Posted on 01/22/2013 12:24:43 PM PST by varmintman
The real stupidity of this entire business starts to sink in when people start to grasp the realities of the basic M4/M16/AR15 rile.
The M16 is a simpler weapon than an M14 or a FAL rifle. The ONLY thing about an M16 which is even a tiny bit difficult to manufacture is the barrel. Unlike a FAL rifle whose upper receiver has to take the stress of firing and which has to be hard forged and whose barrel is fitted to the receiver with something like 130 ft-lbs of torque, the only thing which takes any stress in an M16 is the barrel, the bolt carrier locks into the breach of the barrel and not into the receiver.
Also unlike the case with a FAL, the lower receiver of an M16 which, for all intents and purposes could be made of plastic, is the legal part of the gun i.e. carries the serial number. Ordering a complete upper receiver and barrel for an M16 is legally the same as buying a sack of potatoes, don't take my word for it check it yourself:
http://www.gunbroker.com/All/BI.aspx?Keywords=m16+upper
http://www.gunbroker.com/All/BI.aspx?Keywords=m4+upper
Anybody with any sort of a machine shop could manufacture M16 bolts, bolt carriers, triggers and springs and what not. No joke. My next door neighbor builds race-cars and he ends up needing parts which don't exist in the world here and there... No problem, he draws what he needs up on AutoCad, takes the AC file to a shop with computer controlled machines and voila, and it doesn't even cost much.
Very shortly, people will be making M16 lower receivers, butt-stocks, and magazines (the evil 20 and 30 round types) with inexpensive 3D printers and the only way you could get past all of these problems would be to ban and outlaw the M16 altogether, which would leave our military standing around with, in the immortal words of Santino Corleone, just their.... (in a sort of an unarmed condition).
“The ONLY thing about an M16 which is even a tiny bit difficult to manufacture is the barrel.”
IIRC, mine in Vietnam was manufactured by Frigidaire.
I don’t think they’ve made it past 80 rounds with a printed lower receiver before it cracked. At this point it would be more like a throw away gun.
Clarification.
My ENTIRE M-16 was made by Frigidaire! (or at least, their name was molded into the lower receiver.)
Cool
Ding Ding Ding!!!
We have a WINNER in the Pun of the Day contest!
One can do a lot with 80 well aimed rounds.
Level of difficulty has nothing to do with the issue.
At stake is whether or not free men ought to be armed. Period.
They should; to defend their liberty from all who would abuse, usurp and become tyrant over them.
As an aside, the critical components of the AR or most any other weapon for that matter is heat treatment of proper steels. The AR bolt does not lock into the breech of the barrel, but rather into a barrel extension, which is screwed onto the barrel breech, very much like a bolt actio or most all other actio types. It, the boltand carrier are made of not too common (but not rare) steels heat treated to be extremely hard, tough and wear-resistant.
It's a dandy little weapon for close in fighting in relatively clean environments...but the more-complex-to machine M-14s and FALs work more dependably in all environments, defeat all known body armor/light armor/cover and are effective at longer ranges.
Depends on how much you value your own life, I guess..
“I don’t think they’ve made it past 80 rounds with a printed lower receiver before it cracked.”
That is strictly a developmental problem. Go to greater wall thickness in the weak areas, sprinkle a few glass or Kevlar fibers between printed layers.
Lots of possible solutions.
> “I don’t think they’ve made it past 80 rounds with a printed lower receiver before it cracked.”
The first one made cracked in something like 3 or 4 rounds. It was an exact duplicate of the AR15 receiver only in plastic. Some changes were made to reinforce it at the weak point (which means it is no longer MIL spec dimensionally, but it still worked), and it made it to much higher rounds.
I have no doubt that they will work in some more dimensional changes and it will get to even more rounds. In addition, there are metal 3-D printing machines available now (but not at a reasonably low cost) that will become even more available in the next few years. The only reason this is happening now is that plastic 3-D machines are available at reasonably low cost.
Gun companies had better be looking into this technique if they want to stay in business. The music and movie industry did not deal with the “new information age” and they are having problems because they did not adapt.
Remember when lost wax castings came into being. The old companies would have no part of it. Some are no longer here. Several others are struggling. A new company (Ruger) did not invent it, but embraced it wholeheartedly. Look where they are now.
The M-16 is a weapon that must be cleaned, very often!
“I don’t think they’ve made it past 80 rounds with a printed lower receiver before it cracked.”
That is strictly a developmental problem. Go to greater wall thickness in the weak areas, sprinkle a few glass or Kevlar fibers between printed layers.
Lots of possible solutions.
Try making the lower receiver out of carbon fiber or carbon nano tubes.That stuff is supposed to be stronger than steel.
I'm sure common o-2 tool steel would work. It is available everywhere at any tool supply. It is easy to heat-treat with just a torch and a bucket of oil.
Well ... I wasn't there ...
But it's entirely possible that the only part of your M-16 manufactured by Frigidaire was the lower. One feature of the design is that parts can easily be made anywhere and put together at a facility that manufactures nothing. Like, for example, your garage.
Frigidaire Division of General Motors, you mean. That's the one that was located in "The Arsenal of Democracy" before it was destroyed by liberalism.
I recall fondly my M-16A1 in boot camp. The best part of the rifle range was actually shooting. I shot 10 bulls eyes at 500 meters. When we weren’t shooting the DI’s were putting us through all sorts of hell so we all wanted to shoot more.
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