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by laverya
1924 days ago
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I could theoretically manufacture a pistol-caliber carbine myself for under $1000, including the 3d-printer. As in, from bar stock + hydraulic pipe + DC current source + 3d printed components. Look up the FGC-9 - it's pretty impressive. That's with current tech, and I don't think the tech of 20 years from now is going to be worse. If anything, 3d printing will be even better. Now, that FGC-9 isn't nearly as concealable as a standard Glock. But I'm sure there's ongoing efforts to make a home-manufacturable semiauto pistol, too. The more interesting thing to manufacture yourself is ammunition - smokeless powders are rather flammable, primers take that and scale it to 11 with a side of toxicity, and case manufacture has a lot lower tolerances than you'd think. (Bullets are comparatively easy, if you have a source of lead stock and can make a mold) But the number of guns in circulation in the US pales in comparison to the amount of ammunition stockpiled - estimates generally put annual sales at 8 to 10 BILLION rounds of ammunition. A lot of that is fired each year, but that's still a hell of a stockpile to go through first. |
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So, yes you can make an FGC-9 in your garage. Fair enough.
But are the barriers to manufacturing one in the garage sufficient to significantly reduce proliferation?
So, my example is the widespread absence of fully-automatic weapons in U.S. crime. Any schmuck with a lathe and a milling machine in the garage can crank out fully-automatic sub guns like it's Christmas in Sarajevo in 1993. But nobody does. You only very rarely hear about full-auto being used in the commission of crimes. Why? Perhaps the illegality, expense, and manufacturing hurdles (however small they might be) are just good enough to prevent meaningful proliferation in the way we see with semi-autos today.
The ammo thing is an interesting point too. I would think one of the biggest hurdles would be to homebrew ammo that was clean-burning enough not to immediately jam something like an FGC-9 in small calibers. I looked into cartridge case manufacturing and I guess there's a brass drawing process or something. I wonder how difficult it would be to base a design around CNC machined cartridge cases instead?