I disagree with the premise that gun control has been shot down because of this new technology applied to make improvised firearms. First of all, these things are going to be far less effective, durability, reliability and range wise than factory firearms. Second, laws are about scaring transgressors into not doing something with the threat of state violence against them, not making some action a complete impossibility.
First of all, these things are going to be far less effective, durability, reliability and range wise than factory firearms.
This is technically true, but doesn't accurately represent the state of 3d printed firearms.
Durability - a 3d printed/hybrid firearm isn't going to last as long as one made by Ruger and co. However, the difference is between components lasting thousands of rounds vs tens of thousands of rounds - meaningful, but we're not talking "two shots then the barrel melts."
As far as range goes, that has far less to do with whether or not the components in question were homemade, and more to do with physics - namely, barrel length, the caliber of bullet you're firing, and how much powder is being used. Longer barrel = more complete burn of the powder = higher projectile velocity. The aerodynamics of projectiles is rather complex, but you can rule of thumb it as "heavier projectiles are more accurate, lighter projectiles go farther, faster." This is a long way of saying, as long as the barrel meets a certain threshold of quality (which, homemade firearms have met), it's not going to matter unless you're shooting out past 200 yards. Furthermore, barrels are (in the US anyway) cheap, plentiful, and entirely unregulated.
I would argue that durability isn't just a function of number of shots in a controlled environment - think about the environment a soldier will use their weapon in. Water, mud, dropping it, things falling on it, and so on. A weapon cast and milled from steel, aluminum, or carbon fiber impregnated polymer, with tight tolerances, is going to be more durable to that kind of thing vs. a firearm having structural parts made with FDM printing like the subject of the article.
I agree that barrels are available in the US but that isn't generally true worldwide. I admit that I don't know much about homemade barrels but my understanding is that for a long rifle barrel (needed for >200 yard shooting) is going to require some pretty specialized and expensive equipment, and I would be very surprised if they could approach the accuracy of even a cheap, non-accurized factory chamber/barrel, but I'll look into it more to satisfy my curiosity.
So on durability it seems the converse has usually proven out to be the rule rather than the exception. Probably the best example is the AK, tolerances are loose, it can be manufactured with rudimentary equipment. Basically a metal brake, a lathe and a rudimentary milling machine to machine the gas block and trigger group. The entire gun is pinned together and can be taken down in the field with a punch. It really is so simply built to the point of being genius and while it is not as accurate as some of it's counterparts produced during the same period, it is accurate enough. It is generally regarded as the most reliable gun ever produced.
The converse story of that would be that of the AR-15/M-16 tight tolerances and precise engineering lead to it fouling in action due to dust and debris to the extent that it went thru several decades of revision until we ended up with the modern AR-15/M-4.
As far as barrels I would say that is the biggest issue with ever production a 100% 3D printed gun, unless there are serious advances in modern plastics that lead to an extremely ridged, heat resistant, and expansion resistant material they will continue to need to be metals with high tensile strength. It needs to be rigid to resist barrel wrap where the barrel flexes and reduces accuracy under fire. It needs to be heat resistant for obvious reasons gun barrels get hot and it needs to resist expansion so that the barrel is in contact with the bullet at it travels down it. Thus metal seems to be the only possible material at the moment that contains the requisite properties for barrel development.
Beyond that, even if they can get to 100% of all other parts being manufactured and using common pipe with some chemical treatment to overcome the barrel issue there are still some major disadvantages that cannot be overcome without at least rudimentary metal shop tools. The biggest being that just using a pipe gives you the equivalent of a smooth bore slug gun. For any amount of accuracy the firearm has to have riffling which is groves cut into the inside of the barrel to cause the bullet to twist as it moves down the barrel thus stabilizing the flight path of the bullet when it leaves the firearms barrel. I just don't see how the above issues can be overcome via 3D printing. That being said, it's actually pretty easy to home manufacture a firearm with the most basic of metal shop tools.
The Achilles heel of 3d printed firearms is ammunition. You can 3d print a bullet, but the entire cartridge with primer is an unsolved problem.
Factory ammunition in common calibers like 9mm and 5.56 is hard to find now at least in the US.
US states with strong gun control laws now focus on ammunition sales, requiring identification and criminal background checks, and creating law enforcement databases of ammunition buyers and sellers.
I think the issue is that it is not a 3D printing problem. Plenty of hobbyist reload and self manufacture bullets it requires a simple reloading press. Most of the components can be self manufactured if one desires, as the other child poster has already said, smokeless powder is probably the hardest to manufacture but not impossible.
