3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or !functionalprint@fedia.io
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Fun fact, you don’t need a 3d printer to make ghost guns, and you’ve never needed them.
Laws restricting printers aren’t about firearms, it’s about restricting access to disruptive technology before it disrupts too much of how we innovate. (Because innovation has historically been tied to big-industry with the little guy being unable to get into it. Because it costs a shit ton.)
Yep you can make a zip gun with a couple pieces of pipe and a nail.
You can buy resin molds for the AR-15 lower, which is the regulated part. Then just buy all of the non-regulated parts retail and assemble a "ghost gun". There's also things like the FGC-9 which is mostly printed parts. And the Luty SMG if you're skilled enough.
This genie is so far out of the bottle, it's lapped the regulators and is going around again.
The Luty is probably less reliable than the fgc-9, RIP J Stark.
I honestly think those are better than the printed plastic versions in every use case except one.
Based on those 'how it was invented' shows, innovations has historically been tied to random passionate people in sheds who then get exploited or even straight up robbed by big industry.
Didn't some kid make a nuclear reactor in a shed
This guy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
Yup.
But they want to control the pipeline all the same.
It would be awesome for a bunch of woodworkers to carve some ghost guns to show how stupid this is. Printing can’t be that much stronger than oak, so it should work.
It should be totally possible to whittle a functional AR-15 lower. Especially if you wanted to mate it to one of those fancy new bufferless uppers, so you wouldn't even have to worry about the stock and buffer tube.
The bufferless part is a bit of a sticky widget as the back of the reciever usually stops the rearward travel of the BCG. So actually buffer tubes being made from steel and allowing for slower deceleration of the BCG make for a better candidate for "softer" lowers.
If there is buffer less upper that doesn't use the lower receiver as the backstop for the BCG please let me know. I stopped following shotshow a decade ago.
I'm not 100% certain. Possibly the Brownell's BRN-180, although I haven't handled one personally to see if the endstop block it comes with relies on the rigidity of the buffer tube ring to stop the bolt carrier or if it attaches to the rest of the upper itself in some way. The recoil springs are entirely captive and attached to it, at least.
I suppose you could also just reinforce the shit out of that area in your design if you knew you didn't need to have a big hole through it.
Spot on. Anything based on the AR-18 design, which begat the AR-180 semi auto civilian version (which was promptly banned), gets rid of the buffer tube function on the AR-15 to balance the BCG. It uses the dual captive recoil springs, a design that migrated to a bunch of other modern firearms.
I've been interested in the Aly & Kaufman AKB-23, basically a L85/SA80 replica lower that you throw a BRN-180 on and add some furniture to complete the look. So short version, yeah I think you could whittle a wooden lower for AR-18 style uppers. Probably only get a few shots off before it cracked though, wood can be quite brittle like that.
BRN-10, Jackyl, CMMG Dissent all rely on a buffer tube ring and will crack the back of a printed AR lower.
https://hoffmantactical.com/designs/sl-15/
This will happily cycle an AR 10 upper with a buffer tube.
You have a good idea about reinforcement. Screw the endstop block into a blind hole in the back and have a monolithic lower with stock. Like a short stroke WWSD rifle.
part of the problem with that is that most of your ghost guns are "just" the AR 15 lower receiver- the part classified as the "firearm" because of some technicality only a lawyer can understand.
It's not a load bearing, nor is it exposed to any particularly high levels of heat, nor any sort of particularly nasty gasses. So that can be printed in just about anything if the printer's resolution is good enough. (IIRC, they typically call for resin printers.)
Then, the ghost gun peeps just buy the rest of the components retail and pay cash.
for fully-printed firearms, you're looking at things like DMLS or other kinds of precision metalwork. It's the kind of work that would be more expensive than roadtripping to arizona and getting loophole-gun.
Couldn't you just, idk. Use a small diameter steel pipe and the rest of it printed? Maybe im missing a whole crapload of physics for that to be sufficient
Chamber pressures for the 5.56 Nato is 58,000psi. And 9mm is 35,000psi. It takes a pretty good piece of pipe to contain those pressures. Your average seam welded pipe is around 4000 to maybe 10,000 psi.
Zip guns made from hardware store pipe are just barely good enough to contain a low pressure 12ga bird shot shell.
people have been making zip guns for over 100 years.
No I think they are definitely about firearms and how they don't want people printing untraceable Glocks and suppressors and assassinating Our Betters in broad daylight with them.
Don't need a printer to do any of that. it's also faster just to drive to a state that allows gunshow loopholes and buy an otherwise untraceable firearm. takes less skill, too.
All true, but doesn't mean they can't be motivated by a red herring.