(Replying to PARENT post)

Guns are weird because to be effective they typically need to be rifled. You can obviously make a shotgun with some home depot pipe but the pressure bearing components of a gun can't be 3D printed. Even with 3D metal printing, you still need to machine the parts to final tolerances and your average garage setup is not remotely capable of rifling a barrel. Hence, when you hear about people 3D printing an AR, they're making the lower receiver which is both a trivially simple part, largely non load bearing, and also due to US law, the legal "gun" part of the gun. In most other countries the pressure bearing parts are the controlled items as those are the hardest to manufacture. In the US you can just buy an upper with the bolt, barrel, and chamber without a background check and manufacture the controlled lower however you want to obtain a complete rifle.

I guess this is all a long winded way of saying the 3D printing panic is both right and wrong but neither side is looking at it in a factual way.

👤AWildC182🕑6y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

You can rifle a barrel in your garage. Search youtube, there are DIY videos.

Btw, you need a rifled barrel to make accurate shots at long-ish distances. For close quarter combat a submachine gun with a smooth bore would do quite well. Something similar to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borz. Any machine shop can crank those out in numbers.

👤apr🕑6y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

> your average garage setup is not remotely capable of rifling a barrel.

I'm going to argue the point. Yes, your average suburban weekend warrior won't have the stuff. But if you are even slightly into machining, you almost certainly can.

Practically every machining magazine will have at least one article about rifling in every issue.

Yes, you need a metal lathe and some tooling. Those are neither rare nor that expensive--and very old lathes and tooling work just fine.

The biggest problem a machinist always has is space for the equipment.

👤bsder🕑6y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

True, but fin-stabilized sabot rounds (~darts) for the 12 ga shotgun are damn impressive.

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

👤mirimir🕑6y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

> your average garage setup is not remotely capable of rifling a barrel

Ehhh ... you talk a lot about 3D printing, but that’s not the only tool that people have in their garages. A huge number of people have metal lathes in their garages. I happen to have a small, CNC controlled metal lathe and mill in my garage. The whole setup cost me about the same as a high quality, rapid prototyping 3D printer (<4000USD). I am pretty sure I could make a firearm, in my garage, including rifling, if I was determined to do so.

Personally I have no desire to build my own firearms, because it’s illegal to do so in my country and it’s also extremely dangerous. But in many places in the US it does appear to be legal.

👤riskneutral🕑6y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I think the reason for going after lowers is because that's where, in AR pattern at least, the majority of components for auto-firing are mounted, whereas the upper may just have an extra notch or two etched in the bolt.
👤tomatotomato37🕑6y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Dunno if it qualifies as “sophisticated“ but original AK is designed to be made from like a piece of sheet metal and others pointed out you can rifle a barrel in your garage.
👤dilyevsky🕑6y🔼0🗨️0