news about 3d printed firearms Hello everybody. There are many news articles about 3d printed firearms... I am not interested in making one myself, however i am curious what polymers can be used to withstand the force and heat energy associated with the explosion Are those barrels rifled and how long do they last? Is it possible to print a plastic internal combustion engine? If the engine would have many cylinders that fire less often than in an ordinary engine, maybe the heat can be dissipated. A Macomber Engine... However a printed swashplate will wear out. Pistons need to have a lower mechanical advantage for the stroke when combustion happens, then for the rest of the cycle, probably. What do you think? I know that it is a fantasy and it has as much scientific value as sending crickets to space. --Vladimir T. https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,213063#msg-213063 Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:44:27 -0400 Phorum 5.2.23 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,296133#msg-296133 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,296133#msg-296133
Quote
3DMD
Glock was the first arms company to manufacture thermoplastic frames, grips and receiver parts for semiautomatic pistols, which came to America from Austria in 1982. some rifles, like my Marlin 22 used nylon for the rifle stock (butt) in the 1970's.

Glass filled nylon is the material Glocks are made of. If you used this material to replace the metal parts of, say a Glock 19, it might not blow up. Glass filled nylon is a thermoplastic, at 33% glass, about what pistol manufacturers use, the datasheet recommends nozzle temp for injection molding of 485F to 515F (252 C to 268C). Printing on a RepRap seems plausible.

Glass filled nylon datasheet:
[catalog.ides.com]
My point is there is plenty of ways to make a simple fire arm out of nonmetallic parts that will go through a metal detector with nothing more than simple hand tools. I personally have quite a bit of experience with glass and carbon fiber materials I used to be a prototype technician for the last 16 years. So yes little more work but definitely could build one hand laid up over a mandrel where the chamber and barrel would be stronger than a printed gun. But still just basically a one shot gun the main thing is I think anybody with an ounce of intelligence over the age of 10 should be capable to build one laws like this are ridiculous and the people that know nothing about firearms or how easy they are to make come up with these stupid laws and think everything is great now because of this law. Oh yeah in other words I think they are stupid because obviously there over 10 years old and yes they couldn't build anything. Oh yeah and you wonder what happened to American industry and our economy highly educated nitwits in charge. And by the way I'm laid off now and have been for over a year and have no hopes of finding a job I guess I'm a little better. Plus they have stopped my unemployment because there's no money sorry for the rant]]> cnc dick General Thu, 16 Jan 2014 20:18:30 -0500 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,295933#msg-295933 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,295933#msg-295933
Glass filled nylon is the material Glocks are made of. If you used this material to replace the metal parts of, say a Glock 19, it might not blow up. Glass filled nylon is a thermoplastic, at 33% glass, about what pistol manufacturers use, the datasheet recommends nozzle temp for injection molding of 485F to 515F (252 C to 268C). Printing on a RepRap seems plausible.

Glass filled nylon datasheet:
[catalog.ides.com]]]> Anonymous User General Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:13:14 -0500 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,294750#msg-294750 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,294750#msg-294750 cnc dick General Tue, 14 Jan 2014 15:57:36 -0500 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,294344#msg-294344 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,294344#msg-294344
Quote
KalleP
So who has head of 'pultrusion' a way they make some glass and carbon fibre composite rods like tent rods and aerial optical fibre cable core strength members.
.

I forgot to add a link in this thread to the wiki page that I wrote up with my ideas. Not all of it is new but some might spark a new idea from someone else.

[reprap.org]]]> KalleP General Tue, 14 Jan 2014 03:49:20 -0500 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,249618#msg-249618 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,249618#msg-249618 miso General Sat, 28 Sep 2013 18:01:45 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,249422#msg-249422 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,249422#msg-249422
Now if you buy a TV from any shop in uk you are required to fill out the new owner's details.

When we consider the hassle UK gov has with trying to stop "illegal file sharing" and "illicit content" on the internet, I severely doubt a technology that's not even on the radar of these career politicians will come under any scrutiny or legislation soon.

