Making A Gun Without A 3D Printer

Around four years ago the world was up in arms over the first gun to be 3D printed. The hype was largely due to the fact that most people don’t understand how easy it is to build a gun without a 3D printer. To that end, you don’t even need access to metal stock, as [FarmCraft101] shows us with this gun made out of melted aluminum cans.

The build starts off by melting over 200 cans down into metal ingots, and then constructing a mold for the gun’s lower. This is the part that is legally regulated (at least in the US), and all other parts of a gun can be purchased without any special considerations. Once the aluminum is poured into the mold, the rough receiver heads over to the machine shop for finishing.

This build is fascinating, both from a machinist’s and blacksmith’s point-of-view and also as a reality check for how easy it is to build a firearm from scratch provided the correct tools are available. Of course, we don’t need to worry about the world being taken over by hoards of angry machinists wielding unlicensed firearms. There’s a lot of time and effort that goes into these builds and even then they won’t all be of the highest quality. Even the first 3D printed guns only fired a handful of times before becoming unusable, so it seems like any homemade firearm, regardless of manufacturing method, has substantial drawbacks.

Thanks to [Rey] for the tip!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBWjA_5ptSk

120 thoughts on “Making A Gun Without A 3D Printer

  1. Back in the ’80’s when Russia was occupying Afghanistan, CBS “60 Minutes” had an article about the Mujahedin resistance.
    Their camera crew documented in a small village the construction of an AK-47. It started with metal bars being melted in a hole in the ground (primitive forge), poured into molds, and finished up with a milling machine. They ended by showing it firing a quick burst.

    1. Except unlike an AR-15 based gun, an AK-47 receiver is mostly bent sheet steel. Casting would be a terribly inefficient way of doing that (even in with low tech), forging (even with hand hammers) is a much better approach…

      1. @KAK the A

        Not correct. The AK-47 used a forged steel receiver that was milled. Cast steel would be a reasonable means of making that. The sheet metal receiver version is an AKM, though the distinction is lost upon the news media. Punched flats are widely sold as are fixtures for bending them using a hydraulic press.

        1. The AK has used both forged and bent sheet metal for its construction. In later years once both types had been rung out, the sheet metal versions were given to the paratrooper and special forces because they were lighter weights, but they were too flexible and wore out faster than forged versions. The forged versions are tougher, but weigh more.

    2. “Locally crafted” AK47 is intended to shoot locally produced ammunition … which only has 25% – 40% of the charge used by factories. This makes the weapon more forgiving for construction and material mistakes.

      The average survival time of a Russian soldier in combat is not so many days, why make a weapon that will last for 100 years? If any soldier actually stays alive so long that the weapon is worn out … Congratulations! Here you get a new weapon!

      How much precision does a weapon need when the soldier only has a few weeks of training at best?

      Cheap weapons allow you to have lots of soldiers! Maybe that’s all that’s needed.

      1. The cost of a Claymore is vastly less than the cost of the dozens of soldiers it can kill. And even if you don’t value human life, the cost of training and arming cannon fodder is non-zero.

        1. From a pure economic point of view, a soldier that returns to civilian life unharmed, will start creating economic value for the state (taxes if nothing else). A corpse will not. Same if he’s severely cripled for life, probably won’t be creating much value as well, will probably even end up costing more…

          And btw the most cost effective weapons are chemical and biological agents, literally orders of magnitude ahead of anything conventional…

          1. Claymores, at least, aren’t banned by international treaties like chemical and biological agents are.

            Interestingly, while testing nuclear weapons has been banned, I don’t believe there has been a treaty banning their use in warfare. My guess is that historically an asymmetric nuclear war was considered unlikely, and a symmetric nuclear war would be unlikely to lead to any prosecutions for the responsible parties.

  2. Building AR-15s from unfinished (aka 80%) receiver forgings is a popular activity in the US. The firearm shown will have a rather short life because of the use of casting rather than forging and an inappropriate alloy.

