvable form to leave a mold for investment casting.

Then you can cast your parts in whatever metal you choose.

The differences between what a home hobbyist can do in making a 3D printed plastic gun part and what industry can do is considerable.

At home the machine you can afford is limited in the type of material and the method of flowing it into a close-tolerance object. The plastics are relatively soft, the precision considerably less on a home-budget machine than one designed and affordable to industry. Same holds true for the small, bench-top CNC mills and other metal-cutting machines.

A major difference between the hobbyist and industry is a polymer frame is not 3D printed by industry, it is injection molded or cast. Injection molding machines and molds are very expensive and only become profitable in large volume production. They have the advantage too of being able to use superior polymers and fillers to add strength, such as glass filled nylon.

Casting of polymers is also common in industry, though I don’t know if gun makers are applying this technique. For complex parts the ability is there to achieve 99.9% finished components, needing only removal of flash and sprues (filling holes). Hobbyists can make things out of cast resins, but they usually lack the sophistication in processing that industry has achieved. Such as degassing to a controlled vacuum level, then applying four or five atmosphere’s of pressure to improve penetration and adhesion to fillers or metal components within the cast part.

What it all gets down too is yes home or small business 3D printers can do lots of low stress gun parts now. But for the most durable of materials and methods, those are not 3D printing processes and remain out of reach $$$ for the home builder.

“Umm, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t these 3D printed guns plastic? Seems to me they’d have a finite lifespan.”

It is more complicated than that. The Liberator, the Songbird, and the Washbear are “fully” printed firearms(but will still require improvised metal firing pins and sometimes rubber bands as hammer springs). From the 3rd article by Ivan the Troll:

“The FGC-9 is a firearm anyone can make, anywhere in the world.

Made from 3D-printed parts paired with unregulated metal parts, it stands as a death-blow to future US gun control efforts, and circumvents strict European gun control laws.”

You’re correct in your focus and question. Early guns have been made of plastics that were not able to endure the heat thus they lasted a few shots until they melted. This may serve for some mafia hitman or some nutcase, but it’s a last ditch attempt to be armed.

We use the term plastic with carelessness. The so called “plastic guns” like Glocks are actually polymer firearms. There is Delrin, nylon, polyester, polystyrene, poly vinyl acetate or PVC for short and a few other types of synthetic or so called plastic materials. Some are more or less sensitive to heat with varying degrees of strength, elasticity or brittleness. They all have different properties.

So the notion, which the anti-gun grabbers like to promote is the idea that anyone can melt some cheap plastic items into a working firearm equal to one made from metal or high tech materials at a factory or in a machine shop. That’s total crap. Even a metal pipe zip gun is inferior and will not last as long as a well made, factory firearm or firearm made from good parts. And without a 3D printer, you can’t easily create and duplicate all the complex parts with the push of a button if you have no button to push.

The early models without metal reenforcement, as well as cheap ones are fragile. A resin mold made from legos and a lower will last around 200 rounds and costs $2 to make, but you can make hundreds of them.

The newer and higher end printed lowers, as well as other 3D specific weapons will last significantly longer.

True.

There are YouTube videos of a home gunsmith taking scrap metals, melting it down and using a simple sand cast to create a receiver. Then using machine shop tools, all very common, to create perfect receivers. The machinist skills in those videos are high level, but it’s the sort of thing people have done for centuries.

There’s videos on barrel making too. Very cool stuff to watch craftsmen at work!

As long as humans exist there will be every sort of firearm making going on. From a single round shotgun made out of a Home Depot plumbing parts to that guy turning out an precision AR from a barrel full of aluminum cans.

DG – By any chance do you still have that link for the young woman that hand machined a serviceable .38 cal. revolver? A hard drive crash wiped my bookmarks out…

My father machined parts for handguns for DECADES and he thought that eventually 3D printers would be able to make all the parts for a working gun–but he didn’t expect to see it in his lifetime and often said so. He saw it as a raw materials problem: it would take a lot of changes and work to get a 3D printer that could use metal as raw material.

Dad was right about not seeing it happen in his lifetime. We lost him to influenza complicated by pneumonia a year ago Feburary. I miss him dearly. He would have been 78 that November.

The difference is a DIY rifle used to be a relatively high skill, high upfront cost adventure. Now, you can get a printer, calibrate it, and print a lower from any number of repositories. A complicated task with high upfront costs (machine tools, work bench, etc,) has been made super easy and relatively inexpensive. Still out of reach for me though, monetarily.

Anyone with a lathe can make a gun? Do you have a lathe and have you made a gun? Seems like a fair amount of conjecture otherwise.

3D printing drastically lowers the cost, skill, and time investment barriers to making guns. You’ll find it’s the people who haven’t actually printed guns who will argue otherwise.

Making guns without automation is harder than with – you could prove me wrong by running a Glock frame off with your lathe, but we both realize that wouldn’t be possible for anyone but extremely skilled machinists – while someone with one week’s experience can run them off a 200 dollar printer all day long.