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For those in the US with a combined interest in 3D-Printers, intersections of the 1st and 2nd Amendments, and legal precedents; Cody Wilson has been fighting the US Government for half a decade.
Short version: after Wilson uploaded his 3D pistol plans to his site, over 100,000 people downloaded it - this drew the attention of the US authorities, who tried to use the International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to force a take-down.
The authorities argued that by posting the 3D printer plans for a firearm, Mr. Wilson was effectively exporting firearms, and subject to federal regulation. Eventually the Department of Justice dropped the case, paving the way for DIY'ers to publish such things freely.
The article cites 'promises' made by DoJ to move the regulations to another department.
Wired's article: A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora's Box for DIY Guns (archive)
Related: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home
Japanese Gun Printer Goes to Jail
Suspected 3D-Printed Gun Parts and Plastic Knuckles Seized in Australia
FedEx Refuses to Ship Defense Distributed's Ghost Gunner CNC Mill
Man Who Used CNC Mill to Manufacture AR-15 "Lowers" Sentenced to 41 Months
Ghost Gunner Software Update Allows the Milling of an M1911 Handgun
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday July 13 2018, @12:03AM (24 children)
Now what we need are affordable metal printers.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday July 13 2018, @12:13AM (12 children)
100x faster, 10x cheaper: 3D metal printing is about to go mainstream [newatlas.com]
Desktop Metal's 3D printers aren't cheap, but they're cheaper than the alternatives [theverge.com]
$120k-$360k. Not accessible to the average individual, but a hackerspace or militia group could pool their resources together and get one. Although the hackerspace may have rules against members using equipment to make weapons.
You might be able to find something cheaper. There's plenty of 3d printing hype, I just picked the first one that came up in the search.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday July 13 2018, @01:32AM (3 children)
The Iro3d is the one to watch. Beta units available in the Seattle area for $5k. They are doing basic research on materials right now and it's impressive.
As-is it could print a 99% lower receiver today. You'd only need to run a drill bit through the holes to bring them to the right size, and tumble it so it didn't scratch up your mags.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 13 2018, @03:39AM
Thanks, I hadn't heard of that one before - that is very impressive. Not in remotely the same league as Desktop Metal of course, but what do you want for ~1/25th the cost? The quality of the sample "coin" trophy shown seems comparable to a rough sand-casting - more than adequate for many applications. https://hackaday.com/2018/01/15/iro3d-3d-prints-in-powdered-metal/ [hackaday.com]
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday July 13 2018, @03:56AM (1 child)
Or you can do lost wax, or use a fdm model for sand casting.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday July 14 2018, @03:11AM
These technologies are combinable in interesting ways too. Lost PLA in Investment is low key awesome.
(Score: 2) by mobydisk on Friday July 13 2018, @02:06AM (7 children)
How does that compare to renting access to a metal shop, or buying the CNC machines yourself? It sounds like that would be a cheaper approach than buying an expensive 3D metal printer. Haven't people been making guns for years using CNC machines?
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday July 13 2018, @02:13AM (2 children)
A $10k Tormach is more than capable of turning aluminum billet into a receiver. With a clever programmer you can pull one out every couple of hours.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday July 13 2018, @03:29AM (1 child)
I'd say a few per hour. And I have a 5 axis vmc I can use on the weekends, but I'd like the less fortunate to be able to arm themselves too.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday July 14 2018, @03:13AM
Lucky! :)
I have a Sherline that was converted to CNC by an OEM called Light Machines in the 90's. I envy at the material removal rate of real mills.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday July 13 2018, @08:25AM (3 children)
If we're dropping the printer requirement, you can get Cody Wilson's Ghost Gunner. Although maybe ordering the 80% lowers online will become a hassle in the future.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday July 14 2018, @03:18AM (2 children)
With a CNC mill the 80% thing isn't 100% necessary. You can start with a chunk of bar stock of your heart desires. The annoying thing about AR lowers is that they have geometry that has to be cut on every face. If you don't have a four axis machine you end up having to flip the part 5 or 6 times
#firstworldproblems :D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @05:35AM (1 child)
One can, by slicing an object to provide one totally flat plane, and then bolting the parts together later, make an AR15 lower in a manner where each machined part requires no flipping or reorienting. Here's a close example: http://weaponeer.net/forum/uploads/Weaponeer/files/2007-10-17_131429_AR_15_Scratch_Built_Receiver.pdf [weaponeer.net] Some of the parts in that design have cuts requiring flipping, but one can further divide those parts into additional slices with one flat side. This would make the process on even a 3axis CNC rather straightforward.