I have no idea how they'd even track rp machines. Many are stand alone. Steppers are used everywhere else in life. Filament shipping?

If they banned sale of abs filament to unregistered individuals it would do wonders to recycling projects.

AS]]> andysuth General Sat, 28 Sep 2013 02:50:59 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,246472#msg-246472 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,246472#msg-246472 -------------------------------------------------------
> There even used to be special vans to detect
> operating TV and radio receivers based on leakage
> of IM and oscillator frequency back into the
> antenna.

All true and even worse, in the UK where this was active policy they would also determine if you were watching a colour TV from the leakage of the colour burst sub-carrier frequency. A licence used to be more for a colour TV. These techniques only worked while you were printing a part watching a program.

Similar doomed to fail attempts may may be attempted by some technologically inept politicians.

The beauty of the RepRap machine is that it can be made at home. It is like saying all knives must be banned, it cannot work. Importing and selling of things can be banned but not the making of such. Also the futility of over control will become more apparent to the population at large if attempts to regulate 3D printing are attempted. In Russia photocopiers had the photosensitive drums marked so propaganda could be tracked to the source. Now there is no way to determine what machine made a part or where the raw material came from if it is recycled. The nozzle shape may be a signature like the rifling in a barrel but for what it costs it can be changed on every job and automatically machined with micro imperfections or made to mimic commercial or rare printers.

A 3D printer is so much more discreet than a large metal working milling machine so it does pose a loss of control for the authorities. This loss of control may be directed to the only way of locating such machines, that of having your friends, neighbours and family members rat you out and had this happened 40 years ago in Russia, Poland or North Korea it might have worked. These days if your neighbour does not know you have a printer there is no real way he could find out if you did not want him to.]]> KalleP General Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:12:13 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,246090#msg-246090 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,246090#msg-246090 micromelt General Tue, 17 Sep 2013 09:48:48 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245958#msg-245958 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245958#msg-245958
Forbes.....

ugh...]]> grumpenstein General Tue, 17 Sep 2013 01:33:13 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245933#msg-245933 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245933#msg-245933 buys the Liberator

The world’s first 3D-printed gun known as the Liberator has been treated as a technological marvel and a terrorist threat. Now it’s officially become a work of art.]]> SheldonE General Mon, 16 Sep 2013 23:22:01 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245747#msg-245747 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245747#msg-245747
This is typically made by drawing a bunch of fibre filaments into a bath of epoxy or similar resin and then out through a nozzle and curing the wetted fibre bundle or tube.
[en.wikipedia.org]

Prior art announcement follows, so no longer patentable unless already granted.

Now how about we add an aramid (Kevlar) thread feeder between the extruder gear and the hot end on our RepRap printer. Add a small hot point to stick the reinforcing filament to the plastic filament. Add a small (spider leg gadget that will zig-zag the thread or) winder to wrap it around the fibre and tack it to the 3mm ABS so there is much more length going into the hot end. To start you just tack it on and send it down. After a while it will be dragged to the melt zone and then out of the nozzle (hopefully automatically or else a manual start) when it will start to extrude at a rate multiplied by the ratio of ABS area divided by nozzle area ((3.0^2/0.45^2)=44 or 1.75^2/0.45^2=15) So for each mm of ABS you would need 44 mm of aramid wound around it. For a 0.45mm diameter nozzle that would be about 4.5 turns per mm of 3mm diameter ABS (2.7 turns/mm for 1.75mm dia). Have the hot point continuously weld the turns in down one side so they feed evenly and do not uncoil when retracting (not required really as extrusion cannot be stopped). However the amount of thread wrapped around could be increased (a lot) (long) in advance of a jump where you would just extrude thread and little plastic. The fibre could be cut at places with ceramic blade shears to move to the next part but a conveyor bed would be required as one cannot do easy bridging. Using 1mm filament in a 1mm nozzle would mean that the thread can travel together through the melt zone at full speed and extrude faster as quality would not matter much and might be very easy to test the possibilities.