    For a simpler gun there’s this:

    https://serbu.com/products/gb-22-plans

    There’s a video of it being shot accessible via thefirearmsblog.com. It’s quite impressive. It’s also very durable.

    Open bolt submachine guns are very easy to make, but unlike Serbu’s pistol which is legal to make in the US, SMGs are not legal to make without a manufacturing license (special occupational tax aka SOT in BATF parlance).

    @Ren Forges are used to heat metals, not melt them. Based on your description they were using a crucible furnace which is rather different construction from a forge.

    BTW There are some excellent videos of gun making in the tribal areas of Pakistan on YouTube.

      1. The problem with aluminium is that it doesn’t have a fatigue limit so it’s a fairly bad material for impact stresses like shooting a gun, and casting from random soda cans with bubbles and defects means that there’s plenty of opportunities for cracks to form and propagate.

        Plastic and wood fare better because they creep rather than crack, so you don’t get a catastrophic failure. You’ll notice when they fail, rather than the gun blowing up in in your face.

          1. Exactly. I’d think a bit before designing a open bolt weapon with aluminum parts (other than handle and other non-critical pieces of course) but for anything with a locked bolt it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

        1. Yes the lacking of a fatigue limit is a problem – if the part have to use minimum material. Aluminium is used for safety critical structure for things that is expected to tolerate huge loads and expected to have a long lifetime so that problem shouldn’t be overstated IMHO. Aluminium have been used in airplanes for a long time now with few catastrophic failures and that’t an application where there is continuous strain during use in combination with weight optimization.

          The likelihood of the weapon blowing up due to a crack in the receiver is slim, a catastrophic failure will still be mostly contained between a high quality steel barrel and a bolt also made of high quality steel.

          1. The use of aluminium in airplanes is coupled with rigorous maintenance schedules and inspections with replacement of any cracked parts.

            The problem here is that an unsuitable alloy is being cast, which already makes it brittle to start with, and doing it in a home foundry which leaves defects, slag and voids inside the cast which are already the beginnings of cracks. However nice the end result looks, it’s likely to fall apart from a shock (heat/cold/impact/use) and then your gun disassembles itself in the field.

        2. You seem to have completely missed the detail that there’s literally over a hundred different alloys of aluminium, some are more suitable for this then others. Pop cans are made from the 3000 series, which is generally soft and can be work hardened (but heat treatment will do nothing), so from just a cast part you definitely shouldn’t see the “all is OK, when suddenly…BOOM” type of fail.

    1. Most of the stress is on the upper.
      Lowers can be made from just about anything. There are kits to cast them from epoxy, people have built them from cutting boards, brass, and lots of other materials.
      The mixed can alloy, mostly 3104, is strong enough ™.

  3. Making a gun capable of firing standard cartridges is trivial and achievable with simple hand tools (though an electric drill makes it much easier). Low pressure cartridges (e.g. .22 LR or .38) need little material strength and not much precision (so the barrel and/or chamber can be way of in dimensions without too much of a danger) and finding materials for a zip-gun is possible for anyone.

  4. A few things:
    1. Aluminum cans are not good for casting as they are actually an alloy that oxidizes badly during open-air smelting, and casting generally makes objects very brittle already.
    2. A reliable firearm is important given the owner is generally at greater danger of injury. If you want to gamble losing you life to malfunctions, than buy inexpensive Kel-tec or Norinco brands.
    3. The AR15 is an error prone design that doesn’t even come close to the quality of a 40 year old Kalashnikov design made out of a shovel
    4. If you are properly licensed, than why bother taking the risk of injuring people around you with aluminum/bone shrapnel?
    The Ranges would certainly revoke your membership if you demoed that thing around other sportsman practicing marksmanship.

    Our hobby already has a public image problem that media tends to focus on like a fat man loves dough-nuts.
    How about casting spoons out of dried dog crap instead?

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Paris_Tuileries_Garden_Facepalm_statue.jpg/800px-Paris_Tuileries_Garden_Facepalm_statue.jpg

    1. Properly licensed?
      The US federal government requires no such licensing, even for machine guns (legally it’s a tax & background check). So long as the intent is not resale you do not require a (federal) license to make your own gun, you can even sell it later.

