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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   31472 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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Are these 3d printed guns remotely useful in combat? I can't imagine any plastic parts---let alone printed plastic---standing up to the pressures/temperatures created when firing a bullet. And AK47s are already dirt cheap.

I could see a 3d printed gun being useful for an easily concealable, single-shot assassination weapon, but that's not what a jungle guerrilla needs.

Look it up. FGC-9 seems fairly sturdy, and the actually stressed parts - barrel, bolt are metal.

And AK47s are already dirt cheap.

If you have a sponsor and someone willing to ship you weapons. FGC-9 can be made from fairly common materials. Steel pipe, steel barstock.

It's really not a bad weapon, fully automatic fire is not that important and rapid semi-automatic fire in jungle is good enough, especially if enemy doesn't have body armor that stops pistol rounds.

"Some have lasted over a thousand rounds, which is impressive, but military weapons last for tens of thousands of rounds. I’d imagine the FGC-9 acts like a modern Liberator pistol."

They're useful, I think.

Printed weapons include machined parts, including the barrel and springs. It's possible tp machine those parts using basic printed tools, for instance rifling can be done electrically with a current and some water. Generally the plastic parts are the complicated fabrication of the frame and trigger casing, and the screws, spring, and barrel are metals.

The FGC-9 has, to my knowledge, been regularly tested out to 1000 rounds with minimal wear. Printed parts greatly reduces the overhead of getting tactically useful parts for cheap and on demand, and makes repairs and part-replacement fast, cheap, and easy. I've been watching the space for years now and it is significantly more sophisticated than you seem to give credit. Most major form factors have a printable version that can be found online, with instructions and requirements, at a significantly reduced price for materials.

How does electrical rifling work? That seems like it would be the hardest part to manage without dedicated tooling, especially for a rifle-length barrel.

There's a video of the fundamental concept applied to a 3d printer here for cutting through metal plates. To produce a barrel, you 3d-print a shape that manipulates how the electrolyte is able to touch the surface; this was an older approach, but gives a good idea of the concept. Boring from plain stock can still be obnoxious, but once you've got a tube, running the actual rifling is mostly just messy and loud.

Because 3d printing can fabricate virtually any 3-dimensional shape, you can easily print a modular cylinder with a spiraling pattern engraved into the tool for cables to run through. You can slip the tool into an unrifled tube, electrically charge the wiring, pass flowing water through to slough off the material, and you've got moderately precise rifling.

I'll see if I can't find a video of it working tomorrow, it's a pretty fascinating solution to at-home machining.

I'm not sure; if I had to guess, probably something like painting the grooves with some sort of acid-like compound or something that, when placed into an electrolysis bath, activates and etches away the metal it was painted onto.

I'm not an expert in shop, but what's stopping people from publishing digital, open source schematics for using more traditional metalworking to make firearms? Would it be too effective, a kind of "how to build a nuke in your kitchen" type thing, or are 3d printers really that much more accessible?

What does it take to make an AK, probably more than just a lathe right?

Nothing is stopping them. If you have a metalworking workshop you can make a Sten SMG. Or an AK. The benefit of things like FGC-9 is that you don't have to be seen around a lathe or a clapped-out Bridgeport machining something that looks very much like a gun barrel or a receiver.

I read a decent primer on making zipguns (the name for what you're talking about) a while back. Takes some skill to make a weapon that isn't going to blow your hand off but it's definitely not rocket science. Sufficiently motivated people do it; Shinzo Abe was recently assassinated with a zipgun.

I'd take a zipgun made of metal over a plastic one any day.

These aren't plastic, though. It's a metal gun with plastic frame and some minor parts.

What's stopping people from publishing digital, open source schematics for using more traditional metalworking to make firearms?

Because the people doing the publishing generally rent apartments or reside in condos without garages. Autistic single nerds in their 20s and 30s don't generally own homes.

It's hard to make schematics when you don't have the tools to test them with; by contrast, even a shoebox apartment can accommodate a 3D printer, a vise block, a bucket for EDM rifling, and some hand tools.

I'm not an expert in shop, but what's stopping people from publishing digital, open source schematics for using more traditional metalworking to make firearms?

Nothing. It's easily accessable. You can just search "AR lower CNC file" and it should show up as the first result.

Building a gun from entirely from scratch is extremely difficult and costly for one person, but most of these files assume you're only interested in making the part that's actually regulated (the lower reciever).

I’ve assumed that’s already the case. Not sure how amateur gunsmiths are most likely to learn. I guess it wouldn’t be too surprising if (at least in America) it’s one of those skills managed entirely by cultural norms.

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