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The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

wired.com

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Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#31

Post by RyJones »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #3

> ill your own lower receiver at home, however, and you can order the rest of the parts from online gun shops, creating a semi-automatic weapon with no serial number, obtained with no background check, no waiting period Besides the 6 months it takes to learn to make one that won't blow up in your face when you pull the trigger? Alarmist drivel.

I agree the article is alarmist drivel, but you greatly overestimate the difficulty of assembling a lower. Furthermore, there is pretty much no way to misassemble one in a way that would cause an explosion.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#33

Post by discardorama »

chromaton wrote: post #30
buro9 wrote: post #14

This looks awesome. For $1,200 you could set up as a company making little things for others, earn enough to pay for the machine and then benefit from it yourself. What I would do with such a machine is to solve the problem of bike accessories and mounts. i.e. every light has a different mount, as do GPS devices, and cameras, and bag attachments. Yet you could manufacture some common clamp, and then adaptors for each…

This machine is likely to have a very low machining speed due to weak motors and other motion components. You are unlikely to be able to out-compete a professional machine shop making small parts. So while this is nice for hobbyists, it is unlikely to pay for itself in a professional situation. If you want a machine to pay for itself and be more generally useful, you would be better off spending the money on a Chines…

However: consider the time taken to hunt around for a machine shop; the latency (when the machine shop can actually schedule you in); things like "business hours", etc. and suddenly this machine may become competitive with suitable automation.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#35

Post by hga »

mentos wrote: post #34

I'm pretty sure the lethal part of the equation isn't metal receivers but gun powder and bullets. Why aren't we limiting the sale of bullets (explosives)? edit: Chris Rock said it best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db0Y4qIZ4PA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...

Except for some "slave states" as I've taken to calling them, you can buy ammo mail order, often with a statement of age or perhaps a photocopy of your drivers license. Powder, bullets, cases and primers by mail, although there may be limits to the amount of powder you can hold before the BATF wants a license, safe(r) storage, etc. And similarly your local fire department prefers or may demand limits.

And this stuff is stable, lasts a long time. My father has several 25 pound casks of powder he or his father bought before or after WWII that he's still reloading from, and ammo manufactured in WWII is still being used (although a lot of it has corrosive primers, requiring much more thorough cleaning).

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#36

Post by comrh »

viggity wrote: post #21

I'm very much a libertarian, pro-gun kind of guy and I'm glad this project project exists, but I do have to say I'm reluctant about it. There isn't really anything (that I can see) that can stop this movement. I abhor gun registries and most restrictions on firearms but I'm glad that there is at least a small hurdle to acquiring a firearm (purchase permits). Hopefully the trend towards more and more CCW holders incre…

Most states require only a driver license to buy a rifle, no purchase permit required.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#37

Post by alricb »

The main reason this allows you to build an AR-style rifle is that US firearms law focuses on receivers (per U.S.C. Section 921(a)(3), which are in many cases quite easy to manufacture. For instance, many Kalashnikov receivers are made of stamped sheet metal.

The pressure-bearing parts, like the barrel or the bolt, are much harder to manufacture, at least for rifles. Most European countries will therefore regulate these, but they won't necessarily regulate ancillary parts like receivers or stocks. AFAIK, a full-auto AR receiver, which is highly regulated in the US, is treated as nothing more than a chunk of metal under UK law (as long as you don't illegally assemble it with a barrel and other parts).

[I was wrong; according to the 9th report of the Firearms Consultative Comity, Annex D, receivers are controlled as "component parts"]

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#38

Post by viggity »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #3

> ill your own lower receiver at home, however, and you can order the rest of the parts from online gun shops, creating a semi-automatic weapon with no serial number, obtained with no background check, no waiting period Besides the 6 months it takes to learn to make one that won't blow up in your face when you pull the trigger? Alarmist drivel.

If you were making the barrel from scratch as opposed to buying off the shelf, yeah, it might blow up in your face. But that is the part prone to catastrophic failure. People have been making lowers out of HDPE (plastic) and it works just fine, it doesn't need to contain combustion, just hold all the parts together.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#39

Post by Someone1234 »

buro9 wrote: post #14

This looks awesome. For $1,200 you could set up as a company making little things for others, earn enough to pay for the machine and then benefit from it yourself. What I would do with such a machine is to solve the problem of bike accessories and mounts. i.e. every light has a different mount, as do GPS devices, and cameras, and bag attachments. Yet you could manufacture some common clamp, and then adaptors for each…

I want to do a similar project but for car dashboards.

Much like bike accessories we're always buying things like phone holders, fan holders, or CB radio handset holders. But these things never attach to the dashboard well because they depend on suction cups or clips to the vent grate (which aren't standard anyway).

All car dashboards should come with a 1/4-20 inch screw thread. Maybe two, one of the driver's side and a second for the front passenger. Then to accessorize your car, you just buy a simple cellphone clip which screws in.

The nice part about 1/4-20 is that it is already used for a ton of stuff (i.e. anything tripod compatible), so there are already accessories on the market for that screw size.

Re: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home

#40

Post by exDM69 »

buro9 wrote: post #14

This looks awesome. For $1,200 you could set up as a company making little things for others, earn enough to pay for the machine and then benefit from it yourself. What I would do with such a machine is to solve the problem of bike accessories and mounts. i.e. every light has a different mount, as do GPS devices, and cameras, and bag attachments. Yet you could manufacture some common clamp, and then adaptors for each…

This isn't a general purpose CNC milling machine.

If you read the whole article, this is specifically designed to mill and drill the lower receivers of AR15, from a piece of aluminum stock called the "80 percent stock", which is a non-functional metal part that is only missing a few holes.

If you have grand ideas about bike accessories and other metal objects, you can buy a proper CNC mill which is a bit more expensive than this. Or pay for CNC machining service at your local machine shop. It's not super expensive.

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