5 ms·

Every one of your points is extremely wrong, except the first. We don't live in 2014, and we aren't talking about the Liberator anymore. Electrochemical machini

Every one of your points is extremely wrong, except the first. We don't live in 2014, and we aren't talking about the Liberator anymore. Electrochemical machining means that anyone can rifle a barrel in their closet, there are tons of designs that are fully DIY without any metalworking capabilities. The glass filled nylon polymers people are using now are equivalent to many of the polymers used in industry. The last moat truly is ammunition and frankly that is a matter of time.

dawnerd 4y ago
> anyone can rifle a barrel in their closet That's a bit of a stretch. I think you and a lot of other people underestimate how expensive it is. The people actually doing this are doing it just because they can. Still easier, faster and cheaper to buy a ghost gun in a state with more lax rules.
- AngryData 4y ago
  A hydraulic piston, which can be a hand powered jack, and a rifling button makes it possible to easily rifle most any metal pipe. Plus in 99% of shootings the targets are fairly short range where rifling isnt even very important.
  - Ancapistani 4y ago
    > A hydraulic piston, which can be a hand powered jack, and a rifling button makes it possible to easily rifle most any metal pipe. That's not my experience at all. You have to have a means of rotating the button rifling tool consistently as it is pulled through the bore - for an m1911, probably the most common .45 ACP pistol, that's 1 revolution per 16" of barrel. Because it will take multiple passes to cut the rifling, you'll also need a way to index the tool for each pass. > Plus in 99% of shootings the targets are fairly short range where rifling isnt even very important. If you're making a gun to shoot someone, that makes sense. The far more typical case is that you're making it because you are interested in making a gun, and rifling is a requirement in the US to comply with federal law for a pistol[1]. 1: The term "pistol" is legislatively defined, but broadly speaking it's anything designed to be fired with one hand and <26" in overall length.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Unless you're going for sniper level accuracy a barrel can be rifled with just the button because the die will cause its own rotation as you push it down the barrel, this is because of the trailing part of the button. The reason rifling machines do it is to ensure minimal wear on the die, and for speed of operation but that's an optimization more than a requirement. This is also the reason why the cutters on a typical button are as long as they are: to ensure that it rotates. You also don't need to index it for the same reason: the tool will seek the grooves made by the previous pass (except for point cutters). It's basically just a very coarse inside thread cutter, where the thread is so steep that it will drive the tool to rotate much as the bullet will rotate when passing through. This will work with any thread that is more than 1:1.
hotpotamus 4y ago
Imagine the possibilities once we advance the state of the art in biological weapon prototyping.

dawnerd 4y ago

> anyone can rifle a barrel in their closet That's a bit of a stretch. I think you and a lot of other people underestimate how expensive it is. The people actually doing this are doing it just because they can. Still easier, faster and cheaper to buy a ghost gun in a state with more lax rules.

AngryData 4y ago
A hydraulic piston, which can be a hand powered jack, and a rifling button makes it possible to easily rifle most any metal pipe. Plus in 99% of shootings the targets are fairly short range where rifling isnt even very important.
- Ancapistani 4y ago
  > A hydraulic piston, which can be a hand powered jack, and a rifling button makes it possible to easily rifle most any metal pipe. That's not my experience at all. You have to have a means of rotating the button rifling tool consistently as it is pulled through the bore - for an m1911, probably the most common .45 ACP pistol, that's 1 revolution per 16" of barrel. Because it will take multiple passes to cut the rifling, you'll also need a way to index the tool for each pass. > Plus in 99% of shootings the targets are fairly short range where rifling isnt even very important. If you're making a gun to shoot someone, that makes sense. The far more typical case is that you're making it because you are interested in making a gun, and rifling is a requirement in the US to comply with federal law for a pistol[1]. 1: The term "pistol" is legislatively defined, but broadly speaking it's anything designed to be fired with one hand and <26" in overall length.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Unless you're going for sniper level accuracy a barrel can be rifled with just the button because the die will cause its own rotation as you push it down the barrel, this is because of the trailing part of the button. The reason rifling machines do it is to ensure minimal wear on the die, and for speed of operation but that's an optimization more than a requirement. This is also the reason why the cutters on a typical button are as long as they are: to ensure that it rotates. You also don't need to index it for the same reason: the tool will seek the grooves made by the previous pass (except for point cutters). It's basically just a very coarse inside thread cutter, where the thread is so steep that it will drive the tool to rotate much as the bullet will rotate when passing through. This will work with any thread that is more than 1:1.

hotpotamus 4y ago

Imagine the possibilities once we advance the state of the art in biological weapon prototyping.