      As for reliability, the bolt and chamber are the only parts exposed to any real pressure in this design. Followed by the buffer tube attachment, but even that is unlikely to injur you when it fails. Other designs are obviously a different animal.

      If you want to improve the image of the hobby, a noble goal, stop spreading misinformation.

          1. If I recall correctly, there are a few recent rules (depending on your state) that require a licensed manufacturing facility to even qualify under the old exemption. These laws were made to deal with that kid making pistol shaped zip-guns and AR15 plastic receivers on a 3D printer.
            One can argue with a judge about legal precedence and whether you personally feel it is constitutional… buy soap-on-a-rope just in case. ;-)

            However, would you personally feel comfortable holding something like this near your face?
            What if it was a GM6 Lynx .50 BMG recreational toy receiver some kid made?

          2. Yes, that’s an old rule. Licensed manufacturers must serialize every firearm they make,the instant it passes 80% since they’re intended for resale..A couple manufacturers have gotten stung by that rule recently. There’s one company trying to challenge the interstate commerce clause in Montana, but i doubt it will end particularly well for them.
            The key is intent for personal use. And again this is only federally, states cam be more stringent so long as they don’t run afoul of the two most recent firearms SCOTUS decisions.

            As for using one, probably. None of the big stresses are on the lower in the AR-15.

          3. Holding this near my face? Without hesitation. I’m pretty familiar with the AR-15 operating mechanism, and there’s really no serious danger from a dodgy lower receiver. As others have said, the place they typically break is the corner below the buffer tube, and that’s just not a bad failure — no bolt through the eye, no hot gas and brass shrapnel to the face, the gun just calmly becomes two separate pieces, or maybe (if it cracks partway through, and the remaining material flexes) binds up and fails to cycle. All the parts that could actually give you a bad day if they let go are commercial components (in this build), and aren’t made more likely to fail by mere proximity to a crappy-pop-can-alloy lower receiver.

            The GM6? Not really familiar with this design, so I’d have to do my research first, but given it’s a long-recoil system, I’m pretty sure the bolt locks into the barrel or a barrel extension, and the receiver sees little force until the barrel and bolt assembly thumps into the rearmost position. That makes me think it’s quite possibly just as safe, but I really can’t answer (and thus wouldn’t shoot it) without understanding the details.

        1. Having an unserialized gun you didn’t make in your possession is not a problem? I had assumed it was. Maybe I have gotten too hyper from state laws. In Washington State now, you can not hold a gun you don’t own.

      1. I imagine he’s partially talking about the woes of a direct impingement design that “shits where it eats “. It’s a professional soldiers gun that needs regular care, not a peasant gun you can bury in a potato field to dig up later.
        Things have come a long way since Vietnam.

        1. I’m not too sure where the myth of the “ultra-reliable AK” came from, here is that infamous video that riled up all the Russophiles.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX73uXs3xGU
          Failing after the first round after being covered with mud and the safety lever in the “safe” position (and acting as sort-of dust-cover).
          Perhaps “Hanoi Hanna” was a bit too successful, and the propaganda stuck?
          Too bad that actual real-life testing proves that it doesn’t live up the the legend.
          The AR-15 seems to do pretty well when under the same “covered in mud” testing, even with the dust-cover open.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAneTFiz5WU

    2. There is literally nothing correct in your post beyond ‘aluminium cans suck for casting’ – and not for the reason you stated. So STFU.

      1. Aluminium cans suck for casting because they’re made from a 3000 series alloy, which is tailored for cold working. As a consequence they have a low silicon content (<1%) to promote cold working properties and limit wear on tooling. By constant, aluminium alloys intended for casting have silicon content on the order of 3-15% or more, because the silicon in the alloy reduces viscosity in the liquid state and helps the alloy fill out the mold. Additionally the silicon improves the wear properties of the alloy. The bad drossing of melted aluminium cans has nothing to do with the alloy, but is a function if the large surface area/volume ratio of the can form factor; more surface area compared to the aluminium being melted means greater oxide formation during heating, compared to the mass of alloy actually being melted. The protective coatings/anodizing/printing applied to the can doesn't assist in that area, either.