This would give you a printing material that would be almost as strong as any other aramid composite with amazing possibilities for controlling the fibre orientation in layers. I think it might make some revolutionary parts possible that are incredibly strong for plastic. With a well designed infill you could have fibres in all sorts of directions at very low percentage because bridging is guaranteed to work. You could build some lightweight batman suits that are bullet proof, perhaps this is how John Wayne makes them. You could build some plastic pipes with the hoop strength higher than steel, you could print a liner (in our outside) in the other direction to give the pipe longitudinal strength but someone will come up with a way and then you have a better mousetrap (errrr gun).

There is the CNC filament X-winder project about to go live on Kickstarter that would be a better way to make a pipe with a partly closed end. So that cat is out of the bag as well. They claim it can do longitudinal and radial filament laying and would take the weight off the shoulders of the 3D printing crowd as it would be so much better for the non-metalic weapon. In fact it would work very nicely in conjunction with a standard RepRap for the other parts in a gun. It might even be able to make custom composite crossbow or long bow parts. You need a core to wrap the fibre around and for this you can use 3D printed ABS or PLA that you can dissolve out later if needed.
[forums.reprap.org]

As before the situation is that polymer fibres are not metallic and may not have a very characteristic x-ray signature.

Someone posted somewhere that PEEK is a regulated engineering plastic in some south American country due to use as DIY gun parts. So the non-metalic gun industry has been around long before all the 3D printing hype hit the news.

The only stable form of government is Open Source Government. - Kalle Pihlajasaari 2013

If we had Open Source Government we would not need DIY defensive weapons. Feel free to share the quote far and wide :-) The first country to have this form of government will be the one that has the least human rights violations at times when global resource shortages causes unrest. I would like to live in such a country where the people govern, scrutinise and guide the actions of government.

I think the domain OpenSourceGovernment.org would be ideal but GoDaddy is parked on it and anyone visiting it will increase the asking price so don't be a tourist which may be anywhere from US$50 and up (US$5000?). There is nothing there now (besides the GoDaddy parking page) and it was archived with a blank page just once in June 2013 so someone else had this idea a few months ago. That means the time for this idea has come.

Does anyone have (lots of/some) money to buy the domain from GoDaddy and host a wiki site on it that could become the new global template site for good transparent active evolutionary governance for all countries??????? A bit like BitCoin is doing for currencies.]]> KalleP General Mon, 16 Sep 2013 08:35:36 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245173#msg-245173 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245173#msg-245173
such as the Walther Prometheos ZAP




or plastic jacket with a metal core like the Walther Prometheos:




Or use a sabot (prohobited in many countries...)

]]> maboo General Fri, 13 Sep 2013 19:15:30 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245024#msg-245024 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245024#msg-245024 -------------------------------------------------------
>...the more
> likely our governments will be swayed to regulate
> what we manufacture on 3D printers.

How could they? They never can! As they will never be able to regulate what I print on my laser printer or paint on a screen.

They may wish they could control our thoughts, but they never will.]]> RobertKuhlmann General Fri, 13 Sep 2013 06:56:18 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245003#msg-245003 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,245003#msg-245003 frank General Fri, 13 Sep 2013 05:46:34 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,244361#msg-244361 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,244361#msg-244361
But let's talk numbers. I like numbers.

CPB FY2013 Federal appropriation: $422,000,000 Source

DoD FY13 Federal Request: $613,000,000,000

Thats 0.068841761827079934747145187601958 % of the DOD budget alone.

FY13 Federal budget: $3,800,000,000,000,000 Source

That's 0.000011105263157894736842105263157895% of the Federal Budget.

