3D printing of ammunition magazines threatens U.S. gun regulation plans

http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2013/01/3d-printing-threatens-us-gun-regulation.html ^ | 8 January, 2013 | John Lott

[marktwain]

Unlike printing guns, which doesn't work, printing ammunition magazines doesn't face any practical problems. Of course, people could always make the magazines using simple tools in any machine shop (after all they are just metal boxes with a spring), but my guess is that these 3D printers will capture attention in a way that the old machine shops didn't. This article is from Metro News:

After the tragedies of Sandy Hook and Aurora, the U.S. government is preparing to introduce stricter guidelines on gun ownership. But supporters of the second amendment could get around them by printing their own firearms at home. The technology is still developing but 2012 saw the first shots fired from guns with printed parts. ‘Gun hacking’ is a growth community in online forums and has become serious business. “I have five people now making AK-47 magazines – they’re incredibly easy to reproduce”, Cody Wilson, CEO of the Defense Distributed company in Texas, told Metro. A firm believer in the right to bear arms, Wilson is deliberately producing parts for assault weapons likely to be banned by new controls. “(U.S. Vice-President) Joe Biden’s group are using the assumption that if you control the channel you control the product – but that is not the case any more”, says Wilson. His company have made open-source code for over 30 gun parts available online, and claims they have been receiving thousands of downloads a day. . . .

As Peter K, the person who sent me the link to this information, noted these printing machines are everywhere: "my brother in law owns a couple of these type of machines for his jewelry business. you can make just about anything with them."

[marktwain]

The word on 3D printed Magazines is getting out.

[BipolarBob]

I prefer metal magazines myself. With that said, DDD has been on fire.

[EagleUSA]

More insanity. Take something away from law-abiding citizens, and then only criminals and the government (is that a duplication?) will have them.

*** CRIMINALS DO NOT OBEY LAWS ***

Ever pay attention to the Obama administration and how they do things? (that are illegal?)

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

If forty years ago, a Viet Cong in a backwater jungle blacksmith shop can turn out usable 30 round magazines for captured M-16s with just some sheet steel and tin snips what chance does a ban have?

[taxcontrol]

It is possible to print magazines and then use the print out in lost wax casting, though that does take more equipment and time. With a larger investment in the 3d printer (slm printer), it is possible to print final ready to use aluminium or steel magazines.

[The Working Man]

The real killer of the Left’s plans is when you can print your own ammunition!

[Bryanw92]

Someone needs to start working on homemade caps and primers.

[apillar]

I wonder if Obama has ever heard of the law of unintended consequences? If I'm going to face prosecution and a lengthy jail sentence just for possessing a hi-cap magazine or not registering my “assault weapons”. Then I might as well take the next step and mod all my semi's to full automatic....

[umgud]

I prefer metal magazines myself.

Metal hi-cap mags are incredibly easy to make.

[Sybeck1]

Replicators?

[RobertClark]

It would be just as easy, and result in a more durable magazine, to make a die to stamp thin steel plate. Magazines are easily made with basic machine shop tools - simple forming and a couple of rivets and presto.... Sourcing the springs would be an easy endeavor.

[JoeFromSidney]

It's possible to make magazines for existing guns by 3D printing. However, the next step will be printing the guns. However, there will be redesign of the guns. First, the printed barrel must be wound with steel wire or fiberglass, to provide strength. Instead of using gunpowder, the gun will be an airgun, like those used by the Lewis & Clark expedition in the early 1800s. Their airguns were capable of putting a bullet through a small tree. Make the barrel smoothbore, and make the projectile a rifled slug. Probably it won't have the accuracy of a good sniper rifle, but it should be adequate for most purposes. The air pressure reservoir will have to be patterned after the high -pressure, fiberglass-wound air tanks used in missiles. The problem will be re-pressurizing in the field. It obviously can be done. Lewis & Clark managed it. Anyway, I think this is one way to go with a completely 3D printed gun.

[Greysard]

A stamping press could form and cut a hundred pieces in one cycle. There is no way to prevent mass manufacturing of such simple gun parts (they are simple, but only after a talented engineer designs them.) Magazines are intended to be as simple as possible because for every rifle in the army you need tens of magazines available - as all detachable parts in heavy use, they are issued, worn out, lost and damaged in battle.

Also, if they are all illegal, why to stop at 10 rounds if you can make 30? I'm sure the criminal underground will love the new business; there are tens of thousands of metalworkers in the country who have the skill, the machines, the facilities, but have no orders. (Who'd order from them, the Chinese?) They will be listening to the speeches of criminal bosses. If not, the boss will simply buy the shop (not necessarily for a fair price either.) Once the gang has the business up and running, what is to stop them from making locks, stocks and perhaps barrels? All unregistered, full-auto if the customer wants, and for a good price too! You don't even need to design the weapon - there are already lots of excellent designs, ready to be copied! Forget the Prohibition, this is the new goldmine. As the government prohibits manufacturing of new classes of firearms, the citizens will feel more and more need to have some. The crime world will gladly take their coin. That's how it was 90 years ago, and that's how it can be again.

[Eye of Unk]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2976274/posts

[Boogieman]

You can’t print those, because they actually contain a little tiny bit of explosive, to set off the shockwave that ignites the powder.

You would have to have access to that type of explosive, or be able to make it and handle it safely, if you wanted to make your own primers, and good luck with that being legal for average joe citizens. Just stock up on what you can buy now, because they are probably cheaper than whatever you could build yourself anyway.

[SVTCobra03]

Will that thing make pmags?

[ArrogantBustard]

Make the barrel smoothbore, and make the projectile a rifled slug.

A fin-stabilized projectile with a discarding sabot would be interesting also.

[marktwain]

Will that thing make pmags?

Not quite yet, but soon...

[Nervous Tick]

why to stop at 10 rounds if you can make 30?

Indeed. Furthermore... if you have the tools and skills, why stop at a firearm when you can make a drone? How'd you like to be a BATF puke making a "house call" out of your armored personnel carrier, and look up and see a couple of THESE bad boys coming at you?

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Someone needs to start working on homemade caps and primers.” <<

.
I don’t reccomend it unless you have a degree in chemical engineering.

A friend back in my highschool days blinded himself trying to make mercuric fulminate. We started out making rockets, but that wasn’t enough for him; he wanted a bigger bang, and he finally got it.