      2. Kel-tec makes inexpensive firearms, but has a reputation for exceptional quality compared to the price; I can't think of a Kel-tec design that isn't both safe and reliable. Norinco makes workmanlike, but entirely safe and effective firearms. Some of their clones, such as the CZ-452 clone, or the M1A clone, are actually quite good; while not comparable to the originals in fit and finish, they nearly match when it comes to function. Norinco is a state armory for China, so it behooves them to manufacture effective and safe small arms to supply the PLA.

      3. The AR-15 design is superior in every regard to the AK. Comparing similarly maintained firearms, an AR will beat the AK every time.

      4. You don't need a licence to manufacture an AR lower in most of the 50 states. If it's for personal use, and not for sale, it's unlikely the lower even needs a serial number. Furthermore the lower in an AR isn't a load-bearing component, as all firing stresses are internal to the barrel/barrel extension/bolt assembly. There's certainly no more danger of a home-made cast aluminium AR lower exploding than any other AR lower, regardless of material used.

      You really are a fucking hack, get your facts straight.

      1. @Precious potty-mouth
        1. For structural alloys like 5xxx the Si is considered a impurity, but is useful for 6XXX alloys often used for smooth shiny material.
        If I recall, the reason cans are bad was the tops are usually a 5XXX, but the bodies are 3XXX.
        Who knows, it has be awhile since I cared enough to look up such silly details when certified stock is in arms reach.

        2. Kel-tec makes consumer stuff that breaks… it is true… so shake the sand out of your vagina already.
        Norinco makes stuff that will jam even after running a 1000 rounds to wear it in, but you are correct in that they mainly make sketchy clones of Russian equipment that is popular with poor people.

        3. “The AR-15 design is superior” for some people is more accurate. As it has so many after-market options that statement is also redundant, as most modern ammunition runs clean as others have stated. Although many assume it is impossible for AR15s to fire out of battery, if even a spec of crud lands on the bolt face near the firing pin hole it will go off like any other bad design. I would still stick with a factory receiver given a choice….

        4. Ignorance of the law will not prevent a conviction, and people had better do a state level check before trying.
        If I recall, the law refers to a restriction on the facility used to manufacture the parts. Feel free to clarify exactly which states are not enforcing such rules if your legal knowledge is more current.

        My handle comes from a machete’

          1. @yourboss
            Specifically the story of Cody Wilson from Defense Distributed
            “The Department of State, Bureau of Political Military Affairs, Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance, Enforcement Division (DTCC/END) is responsible for compliance with and civil enforcement of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2778) (AECA) and the AECA’s implementing regulations, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (22 C.F.R. Parts 120-130) (ITAR). The AECA and the ITAR impose certain requirements and restrictions on the transfer of, and access to, controlled defense articles and related technical data designated by the United States Munitions List (USML) (22 C.F.R. Part 121).”

            And his appeal:
            https://www.rcfp.org/sites/default/files/2015-12-17-defense-distributed-v-state.pdf

            However, If I recall this part of the case was not related to the location bylaw that allowed local law enforcement to initially seize his facility.
            You would have to dig up the case history for more details, but you are likely too lazy to even google it yourself or check if it is even relevant in your state.
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZs6oR61ko

    3. Uhh. Might be a contentious point, but I don’t think the major target audience for improvised firearms is particularly worried about gun safety or proper licensing or legality, even though these things are technically possible. If you’re casting weapons out of beer cans you’re either doing it just to prove you can, or you’re out to accomplish something shady.

      1. I’m not so sure. I doubt an average criminal would have the desire or ability to do all the extra work required for the machining processes. I suppose they could send the part out for work but I think any machine shop on the level would think twice about doing the work.
        So, assuming the criminal doesnt care about any laws forcing the gun owner to do all of the work on a home made firearm themselves, and assuming he knows a guy with access to machine tools (or has them themselves) and a background in casting who is willing to do the work, I think this is no longer a common criminal.