Pictures of completed plans linked above: https://www.guns.com/2013/12/06/bolt-together-ar-15-lower-receiver-3d-printer-necessary/ [guns.com]
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday July 15 2018, @05:53AM
That's kind of a hack. If you were doing a production run you'd set up a jig that holds 5 or 6 parts in the 5 or 6 required orientations. Then you load it up and hit cycle start. The machine does it's thing and the light goes red at the end of the cycle. You walk over, pull out one finished part, move each unfinished part one jig to the right, and slide in a new billet on the first jig. Repeat.
A finished part comes out of the machine every n minutes, where n is largely dependent on the speed of the tool changer. The total material removed isn't huge, the whole billet is ~60 cubic inches. The slowest operations are plunge/spiral cutting in the internal pockets. If you have a fast tool changer, slots, and the HP to do it you can do the plunging with a large drill. That speeds up pocketing significantly.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 13 2018, @01:50AM (8 children)
So, the kiddies are going to pump out toy guns, made of pot-metal instead of plastic? Oh, the humanity! If they had any knowledge of firearms and metallurgy, they would see that this is not a good idea, just a stunt, and a rather stupid one, at that. We are talking about material that may have to withstand 35.000 pounds per square inch, and not become a fragmentary grenade. Even cast metal is not suitable; barrels and receivers are best made of forged steel.
Now go back to your video games.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 13 2018, @02:11AM (3 children)
Hey, dude! I should mod you up, for pointing out something that should be obvious. The first 3D printed gun was a POS. The damned thing was as likely to kill the shooter, as it was to kill the target. So far, the art hasn't progressed terribly far. But, some pretty smart people are working on improving it. Metallurgy. Given time, I suspect that alloys will be formulated that can be printed out, giving whatever qualities are necessary for the finished product. Given time, 3D printed weapons are probably going to be equal to, and possibly superior to, the best weapons on the market today.
Time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEvcj_cmn6U [youtube.com]
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday July 13 2018, @04:02AM
Looking at the iro3d, I'd say that once you've fused the steel in the kiln, it object can be heat treated like usual. With a density of 99.8% I'd expect someone vaguely competent would be able to make something that lasts quite well.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 13 2018, @05:14AM
Who's first going to seed the web with slightly flawed designs that will blow up in the user's face ?
There's a lesson opportunity for people who hate Americans, people who hate self-armed Americans, and people who hate the idea of non-Americans getting blueprints...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13 2018, @09:29AM
Is it me or is Runaway starting to a adopt a slightly Trumpian sentence structure and vocabulary? Nothing too obvious yet, just little hints.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Friday July 13 2018, @03:33AM (1 child)
AR lowers, which are the part that's legally a firearm, don't need to hold much force at all. Industry standards are aluminum or fiberglass filled plastic. It's the barrel and bolt that need strength, and those can be mail ordered.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday July 13 2018, @04:45AM
That is true now. The idea behind 3d printed guns is that outlawing them becomes pointless. If they outlawed them you couldn't order those off the shelf mass produced parts and would be forced to use whatever you could print or repurpose other metal bits into being components of a weapon. Look at the current nightmare of regulation of "precursors" in the War On Some Drugs to see how crazy that could get before 3d printing got good enough to make the entire thing from raw feed stock.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @01:31AM (1 child)
35ksi sounds like 9mm (or .357 magnum), but why would you use such a high pressure cartridge in a pot-metal barrel?
Wouldn't you choose a cartridge suited to the limitations of your materials and production methods, like .38 special, which delivers ~70% of 9mm's energy at half the pressure? or .45 colt, which matches 9mm's energy at 40% of the pressure? And of course there's nothing wrong with good old buckshot; shotshells run from 11ksi to 14ksi.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday July 14 2018, @02:33AM
And you expect someone doing kewl 3-D printing to have any grasp of such things? Blinded by material science! Ammosexuals with a bomb in their pocket!
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday July 13 2018, @04:40AM
All you really need is a CC Milling Machine, at least for receivers.
https://www.google.com/search?q=computer+controled+milling+machine&rlz=1CALEAG_enUS801&oq=computer+controled+milling+machine&aqs=chrome..69i57.32434j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 [google.com]
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday July 13 2018, @02:35PM
FYI . . . SpaceX 3D prints it's Draco rocket engines. [wikipedia.org] (The small engines on the Dragon 2 capsule.)
The amount of rust code in Linux has grown.
The amount of rust code in Linux has groan.