Any of y’all trying to save some weight on a build? First he was like:
Then he was like:
If I was still building AR’s I’d keep one of these around to make some post-build Nachos.
Knowing the current state of the industry, some company is going to release this as an actual product. At the very minimum I see a tangent product like a keymod cheese grater.
That felony hole tho ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). Thoughts?
Gat tip: Maison
COMMENTMy dudes at Armslist tried this thing out for science:
Wow what a time to be alive. $160 doesn’t seem to bad either, but keep in mind you’re going to need all the parts to go in this lower PLUS the entire upper. As he mentioned in the video, LoneWolf carries a lot of Glock slides and parts to go in them, plus they even have their own bootleg Glock compatible slides. Looks like you’re getting well into brand new Glock price territory by the time you buy all the stuff you need in addition to the 80% lower, but sometimes a cool little project is in order you know?
My biggest concern is using a dremel at a high RPM on plastic. I had one skip up on me once and almost take a chunk out of my face when I was fooling around on some plastic.
I have another post on this “Ghost Glock” from when it first came out if you want to take a look.
Thoughts?
COMMENT
The announcement was made as a “coming soon” on the EP Lowers facebook page. People like these 80%’ers because you don’t need to buy them through an FFL. You’re going to need some tools and some time to finish them though… as you can see in this video it takes around an hour with hand tools if you know what you’re doing. Definitely a gimmick, but if you need a project to kill some time why not right? It would be funny if that 2nd polymer that you have to mill out was found to be soluble in some type of solution, so no milling was actually required. I don’t know the intricacies of 80% law but I’m sure the ATF would shit bricks and shut something like that down though.
They have several colors you can buy their lowers in already, and they are all $100 over on their website.
Thoughts? Is transparency something that you’re currently lacking in kit and you feel you need?
Hat tip: Eric, Chris
Watching that guy pull the trigger was painful. Slappy Mc2ndKnuckleSlapperson.
Maybe I’ll eat my words when someone says they printed that out on a $200 RepRap, but my guess is they have some sort of fancy printer similar to the $20,000 one Stratasys yanked their lease on. If that’s the case, color me unimpressed. I had perfect 3D CAD drawings of the AR-15 lower 7 years ago… they didn’t invent that shit. Oh what they reinforced it in a couple places? *yawn*
I do support the Defense Distributed concept/project as a whole, but using boutique equipment and then humble bragging about the results is the part that doesn’t impress me. As people have pointed out before, printing an AR lower out of plastic is cute and all, but I’m sure a lot of people who are shitting a brick over this don’t ever realize that you can make machine a billet aluminum ar-15 lower perfectly well using <$1000 worth of equipment bought from Harbor Freight. Sure it’s not quite as easy as “hit print and come back in xx minutes”… but it wouldn’t exactly take a tier 1 machinist to pull it off.
Thoughts?
A few rounds and it breaks? *yawn* color me un-surprised. You can check out the full fail breakdown over at Defense Distributed.
I don’t consider myself an expert on the topic of 3D printing, but I have got prototypes made using numerous materials and numerous methods over the years. 3D printing in titanium, cobalt, stainless steel, tool steel, aluminum etc.. have been available for a while, many of which are extremely strong. People have built everything from impellers to implants using the technology, so making a reliable AR-15 lower using these methods would be child’s play. Granted, it’s not affordable right now for the average person to print metal at home but you can believe that will be coming.
If guns are ever banned the United States is going to have the most badass type Khyber Pass type gun markets popping up, but instead of half blind people missing fingers making guns by hand with 100 year old tools, you’ll buy your guns from good looking dudes with great hair that kick it in suits all day chilling in high rise condos with a few 3D metal printers. They will no doubt also have female models answer the phones and greet clients. My usual whiskey sour while I wait? Sure Rebecca, thanks for asking.
Thoughts?
Check out Gunsmithing with a 3D printer Part1 and Part2 for the details.
I really hate the phrase “world’s first ______” which a lot of websites are using to describe this experiment. 3D printing is over a decade old, and downloading a firearm related 3D CAD file and feeding it into one of these printers has been done a million times. The only reason this is making the rounds right now is because of the Aurora, CO massacre.
“OMG you can PRINT A GUN!” is what people are saying. So much for gun control if you can just print one, right? *facepalm*Sure the lower is considered the “firearm” as far as the ATF is concerned because it is the serialized part. The AR-15 lower is such a simple receiver that people have even made them out of cutting boards. I’ll be impressed when an entire functional firearm is printed, barrel, components, and all.
Thoughts?
Hat tip: The 20+ of you that emailed me.
