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ehhh_yeah t1_ivqsgpt wrote

Reply to comment by rickyh7 in 3D-printed weapons: Interpol and defense experts warn of ‘serious’ evolving threat by mossadnik

Yes but a person of sufficient knowledge with mal intentions (or just a deeply rooted libertarian streak like Cody Wilson) could invest thousands of hours into developing it, then release the design and any necessary build/assembly instructions to the internet to be available for the rest of the existence of the internet. That’s the concern.

Plastic lowers are already a thing, and they tend to be fiber filled as you mentioned. With the right understanding of relevant materials, concepts, manufacturing techniques, and familiarity with a certain MSR platform, it wouldn’t take long for a competent individual to design a tactically relevant printed lower. Someone with a remedial understanding who already owned an upper/bcg/etc could probably iterate their way to something effective, assuming the first few attempts don’t fatally fail. If said individual was banned from owning firearms, that right there is the incentive to spend the time making one.

-another aerospace engineer who’s printed a lot of stuff

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rickyh7 t1_ivqvtop wrote

Now I think that goes down a very different path here than the article describes of restricting engineering software or 3d printers as a whole. And that’s at least attempting to restrict the availability of the files themselves because you’re right that’s certainly a risk. The article did mention the FGC-9 which is fundamentally exactly that. (As a weapons guy I’m interested in giving it a shot since I’m in a place where that would be completely legal, see if it’s actually any good).

I think that’s where a lot of people get stuck, someone with the right understanding and experience in materials is usually required even if they do get the files. Now I’m not saying no one out there with mal intent has that, what I am saying is it’s not exactly common so it goes back to the risk profile. Go after the 44 cases of 3d printed weapon arrests in the world in 2022 (according to 3dprint.com no idea how legit that number is so take it with a grain of salt but I suspect it’s quite small) or go after the 10’s of thousands of weapon crimes that are happening with illegally acquired firearms. That’s really why I think it’s a fools errand. Besides I suspect if you were to serialize barrels, the one piece that could not be 3d printed and can barely be machined by an expert machinist, the problem of 3d printed firearms goes away entirely.

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ehhh_yeah t1_ivrcbrg wrote

So, moving past the small arms application, the other larger and more lethal applications that they’re worried about are probably drones and light duty “missiles”. Ukraine has pretty effectively demonstrated that a basic quadcopter can drop grenades. I recall reading somewhere that they’re printing the latch mechanism and have probably played around printing stabilizer fins for said grenades.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to start printing chassis’ or parts for literally anything. Yeah you’d need to incorporate a much deeper design understanding of things like mechanical and aerospace engineering, but there are skilled engineers all around the world living in areas under ITAR export restrictions from the west. Give them a printer and some high performance raw materials and you’ve got yourself some control surfaces and a camera gimbal for a loitering munition.

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rickyh7 t1_ivs4mem wrote

Now THAT is a very hard thing to do, and also an area of interest for me and my friends. Check out a guy named Joe Barnard at BPS space on YouTube if you want to see exactly that in action. Requires a wicked amount of electronics and coding experience thought. To make it dangerous you also need to know how to mix explosives which is already a common watch item anyway. Restricting printers won’t fix that though because anyone smart enough to do what you are saying can make a printer from scratch

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