Posted on 03/04/2017 1:40:18 PM PST by marktwain
In late November of 2016, the leftist Guardian, in the UK, reported that 3D printers were used to make illegal submachine guns in Australia. Reports of homemade submachine guns in Australia have become fairly common. From theguardian.com:
A highly sophisticated weapons production facility using 3D printers and computers to make machine guns has been uncovered in a series of raids across the Gold Coast.
Police say they found four homemade automatic submachine guns, silencers, ammunition, a replica handgun, a .45 calibre pistol and equipment used to make weapons at two Nerang businesses, as well as a pill press.
The equipment used to make the weapons included computers, a 3D printer, drill presses and other gun parts and is believed to be the most sophisticated of its kind found in Queensland.
The submachine guns appear to be variants of the Luty. The Luty is a homemade submachine gun design by Philip Luty. They have appeared all over the world in places where it is difficult to legally procure firearms. The Luty is commonly made of sheet metal, pipes, and ordinarily available metal shapes. I suspect that the pill press in the Guardian is actually an ordinary drill press. It only took a few days for the 3D printing community to debunk the idea that a 3D printer was used in the construction of the homemade submachine guns. From 3dprinterchat.com:
A followup article from 3DPI actually contacted Detective Superintendent Jon Wacker of the Drug and Serious Crime Group in Queensland, Australia to confirm what everyone in the 3D printing community knows.
According to 3DPI,
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
I admit I don’t follow this stuff very closely, but a number of years ago, this seemed like a hot topic — 3D printers were getting better, people were managing to make some (primitive) guns, and it seemed like gun laws were going to be superseded by the ability to “print” a gun whenever and wherever you wanted.
Then I stopped hearing about this topic. Maybe I just stopped paying attention. But it seems odd.
Outlaw weapon’s & people will create their own.
Damn good idea.
“Then I stopped hearing about this topic.”
The powers that be, made the people who reported on this an offer they couldn’t refuse. IMO, THAT’s why it “went away”! ;)
No submachine gun is illegal: they are simply undocumented firearms.
Aussie guns just need a piece of paper. All guns matter!
I don’t see how a 3D printer could make parts durable enough for the parts normally made of hardened steel.
I do love my little 3d printer, but the strongest filament that I can print stuff with is made of nylon. So unless the submachine gun needs some good looking grips I don’t see a lot of fire arms related projects in its future.
With a Bridgeport, a drill-press and a bending break, there are scads of firearms that can be easily made.
.45 caliber Submachine Gun.
I’ll take a case.
Yep, there are a lot of them out there:
U.S. Customs & Border Patrol officials have seized more than $2 million dollars of fake Glock magazines in 591 shipping cartons in Savannah, Georgia.
https://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2017/02/17/2-million-fake-glock-magazines/
http://libertynews.com/2013/01/defense-distributed-releases-new-files-for-printing-glock-magazines/
The 3D printed Glock magazines are said to work for at least a 150-200 rounds.
Uzi mags are excellent as well.
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