Yeah, we're hemorrhaging money due to NPR and PBS. Yet no one bats an eye at the nearly $100,000,000,000 spent on corporate welfare in 2012. Source

Please get your facts straight before getting all in a huff about a paltry $500,000,000.]]> akhlut General Tue, 10 Sep 2013 23:24:02 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,243840#msg-243840 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,243840#msg-243840 You guys need to know that the 3D printed gun is made of plastic, so it will not set off metal detector.]]> ShayneBrown General Mon, 09 Sep 2013 03:14:39 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,226947#msg-226947 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,226947#msg-226947
I see it like this - people concerned about being able to 3D print a gun have it backwards. The fact that a 3D printed gun has been proven possible should not be giving people fear, but should inspire them to think of what else might be possible to create by additive manufacturing. In that respect, the 3D printed gun is a milestone in showcasing just what the technology is capable of.]]> Have Blue General Sun, 14 Jul 2013 13:45:46 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,225514#msg-225514 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,225514#msg-225514
Irresponsible and uninformed mass media is leading us to anti-3D printing legislation: So it's easy to print up shotgun shells with a 3D printer? The reasoning and conclusions of this piece are dangerously distorted - if you've ever seen a shotgun shell, the casing is made of plastic - shotgun shells have been made of plastic for the past 50 years - Huff has taken a non issue and made it global propaganda. [Huffington Post)(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/3d-printed-bullets_n_3322370.html]

As far as NPR & PBS; most developed nations have a charter guaranteeing freedom of speech. This proposed legislation is dangerously close to curtailing my freedom of expression. Write to your representatives. I won’t be printing plastic bullets, but I will not stand for restriction of trade when it comes to my 3D printer. Civil disobedience is in order.

DIY or Die!]]> Anonymous User General Tue, 09 Jul 2013 14:36:51 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,225284#msg-225284 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,225284#msg-225284 Acro2Pilot General Mon, 08 Jul 2013 21:20:13 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,225264#msg-225264 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,225264#msg-225264 billyzelsnack General Mon, 08 Jul 2013 19:46:07 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,225244#msg-225244 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,225244#msg-225244 -------------------------------------------------------
> haha you guys, pbs(public broadcast system) is
> paid for with tax payers money.

PBS itself only derives about 15% of revenue from government agencies. The rest is through private donations, member station fees and corporate support. Some PBS affiliate stations receive different percentages of funding but the supposition that PBS is substaintially government funded is not correct.]]> vegasloki General Mon, 08 Jul 2013 18:05:22 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,225232#msg-225232 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,225232#msg-225232 Anonymous User General Mon, 08 Jul 2013 17:40:46 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214392#msg-214392 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214392#msg-214392 aduy General Sun, 02 Jun 2013 00:17:22 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214383#msg-214383 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214383#msg-214383 -------------------------------------------------------
> @rsilvers: That way commercial TV stations work,
> but you can't expect corrupted national TV station
> to work this way, they wont survive a year. And
> they have to, because its matter of public welfare
> and national prestige :)

I know. We need to defund NPR and PBS.]]> rsilvers General Sat, 01 Jun 2013 22:28:08 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214371#msg-214371 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214371#msg-214371 aduy General Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:01:27 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214366#msg-214366 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214366#msg-214366 miso General Sat, 01 Jun 2013 19:08:21 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214362#msg-214362 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214362#msg-214362 Jasper1984 General Sat, 01 Jun 2013 19:05:58 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214355#msg-214355 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214355#msg-214355 rsilvers General Sat, 01 Jun 2013 18:53:23 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214349#msg-214349 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214349#msg-214349 -------------------------------------------------------
> miso Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > aduy Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > tvs really?
> >
> > In some countries there is a tax associated
> with
> > owning (operating) TV and radio receivers, so
> yes
> > you have to register them so you can happily
> pay
> > the tax. There even used to be special vans to
> > detect operating TV and radio receivers based
> on
> > leakage of IM and oscillator frequency back
> into
> > the antenna. But this is no longer case here,
> > because you get implicitly charged based on
> fact
> > that you consume electricity (unless you make
> > legal statement that you don't own TV/radio)..
>
> [en.wikipedia.org]
> in_the_United_Kingdom


That's not the same kind of licensing, that's a fee for receiving broadcasts. It is like paying for cable or satellite here in the US. in that case you are paying for a service. if you own a gun there is now service being rendered.]]> aduy General Sat, 01 Jun 2013 18:13:57 -0400 https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214312#msg-214312 Re: news about 3d printed firearms https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,213063,214312#msg-214312 Jasper1984 General Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:28:43 -0400