    4. 1. False. I’ll not argue this – your bullshit isn’t worth it.
      2. False and not relevant. Idiotic claptrap.
      3. Arguable but not relevant.
      4. Stupid crap.

      I hope you are drunk and shitposting…

      1. “your bullshit isn’t worth it” –agreed
        1. Mixing the 5xxx and 3xxx alloys in cans is a bad idea, but please do your own research to understand why.
        2. Are you an owner of these brands? I bet you never regularly go to a range or you would be doing RMAs every month.
        There are economical alternatives that are quite good these days, and if your conduct was better I may have given you some advice rather than ridicule. Our range has over 5000 active members at this location alone, and the regulars all manage to get along talking about our interests.
        3. Because of the chosen design it is relevant given it could seriously injure people building the project.
        The AK47s never really had a reliable safety mechanism, but was made with stamped steel.
        4. Agreed, I think the current crop of fortunate sons take the constitution far too lightly

        Safe bet I am drunk after 9pm on a Friday, and still annoy lippy kids with reality
        Stay safe son

  5. “This is the part that is legally regulated (at least in the US), and all other parts of a gun can be purchased without any special considerations.”

    That’s insane! The part most of a firearm most deserving to be regulated is barrel, especially if it is rifled, There can’t be a gun without a barrel and it marks fired projectiles in individually distinct way, Changing a barrel after a shooting renders forensic balistics evidence useless…

  6. I have thousands of rounds through an AR with a plastic lower receiver, so I guess melted aluminum cans will do as well.

    The lower receiver in a Stoner-pattern rifle really only has one stress point: the threaded bulkhead in the rear where the buffer tube screws in. (The buffer tube also holds the shoulder stock, and is in-line with the recoil force.) You’d think the place where the barrel attaches would be a stress point, as well, but the material is by necessity thicker there. The AR-15 receiver’s I’ve seen fail, fail at the buffer tube attachment point.

  7. If you look around the web you can find AR-15 lowers made from purchased forgings, castngs, bent and welded sheet metal & barstock, aluminum flat stock & barstock screwed together , and even plywood. Most of these would work as well or better than a 3D printed part.

  8. There’s a decent vice episode about ghost guns of the Philippines, where guys armed with a welder, files, time, and a hut in the jungle make some beautiful (if questionably reliable) firearms.

    1. When I was at Clark in the 80’s, one of the “bar guards” has a CO2 pellet gun that was modified to run off an air cylinder that he wore. One of my coworker test fired it and said it was fairly powerful.

      1. Never underestimate the power of compressed gas. Before repeating firearms there were a handful of repeating air rifles, all of which were as powerful and had the advantage of repeated fire without reload. Lewis and Clark credit the success of their journey to the air rifles they brought with them.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle
        And more modern examples exist that are full auto and fire a lead slug at better or comparable velocity to a similar caliber firearm. Many states in the US also allow for fully automatic air guns. Air rifles are also commonly available for hunting in a range of calibers; I think the common ones are around 30 and 50 cal. Also suppression of them is generally more easy (in the legal sense) and they car often used to hunt everything from small game of invasive birds and squirrels up to large game like deer.
        Gunpower has won our in the ‘gun’ world due to simplicity, reliability and ease of use/maintenance. That does not mean compressed gas powered guns are any less useful or dangerous.

  9. Sorry, if you buy most of the gun – including the barel, which is almost certainly the hardest to make – and make some minor part, the only ‘hack’ is of the stupid legal system in the US which makes an inconsequential part of it the only important part.
    Try doing that in Europe, you’ll be on everyone’s list before you’ve bought half those parts.

    1. The lower receiver has the trigger, hammer, safety, magazine, etc. All the working parts. A bolt in the AR is in the “bolt carrier group” the BCG slides about in the upper and can’t do anything without the hammer and trigger.