It’s not yet documented in the 3D printing community, but it’s not an unsolved problem. Both priming compound and black powder are fairly easy to make. Smokeless powder is a bit more difficult, but not much.
I think you may not be caught up to the current state of the art in printed firearms. Since the lower receiver of an AR-15 is legally the "firearm", it's the only part you need to create yourself to bypass infringements. The lower receiver is also not much of a pressure-bearing component, so making it on a 3D printer offers few trade offs. There are other prints available for countries with even more restrictive infringements, where you can print or assemble the entire weapon from unregulated parts (which are commonly used in other situations, making them difficult or impossible to regulate).
My understanding is that printed lower receivers is an artifact of how the USA regulates ARs, most countries regulate barrels and other components as well. So that method is extremely vulnerable to additional regulation. Anyways, finished 80% aluminum lowers are just as good as the real thing, you can even hard coat anodize (similar process to the barrel rifling of the FCG-9)
Powdered metal printing is becoming more popular. Porsche and some other auto manufacturers have made pistons from powdered printing. As the cost of entry starts to drop we are going to see interesting times ahead.
3D metal printed pistons are ~10% lighter because they can have more sophisticated shape at the same strength. Reportedly this allows Porsche to increase RPM and get about 5% extra horsepower. It is still an experimental technology, not used in any road car. This is how they look like: https://images.hgmsites.net/hug/porsche-3d-prints-piston-for...
I think that there are fewer parts in a common home firearm (an AR-15, even bolt bolt action firearms) that this applies to, since the most complicated parts are in the bolt carrier group, where mass and density are generally desirable as far as I'm aware. I don't think that there are small arms parts that really benefit significantly from sintering vs machining in terms of weight savings.
Ian from Forgotten Weapons had a great video on improvised firearms with the National Firearms Centre collection at the Royal Armouries, including 3-D printed firearms. The collection is used for historical reference, international terrorism deterrence, and police work. The firearms greatly range in complexity and expense.
Second, laws are about scaring transgressors into not doing something with the threat of state violence against them, not making some action a complete impossibility.
The Second Amendment is (at least partially) about scaring the state into not doing something with the threat of popular violence against them.
Comments
Improvised firearms are as old as factory manufactured firearms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm
I disagree with the premise that gun control has been shot down because of this new technology applied to make improvised firearms. First of all, these things are going to be far less effective, durability, reliability and range wise than factory firearms. Second, laws are about scaring transgressors into not doing something with the threat of state violence against them, not making some action a complete impossibility.
This is technically true, but doesn't accurately represent the state of 3d printed firearms.
Durability - a 3d printed/hybrid firearm isn't going to last as long as one made by Ruger and co. However, the difference is between components lasting thousands of rounds vs tens of thousands of rounds - meaningful, but we're not talking "two shots then the barrel melts."
As far as range goes, that has far less to do with whether or not the components in question were homemade, and more to do with physics - namely, barrel length, the caliber of bullet you're firing, and how much powder is being used. Longer barrel = more complete burn of the powder = higher projectile velocity. The aerodynamics of projectiles is rather complex, but you can rule of thumb it as "heavier projectiles are more accurate, lighter projectiles go farther, faster." This is a long way of saying, as long as the barrel meets a certain threshold of quality (which, homemade firearms have met), it's not going to matter unless you're shooting out past 200 yards. Furthermore, barrels are (in the US anyway) cheap, plentiful, and entirely unregulated.
I would argue that durability isn't just a function of number of shots in a controlled environment - think about the environment a soldier will use their weapon in. Water, mud, dropping it, things falling on it, and so on. A weapon cast and milled from steel, aluminum, or carbon fiber impregnated polymer, with tight tolerances, is going to be more durable to that kind of thing vs. a firearm having structural parts made with FDM printing like the subject of the article.
I agree that barrels are available in the US but that isn't generally true worldwide. I admit that I don't know much about homemade barrels but my understanding is that for a long rifle barrel (needed for >200 yard shooting) is going to require some pretty specialized and expensive equipment, and I would be very surprised if they could approach the accuracy of even a cheap, non-accurized factory chamber/barrel, but I'll look into it more to satisfy my curiosity.
So on durability it seems the converse has usually proven out to be the rule rather than the exception. Probably the best example is the AK, tolerances are loose, it can be manufactured with rudimentary equipment. Basically a metal brake, a lathe and a rudimentary milling machine to machine the gas block and trigger group. The entire gun is pinned together and can be taken down in the field with a punch. It really is so simply built to the point of being genius and while it is not as accurate as some of it's counterparts produced during the same period, it is accurate enough. It is generally regarded as the most reliable gun ever produced.
