Anyone recall my 3D AR CHALLENGE from a few years ago? It was in response to a bit of classic CNN stupidity.
The challenge: 3D-print a fully-functional, plastic AR-15, and successfully demonstrate it. The first person to do so will win 10 rounds of equally functional, 100% plastic 3D-printed .223 Remington ammunition.
There were no entrants.
It isn’t an AR-pattern rifle, and it doesn’t fire conventional off the shelf ammo. It is a repeater. But bonus points for fully functional plastic ammunition.
3D-printed gun hobbyist @SuckBoyTony1 has made a working 100% 3D-printed gun. The barrel and even the ammunition is plastic. Whilst this obviously isn’t a practical weapon, the potential implications of the concept are fascinating.
If the challenge was still running, I’d award him first place even though his firearm doesn’t fit the specified parameters of the contest.
Impressive work, @SuckBoyTony1. I’ll award more bonus points as media, and other left-wing, heads begin exploding.
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Bad call, Bear. Unless you are prepared to stay on high alert the entire weekend. No doubt the liberal media, but I repeat myself, will have the story printed sometime before Monday. A story this good is too hot to wait until next week, for the competitive nature of modern 24/7 cable “news”.
Of course, you probably won’t have to watch all that closely, because once one media corp. publishes the story, every other leftist in the country will rush to say something about it, be they a news media corp. or just another leftist whore. My prediction is that the hypocrite Hollywood types will be the second ones to cry foul, right after the first news group posts about this. You know the Hollywood people who use guns in their movies, but publicly denounce guns, and have 2-5 goons carrying guns escort them wherever they go out in public?
I think that the idea of being able to simply 3-D print the receiver, and reinforce it with a metal frame of some type, even simply rods placed within the structure itself, and then buy parts that are used to assemble the final firearm, would be the ticket for assembling your own AR 15, or in fact, several other type of firearms. A high power hunting rifle is likely a long way off, due to the much higher pressure of the round, but it will eventually be doable with better printers and different types of media.
“I think that the idea of being able to simply 3-D print the receiver, and reinforce it with a metal frame of some type, even simply rods placed within the structure itself, and then buy parts that are used to assemble the final firearm, would be the ticket for assembling your own AR 15, or in fact, several other type of firearms.”
That’s more or less how many polymer frame firearms are made. With ARs, it’s a little easier because of the inline bolt and recoil design; the lower experiences comparatively low stress.
” A high power hunting rifle is likely a long way off, due to the much higher pressure of the round, but it will eventually be doable with better printers and different types of media.”
Depends on what you mean. If all plastic, including the barrel like this example, I don’t think any heat formed plastic will do. The chamber will heat up and blow.
The high end metal powder/laser sintering printers are another matter. With those, I think it will be possible to print chambers and barrels, if it isn’t already. I’vd heard of laser sintered engines, including cylinder and pistons. Granted, the pressure is lower than a .308 chamber, but a good printer and good design oughta work.
I know that the furnaces that I used to run at my steel melting job were packed Chromium based, and were induction melting. The sintering process was what gave them their extreme strength. So I would guess that with the correct type of metal powder and sintering laser, it would be possible to make just about any kind of metallic part for a gun, including a barrel, or a reciever, eventually .
I would think that the major players in the firearms manufacturing industry would be researching this technology, with an eye on eventually using it for some of their parts production, like some parts are made of MIM process. Eventually it might progress to greater and greater products such as receivers and such.
I expect some companies are looking into it. And who knows where it will progress; but for now I suspect metal printing will be restricted to prototyping and limited custom builds due to the cost disparity between expensive printing and more conventional castings/machinings in mass production.