    2. Actually, the barrel’s not hard to make, either — it’s only hard if you want accuracy. (Not “match-level accuracy”, I mean “any kind of accuracy at all”.) It’s fundamentally a steel bar with a hole through it. Material selection is less critical than you might think, since the barrel has a very thick wall around the chamber area, and there’s a number of choices that are soft enough to be easy to machine while being strong enough, so no need for post-machining heat-treat. Anyone with patience can drill a hole, solder an extension shank to their twist drill, and keep drilling the hole deeper and deeper. (The hole won’t come out very straight, but then it doesn’t really need to. Call it a Krumlauff!) Anyone can solder that same extension shank to a reamer, and ream the hole for more uniform size and better finish. Anyone can say “Rifling is for people who want accuracy, screw that!”. Anyone can run a chambering reamer into that hole.

      The threads to attach the barrel extension is perhaps the hardest part, or at least the hardest to get away without the right equipment, but that’s still pretty easy for anyone with an engine lathe. And if you did regulate barrels instead of receivers, then instead of AR-15s (with a threaded barrel, and unstressed receiver), you’d find some other gun (with a pressed or pinned barrel) would become popular.

      Really, there is no one part to a firearm that you could regulate and make it very difficult for a machinist of ordinary skill to make at least a crude functional version of that part for every firearm design out there. Over the last century or two, we’ve put a lot of effort into designing guns for easy manufacture, and for any part you might name, you’ll find some gun design that made that part really simple, elegant, and/or lightly-stressed.

      Fortunately, it doesn’t matter. The point of the law is not to make it hard for people to build their own guns, but to ensure that every mass-produced gun (and thus, practically every gun — homemade guns are a tiny fraction of a percent) has a serial number to trace it with, and that there’s no way to buy two guns, one serialized on the barrel and one on the receiver, and frankenstein them into one serial-number-free gun. So they picked one part (and one that is generally exposed, making the serial number easy to locate), and legally deemed that piece to be the gun itself.

      Deeming the receiver, rather than the barrel, to be the gun also reduces paperwork and hassle for guns with interchangeable barrels, where someone might have multiple barrels in different calibers, but only one receiver, and thus in practical terms only one gun.

      1. “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” ~Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II

      1. Name at least one terrorist attack that used DIY guns (and by DIY I mean actually made, not “reactivated”) please.

        hint – all of those recent ones in EU used factory made guns (or cars and trucks…also factory made), the only DIY part is always the bombs.

    1. Because the guns are the guarantee that our notoriously corrupt government can’t really try anything much on the other rights?

      Because many areas of America are still wild, and therefore require guns to safety?

      Because guns are awesome?

      Because America is the worlds policeman, and therefore has earned a fair amount of ire?

      Because we can?

      Because of crazy kim and his desire to kill us?

      Because Europe is a bunch of treaty breaking(NATO GDP minimums anyone) spineless twits that roll over for anyone that threatens them, and decides banning acid or weapons after attacks are the best way to deal with them?

      Because I’m a machinist that like to play with complex mechanical systems?

      Honestly, give me a good reason to not be fond of guns. You’re doing an appeal to fear, to terror. You’ve given me only a reason to be yet fonder of firearms, explosives, nervegas, incendiaries, and other wonderfully nasty creations designs to apply force. I wonder, when did you accept fear as a reason to tell yourself you don’t like something, to appease someone else? When did you surrender principles to terror? When did you bend your knee to tyrants both major and petty? When did you forsake the idea that when the time comes, you will shape your fate?

      Maybe my ideals are a load of hogwash, maybe I’ll never need my gun for anything beyond hunting, maybe we can all get along and have peace on earth. Maybe pigs will take wing from my posterior. Some of the guns I have are over a hundred years old, and were made for my family. They are family.

      Isn’t it time you remembered that guns are a tool, that just like any other, can be used to build, or to destroy. Isn’t it time you faced the fact that the world isn’t a nice place, and many people would kill you without a second thought. Isn’t it time you stopped abdicating responsibility to someone else.

