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In Canada, a 3D-Printed Rifle Breaks On First Firing

Posted by timothy on from the moose-and-wolves-unimpressed dept.

Not all 3-D printed guns can encounter the smooth, uneventful success of Cody Wilson's Liberator; Daniel_Stuckey writes with this excerpt: "A Canadian has just fired the first shot from his creation, 'The Grizzly,' an entirely 3D-printed rifle. In that single shot, CanadianGunNut (his name on the DefCad forum), or "Matthew," has advanced 3D-printed firearms to yet another level. Sort of: According to his video's description, the rifle's barrel and receiver were both damaged in that single shot."

27 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. I still see a market .... by therealkevinkretz · · Score: 4, Funny

    ACME firearms, supplying evil coyotes for decades

    1. Re:I still see a market .... by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Informative

      Heh - what else did they expect? Rifles keep pressure for longer periods of time (as the bullet travels down the longer barrel), increasing the chance for materials failure. Cheap plastic is not an option here, campers.

      7,000+ psi for a .22LR is nothing to screw around with for the relatively sustained period of time the bullet travels down the barrel (let alone the 65,000+ psi you can generate in, oh, a .338 Win Mag.)

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    2. Re:I still see a market .... by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's the thing - I doubt there's a 3D-printable plastic out there now which could last for one rifle shot, at least outside of sheer luck.

      The length of the rifle barrel is what'll kill it. A pistol dumps its internal pressures quickly - the short muzzle doesn't have to hold the pressure for more than a millisecond or two at most. A rifle on the other hand? The longer the barrel, the longer that period of time which the barrel has to hold the higher pressures. Most rifle cartridges also contain a slower-burning powder (to keep pressures at least somewhat constant as the bullet travels down the barrel), which only exacerbates things from a design perspective.

      From an industrial perspective, any plastic barrel that doesn't hold up to insane tolerances (at least 3x max pressure) and do so for a very long time? Begging for a lawsuit that'll bankrupt your company, guaranteed. Also, there's no real economic incentive to make plastic barrels commercially - steel is way cheaper to acquire, machine, and temper. Now there are some specialized and niche applications (spies, special ops/forces, whatever), but they don't justify the costs.

      Hobbyists OTOH don't have that kind of pressure or limitation - they're just doing it because they can.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    3. Re:I still see a market .... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If it were purely a matter of pressure, you could probably get away with expensive plastic. I wouldn't want to be the person in charge of 3d-printing such a beast; but fiber-reinforced polymers are pretty tough (even better results, and markedly higher fabrication costs, if the fiber structures are correctly oriented to ensure that pressures on the barrel are mostly applied as tensile stress on the reinforcing fibers). At that point, though, you are probably talking a production process more difficult, possibly even more expensive, than the one used to produce normal metal barrels.

      Even more vexingly, you still have heat and barrel erosion to deal with. If you don't mind a smoothbore with suitably low rate of fire, that's survivable; but 'rifle' more or less requires modestly complex barrel geometry tough enough to survive having a bullet rammed through it at alarming speeds. Plus, if you are using chemical propellants, the tendency of plastics to either start breaking down, or go into glass transition and send all their structural properties screaming through the floor, at fairly low temperatures combines beautifully with their relatively low thermal conductivity....

    4. Re:I still see a market .... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

      You can also 3D print metal, it's a slightly different process, but nevertheless, there are metal 3D printers out there.

      And if you look at the pains that the gun foundries go through to get _exactly_ the right metal properties for their gun barrels, you'd be leery of ever firing a 3D-printed gun (in 2013).

      But, as I understand it, nobody actually wants a 3D printed gun - they're just trying to bait the gun-grabbers into attempting to restrain free trade and stifle free speech for their agenda, to make the gun-grabbers look even worse.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    5. Re:I still see a market .... by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      It survived the shot, wouldn't have harmed the shooter, and appears to have been accurate, though nobody has demonstrated the accuracy of the printed firearms.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    6. Re:I still see a market .... by D1G1T · · Score: 2

      I suspect Matthew built a rifle because making a plastic pistol in Canada would get him into very serious trouble. The laws governing Hunting "long-guns" are significantly more relaxed.