The converse story of that would be that of the AR-15/M-16 tight tolerances and precise engineering lead to it fouling in action due to dust and debris to the extent that it went thru several decades of revision until we ended up with the modern AR-15/M-4.
As far as barrels I would say that is the biggest issue with ever production a 100% 3D printed gun, unless there are serious advances in modern plastics that lead to an extremely ridged, heat resistant, and expansion resistant material they will continue to need to be metals with high tensile strength. It needs to be rigid to resist barrel wrap where the barrel flexes and reduces accuracy under fire. It needs to be heat resistant for obvious reasons gun barrels get hot and it needs to resist expansion so that the barrel is in contact with the bullet at it travels down it. Thus metal seems to be the only possible material at the moment that contains the requisite properties for barrel development.
Beyond that, even if they can get to 100% of all other parts being manufactured and using common pipe with some chemical treatment to overcome the barrel issue there are still some major disadvantages that cannot be overcome without at least rudimentary metal shop tools. The biggest being that just using a pipe gives you the equivalent of a smooth bore slug gun. For any amount of accuracy the firearm has to have riffling which is groves cut into the inside of the barrel to cause the bullet to twist as it moves down the barrel thus stabilizing the flight path of the bullet when it leaves the firearms barrel. I just don't see how the above issues can be overcome via 3D printing. That being said, it's actually pretty easy to home manufacture a firearm with the most basic of metal shop tools.
The Achilles heel of 3d printed firearms is ammunition. You can 3d print a bullet, but the entire cartridge with primer is an unsolved problem.
Factory ammunition in common calibers like 9mm and 5.56 is hard to find now at least in the US.
US states with strong gun control laws now focus on ammunition sales, requiring identification and criminal background checks, and creating law enforcement databases of ammunition buyers and sellers.
I think the issue is that it is not a 3D printing problem. Plenty of hobbyist reload and self manufacture bullets it requires a simple reloading press. Most of the components can be self manufactured if one desires, as the other child poster has already said, smokeless powder is probably the hardest to manufacture but not impossible.
It’s not yet documented in the 3D printing community, but it’s not an unsolved problem. Both priming compound and black powder are fairly easy to make. Smokeless powder is a bit more difficult, but not much.
I think you may not be caught up to the current state of the art in printed firearms. Since the lower receiver of an AR-15 is legally the "firearm", it's the only part you need to create yourself to bypass infringements. The lower receiver is also not much of a pressure-bearing component, so making it on a 3D printer offers few trade offs. There are other prints available for countries with even more restrictive infringements, where you can print or assemble the entire weapon from unregulated parts (which are commonly used in other situations, making them difficult or impossible to regulate).
My understanding is that printed lower receivers is an artifact of how the USA regulates ARs, most countries regulate barrels and other components as well. So that method is extremely vulnerable to additional regulation. Anyways, finished 80% aluminum lowers are just as good as the real thing, you can even hard coat anodize (similar process to the barrel rifling of the FCG-9)
Powdered metal printing is becoming more popular. Porsche and some other auto manufacturers have made pistons from powdered printing. As the cost of entry starts to drop we are going to see interesting times ahead.
Why such high tech? CNCs have been around for ages and can do the job just as well.
3D metal printed pistons are ~10% lighter because they can have more sophisticated shape at the same strength. Reportedly this allows Porsche to increase RPM and get about 5% extra horsepower. It is still an experimental technology, not used in any road car. This is how they look like: https://images.hgmsites.net/hug/porsche-3d-prints-piston-for...
I think that there are fewer parts in a common home firearm (an AR-15, even bolt bolt action firearms) that this applies to, since the most complicated parts are in the bolt carrier group, where mass and density are generally desirable as far as I'm aware. I don't think that there are small arms parts that really benefit significantly from sintering vs machining in terms of weight savings.
So CNCs are great, but there is some benefits to the powdered printing. Better oil galleries that you can not accomplish with CNC machines.
Ian from Forgotten Weapons had a great video on improvised firearms with the National Firearms Centre collection at the Royal Armouries, including 3-D printed firearms. The collection is used for historical reference, international terrorism deterrence, and police work. The firearms greatly range in complexity and expense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TMrunbZLJw
Here's another one on 1920/30s Chinese 'mystery' guns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HNaB7l2GQk
His videos on Khyber Pass firearms are also fascinating.
Ian's channel is some amazing stuff for anyone with passing interest in firearms, and it's largely free of politics. Well, as much as it can be.
The Second Amendment is (at least partially) about scaring the state into not doing something with the threat of popular violence against them.