      1. The problem with the USA is not guns. It’s the attitude that goes with them.
        There are plenty of countries in Europe which allow private ownership of guns and even some contries that enforce it by law.
        However what Europe doesn’t have is hordes of nutters running around playing army guy and making out like they are defending the people against government.
        We don’t have mass racisim, areas of the country that wont abide by the rule of law and areas you wont go unless you are armed or the right colour to fit in.
        We don’t have death by cop.
        We don’t expect our children to go to university and get killed for peaceful protest. Hell our universities dont have their own police forces (seriously, you have a problem where that is the solution?!?!??)

        We don’t whine on about being the world’s police but selectively forgetting our obligations and being the reason why now you’re facing a potential nuclear war with North Korea.
        Out of your bravado agasint a weaker enemy, where you have a habit of underestimating them in every war since Vietnam.
        Your cowardice in facing off Russia when they invaded Crimea and you regained on your intentions made to Ukraine when you asked them to give up their nukes then expect NK to do the same. lol. Fools.

        That you dont understand nothing gives you the right to tell NK how or what to do. It’s only negotiation – you’re not in charge of the fucking world ! We didn’t get rid of Hitler’s germany to only replace them with the USA telling the rest of us how and what to do and when.

        Your country and you still have an attitude of a frontier’s man. Expecting to be attacked by a wolf at any time.
        Except you forget you are on his territory, bullying him and he’s only defending himself agasint an active agressor.

        Biggest agressor in recent history is the USA. Whilst doing it with a smile, you’ve bullied the rest of the world to your bidding and now China & Russia & even NK are doing it back to you, you’re trying to find a position in the world as your country is imploding and rapidly turning into a facist state. Everything you stood against and dispise is exactly where you’re heading.

        All becasue you’re teenager that wont grow up, the wolves are circling, and your country mistakenly think they are black and mexican.
        But it’s ok, guns will protect you. lol.

          1. All the existence of police officers mean is that Nick might go to jail after some time after he kills Janostman and eats his hamburger. That might be a sweet deal for Nick’s amorous new cellmate but what good does it do for Janostman?

    1. Better than ‘because my imagination made up some all powerful bearded guy in the sky and he told me to’.
      Or ‘because some self-centered sociopath declared himself special then was elected to lead and tell others what to do and I must obey’

  10. I was actually thinking, “the poor guy, the BATF is gonna rip his hide off”, but apparently it is OK to do such a thing as people have pointed out, as long as he doesn’t start selling them. Seems like there would be little chance of that – this looks like the hackaday sort of thing that you do once to show that you can do it.

    Maybe it is the land of the free after all.

  11. “most people don’t understand how easy it is to build a gun without a 3D printer”– I’ve been saying that for years! I’d bet money that that someone could walk into a good hardware store with a bullet in their pocket (for reference and fitting) and walk out an hour later with a near complete zip gun. Maybe I should check the laws and put my money where my mouth is.

    1. That’s what sprung to my mind as well a while back when 3d printing was a buzzword and everyone was talking about awful 3d printed single-shot guns. A pipe shotgun would probably be more reliable, reusable, and even more accurate than a plastic 22. Way easier to make, too. People printing guns never took them seriously, they just wanted another thing to attach the 3d printing tag to.

  12. So many articles about making guns but that’s not the hard part.
    These are way way way too much like comerical units. You can make a gun with some steel tube, a nail and a bolt lock all hammered into a piece of wood.

    The problem for countries outside of the USA where guns profligate is the ammunition.
    If guns are restricted in a country you can bet your ass that ammo is too.

    Yet to see someone making their own ammo. And I mean from nothing. Nada. No pre-bought shell cases.
    Pure stock materials with easy to obtain equipment and materials that wont arouse suspicion.

  13. I am not an expert enough to comment on the debate going here regarding the safety of firing this gun but….

    I am pretty sure I would rather fire this thing next to my face than a 3d printed gun!!!

Leave a Reply to janostmanCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.