Michael Crumling, a 25-year-old machinist from York, Pennsylvania, has developed a round designed specifically to be fired from 3-D printed guns. His ammunition uses a thicker steel shell with a lead bullet inserted an inch inside, deep enough that the shell can contain the explosion of the round’s gunpowder instead of transferring that force to the plastic body or barrel of the gun. Crumling says that allows a home-printed firearm made from even the cheapest materials to be fired again and again without cracking or deformation. And while his design isn’t easily replicated because the rounds must be individually machined for now, it may represent another step towards durable, practical, printed guns—even semi-automatic ones.
More with video @ Wired
But 3d printed guns isn't even the fastest, easiest, or cheapest way to create guns. I had this same conversation to people here at Army HQ. They thought that 3d printers were a threat to national security. That's because they have never been inside a modern machine shop. They don't know what you can do with a lathe and a CNC milling machine. The object should not be to create one gun, but to create a factory to create warehouses of guns. We have been doing the second one for over a hundred years. Not that difficult.
ReplyDelete--Hale
They don't know what you can do with a lathe and a CNC milling machine.
DeleteGood point.