Posted on 06/25/2025 4:33:25 AM PDT by marktwain
Writer Andy Greenberg at Wired.com has replicated the 3D-printed pistol and silencer used to assassinate UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City. The task took him several days and thousands of dollars worth of time, machinery, and parts. Greenberg does a credible job of explaining the process and the lengths he had to go through to do so legally.
With personal advice from an acknowledged 3D gun printing expert, a serious budget from Wired, and a licensed silencer manufacturer, Greenberg succeeded in the State of Louisiana. The action took place in Louisiana because much would have been illegal under New York State law. Taking the gun back to New York State would also have been illegal. Greenburg turned in the finished frames to the police in Louisiana. From wired.com:
All of that meant that the only real legal hurdle to my experiment in 3D printing a Glock-style ghost gun was a flight from New York to New Orleans, where a gun range on the east edge of the city had agreed to host me and my WIRED video colleagues as we built and test-fired the weapon. James Reeves, the owner of that range as well as a lawyer and gun-focused YouTuber, assured me that it would all be fully above board, so long as I was only making my ghost gun for my own use and not selling it or transferring it to anyone else. “It’s a free country down here in the great state of Louisiana,” Reeves said.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
My thought as well. Although, a 3d printer is less expensive than a cnc mill.
I trust Beretta.
I somehow doubt that they made a barrel, properly chambered for the round, on a 3D printer or am I a decade behind the times? Question?
There are obviously faster, cheaper, and/or easier ways to produce a functional firearm at home. As Mr. Weingarten notes, the killer was probably attempting to promote gun control - which may also have been the goal of Wired writer Andy Greenberg...
I believe 3d printing sinter metals has been possible for some time, but I don’t believe it’s currently at a more industrial level. Even if you could 3d print a barrel out of sintered metal, you’d still have to at the very least finish ream the chamber to size. How that barrel would hold up to even a few rounds of suppressed fire is something that would probably be questionable, blowback is a thing with suppressors.
A.E. van Vogt ( and a host of other early SF writers) had a forming influence on my views re arms and freedom when I first encountered him around 6th grade.
The Weapon Shops of Isher
The doors wouldn’t open for govt agents and over those doors it read:
“The right to buy weapons is the right to be free”,
The modern corollary would be the right to manufacture them.
What is a 'manually operated repeater, and what does it have to do with a silencer?
A “manually operated repeater” is a firearm which reloads with an manually powered action, such as a bolt action, pump action, or lever action.
The silencer/suppressor on the 3D printed reciever had to be manually cycled to reload the chamber with a new cartridge. It became, essentially, a straight pull action.
A semi-automatic chambers a new cartridge automatically.
I refer to those books a lot when the topic of 3D printing firearms comes up.
+1
bump
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