• FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    23 hours ago

    part of the problem with that is that most of your ghost guns are “just” the AR 15 lower receiver- the part classified as the “firearm” because of some technicality only a lawyer can understand.

    It’s not a load bearing, nor is it exposed to any particularly high levels of heat, nor any sort of particularly nasty gasses. So that can be printed in just about anything if the printer’s resolution is good enough. (IIRC, they typically call for resin printers.)

    Then, the ghost gun peeps just buy the rest of the components retail and pay cash.

    for fully-printed firearms, you’re looking at things like DMLS or other kinds of precision metalwork. It’s the kind of work that would be more expensive than roadtripping to arizona and getting loophole-gun.

    • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      20 hours ago

      Couldn’t you just, idk. Use a small diameter steel pipe and the rest of it printed? Maybe im missing a whole crapload of physics for that to be sufficient

      • Bluewing@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        14 hours ago

        Chamber pressures for the 5.56 Nato is 58,000psi. And 9mm is 35,000psi. It takes a pretty good piece of pipe to contain those pressures. Your average seam welded pipe is around 4000 to maybe 10,000 psi.

        Zip guns made from hardware store pipe are just barely good enough to contain a low pressure 12ga bird shot shell.