    7. Re:I still see a market .... by EmperorArthur · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But, as I understand it, nobody actually wants a 3D printed gun - they're just trying to bait the gun-grabbers into attempting to restrain free trade and stifle free speech for their agenda, to make the gun-grabbers look even worse.

      And it's working quite well. Here in the United States home made firearms are mostly legal as long as you don't sell them. Mainly because it's too hard to regulate, and most of them blow up anyways. The only restriction is an old law saying guns have to be detected by metal detectors.

      Now you have all these states and cities that are passing laws banning 3d printed weapons. Side note, I can't wait until someone is arrested because they used a 3d printed toy as a "weapon." Then the US said it might be an export violation and told Defense Distributed to pull all the files. Boom, instant free speech violation.

      What I'm curious about is the correlation between gun-grabbers and people who want to Censor the internet. Since they both use the same language about "protecting children" or for "public safety" I imagine it's the same people. Has anyone done a study on this?

      --
      So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
    8. Re:I still see a market .... by Will.Woodhull · · Score: 3, Informative

      I was wrong, parent post is right. I just learned that the .22 "survival" carbine I had been thinking of has a steel barrel; the receiver and stock are nylon.

      When I lived in more open country, I used to hunt with a .30-06 slide action and 2-7x scope. Now my hunting is in brushy country where shots over 100 yards are very rare, so I use a .30-30 lever action carbine with peep sights. I've never been in a situation where a .22 rifle would be of any use, so I never looked into that caliber.

      --
      Will
    9. Re:I still see a market .... by Lennie · · Score: 2

      You are looking at what is going on now, not what will happen in a few maybe 5 or 10 years.

      3D printers currently exists for wood, carbon fiber, ceramic, bronze, steel, iron, cellulose and human tissue and prices of these devices will keep dropping like what we are used to from Moore's law.

      Forget these pee shooters, expect change.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    10. Re:I still see a market .... by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The cheapness of the plastic isn't really an issue - trying to pretend it has the same properties as steel is. You could make a fairly workable rifle with 3D printing but you'd have to adjust the design to match the materials used, in other words it would have to be bulky enough to make a WH40k Space Marine's double bolter look like a flimsy toy in comparison. Two to three inch thick walls on the barrel would make it a lot more durable, although melting becomes your problem then.

    11. Re:I still see a market .... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      .22LR is a varmint caliber. It's actually illegal to hunt anything bigger than a rabbit with it most places

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. In Canada? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Funny

    What happens if you try it somewhere else?

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    1. Re:In Canada? by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Funny

      What happens if you try it somewhere else?

      It won't apologize so much when it fails.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  3. Re:For a spy all you need is 1 shot by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

    With a .22 LR rimfilre, it had better be an extremely accurate shot if you intend to kill anything bigger than a rabbit with it.

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  4. Big surprise by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Informative

    Rifle cartridges tend to have quite a bit more power than pistol cartridges.

    Chamber pressure:

    Rifle: 7.62x51mm maximum pressure 415 MPa / 60,191 psi
    Rifle: 5.56x54mm maximum pressure 430 MPa / 62,366 psi
    Pistol: .45 ACP maximum pressure 140 MPa / 21,000 psi
    Pistol: 9x19mm maximum pressure 235 MPa / 34,084 psi
    Pistol: 9x17mm maximum pressure 148 MPa / 21,500 psi

    IIRC, the 9x17mm (.380) was used in some earlier 3D printed pistol tests with limited success.

    Most people receiving medical treatment after being shot by a pistol will live. Mortality is much higher for those shot by a rifle.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  5. why gun powder? by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

    I keep wondering why all these guys keep trying to produce a gunpowder based gun. There are some incredible air rifles out there now... .50cal, 1000fps awesome guns. Why not try an air rifle and avoid all issues involved with powder?

    1. Re:why gun powder? by DadLeopard · · Score: 2

      Did you ever look at the pressures the air reservoir reaches in those large caliber air rifles? Remember many of them are filled from a Scuba tank!!

  6. When will this sillieness end? by MpVpRb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anybody with the right knowledge and some basic tools has been able to make a gun for a long time

    Convicts do it in prison

    People in underdeveloped countries do it using the most crude equipment imaginable

    3D printing a gun, in plastic, is nothing more than an attention grabbing headline

  7. Re:For a spy all you need is 1 shot by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

    Native Alaskans have been known to kill moose with a single shot from a .22.

    But it takes a very good shot, from a position most people would rather not be in.

  8. Re:For a spy all you need is 1 shot by interval1066 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Quite wrong. the .22 Long Rifle with hollow point, frangible, high velocity AND subsonic loads are all favored by assassins. The subsonic is especially accurate and if you're not shooting through armor or a helmet is going to take your target out if placed right. The load used by the Jackal (in the origiinal 1964 film) was a .22 LR exploder.

    --
    Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
  9. Re:A new slogan by HornWumpus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They would humor you. Rednecks already own a number of real guns and would assume you were some sort of city idiot. Once they figured out that you weren't going to blow off your hand they would go home.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  10. Re:Yet another low caliber 3D printed firearm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is a HUGE difference between a 22LR and a 5.56 or 223. Even if they are the "same calibur".
    22LR, 36-40 grain, just over 1,000 ft/s
    223 56 grain, just over 3000 ft/s

  11. Re:Not to worry by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Only a matter of time before the composites and process improve to the point where it will withstand these stresses.

    Inconveniently, 3d printing techniques tend to make doing composites (properly) difficult. Extruder-based designs can use fiber reinforced feedstocks, if the usual parameter-fiddling is done properly; but doing that will mostly just serve to make the difference in strength between the continuous filament (relatively strong) and the bonds at the 'seams' where the newly extruded filament needs to fuse with the previous layer and any adjacent already-laid filament (absolute best case, these might be as strong as the continuous filament, almost always weaker, sometimes markedly so, depending on process control) even starker than it already is, since the reinforcement material won't extend throughout the part (as it does with injection-molded fiber reinforced parts).

    Selective laser sintering, while classier, is similarly limited by the fact that the reinforcement material can't extend beyond the boundaries of the powder being sintered (and you can't make the powder particles larger without sending your resolution to hell).

    (Now, in the hypothetical cyberpunk dystopian future, it might be possible to produce pre-woven carbon-nanotube/graphene/similar technobabble "sleeves" that would collapse down into easily concealable flat shapes (like a freshly ironed sock); but could be stretched over a simple form and impregnated with a polymer or epoxy to turn them into fiber-reinforced barrels quickly and with almost zero tools just before use, using the same basic techniques used for fiberglass or carbon fiber construction. Not obviously worth it vs. just smuggling normal guns; but it' be a cute trick.)

  12. Poppycock by mcrbids · · Score: 2

    OMG! Crazy conspiracy theorists can build bad guns with printers!

    BOLLOCKS

    Anybody can go to their local hardware store and build a zip gun for as little as $10.

    Quote: Keep in mind this should only be used in extreme situations, survival situations, or simply having fun. This homemade 12 guage is simply awesome!

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  13. Re:Obvious conclusions by iggymanz · · Score: 2

    One difference, those with gunsmithing skills will tell you plastic is an inappropriate material to make firearm chambers and barrels.

    Cedar is an appropriate material; your father just lacked some very basic knowledge - which he can now get the internet if he still is alive and still is interested.

  14. Re:Not to worry by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    Just curious, what's your personal/professional background in knowing all this?

    Nothing professional, just some hobbyist fiddling with 3d printers, a bunch of background reading spurred by frustration over comparatively lousy results compared to injection molded parts, and a good, wholesome, upstanding, fondness for testing to destruction.

    I certainly shouldn't be treated as any sort of real authority; but it's something that interests me, and I've poked at it at the dilettante level.