NRA

Is this a joke, or are you really not aware that boring holes is a basic lathe operation?

You can do stamp work on a press -- it's just slow. Tooling is not that big a deal for someone who also has a milling machine on hand. It's time consuming for the first one, but you only have to do it once.

You're right -- it was Stiles who asserted that receivers need to be forged. It's still ridiculous, either way. It is possible to using milling, forging, stamping, and probably a few other things that I haven't thought of to make the receiver for a gun. What process a particular person decides to use would depend entirely on what they had on hand and felt comfortable with.

It seems you also have no idea what goes into making a rocket. Precision moving parts are a major part of the game as soon as you depart from solids to more interesting systems.

Ok...now this has just gotten silly. Though i'lll commend the fact that a grand total of 10 or so comments managed to make the discussion before it degenerated into the EXACT same discussion that happens every time Gun Control or the NRA is debated. The only novelty in this is that now we're discussing the feasibility of making guns at home....ya know i think there's a market to be exploited there. AT-home Glock or 9mm prodcution kits...hell let's shoot for the stars and figure out hwo to make bazookas with minimal capital investment...imagine the possibilities!

But seriously isn't this wasting everyone's time and mental energy splitting hairs and endlessly debating all in the name of proving how self righteous and self assured you are? I mean i would think that some of the mental giants on this site would have something better to do than debate how easy it is to make a gun with some PVC pipe, a paper clip and a dildoe...oh i guess a lathe and a drill go in there somewhere too.

Maybe i'm missing the subtle nuances and intricacies involved in this diatribe....but probably not. Anyways...debate away but it doesn't seem like anybody's gotten anywhere.

BTW though...i believe i rcall hearing something about a British hobbyist who, a few years back, managed to assemble a rocket from junk yard parts and some home-made machining that actually did manage to fire off into space...I could be wrong, but maybe i'm not. Stiill, if it's true, that's quite a testamnet o ingenuity and do-it-yourself-ness.

Is this a joke or do you not understand that you can't do that on an ordinary lathe without burning your motor or detempering your barrel?

Custom riflemakers do not mill their own barrels. Rather than asserting that the world is the way you imagine it to be, you might want to bestir yourself and find out how the world actually is. You can start here


Plus, I don't see how your going to put holes in your lower, which is square, on a machine designed for cylinders.

Assuming you have sufficent foot pounds to press hardened steel, which aint happening at Harbor Freight.

If by, not that big a deal you mean really difficult, sure. We're talking about precision cutting large blocks of hardened steel, here. Much metal need go bye-bye.

Uh, no, youre going to have to do it lots of times to get it right on a bench mill.

Well, that and whether "what they had on hand" was actually adequate to the task along with their skills, which, as I keep trying to point out, is not likely the case for home hobbyists.

Not so much, really, but hey, not having the tiniest bit of expertise on the subject of your pontification doesn't seem to have deterred you much.

Lets just recap, shall we. I Passed the NY bar. You didn't. My Grandfather was a master machinist. Yours wasn't. My friends build guns. Yours don't.

Quite frankly as amusing as its been, there are only so many ways I can politely point out that we'd hear you better if you dropped your pants.

So, rockets have high speed cycling parts grinting metal on metal in high pressure sutuations hundreds of thousands of times. Funny, I thought the whole point of liquid fuel systems was catalyic ignition achived by, well, valves.



[Edited on Nov 06, 2003 by LordJim]

No one in their right mind machines steel in the hardened condition. The usual technique for avoiding burning your motor is to go slow. Then, if you are using a heat treatable steel, you heat-treat it. Most tool steels are forgiving about the precise process used to heat treat them. You heat them up until they turn a given color (called out by the manufacturer), and then quenched in either oil or water, depending on the particular steel. Not surprisingly, tool steels are divided into water and oil hardening varieties.

No, they don't because making a match-grade barrel is really hard. Making a serviceable barrel is much easier. It's still probably not worth it for someone involved in fully ATF-approved gun manufacture. That is of course not the only way to go, which has been my point since the beginning.

First, that is a design detail, and isn't true of all guns. Second, I assure you that it's possible to machine a single part on both a lathe and a milling machine by the simple expedient of moving it from one to the other.

No-one works steel in the hardened condition if they have any way to avoid it. Generally, it's pretty easy to avoid, because heat treating common tool steels is dead easy. You could also make the receiver out of something easier to work, like Al. That depends entirely on the intended purpose for the gun.

Metal work is a bit like hiking in the Sierras -- there are always multiple ways to get to your destination. For instance, welding can be used to reduce the amount of machining required to make a die. If I was actually going to do it, rather than just talking about it, I suspect I could figure out at least one more way to do it. You could also machine the receiver directly, depending on the design.

A milling machine is well within the reach of a home hobbyist, and plenty of gun designs have used milled receivers. That's one of a number of potential paths to accomplishing the goal.

Sounds like a great description of a piston pump. Working on one of those, but I've back burnered it in favor of more pressing and immediately useful projects.

Catalytic ignition is pretty much out for amateurs not using hydrogen peroxide as an oxidizer. The chemicals used for catalytic ignition on many older rockets are unbelievably nasty -- things like tri-ethyl aluminium and a similar boron compound. Electrical and pyrotechnic ignitors are easy enough that the hassle, both technical and legal, in sourcing, storing, transporting, and handling really hazardous compounds like TEA is simply not worth it. They've been more or less completely abandoned by the pros. Hypergolic propellants are largely out of the reach of amateurs for similar reasons. Find a copy of "Ignition!" for a complete rundown on all of the frightening things that were tried back in the 1950s & 60s. It's a list of most of the chemicals that I find personally frightening.

Valves for rockets must be remotely actuated and light, two properties difficult to get together in a commercial valve at reasonable cost. This means that precision machine work is often involved with the valves at some level. You can go all the way to custom valves, like the custom pyro valves that many of the RRS guys are using, or you can just deal with designing and making your own actuators, or if your application is a nice fit to some combination of off the shelf parts, you can do that. All of these applications, even the last, will involve some precision machined parts if you want them to work. Or, if you can afford to spend money like John Carmack, you just pay.

why would anti-gun legislators need a rapid response team when they have the media automatically mentioning how a gun killed someone and not the moron behind it?

Because it is entirely too easy for "morons" to get guns, and guns make it simple, quick and thoughtless for "morons" to kill people, both from a distance ( Malvo, Washington sniper #1 ) and close up (any convenience store robber with a $100 .25 auto).

I seriously doubt if the DC snipers would have walked up to 10 people and stabbed them if they didn't have a Bushmaster scoped rifle handy.

I also doubt that petty criminals would kill nearly as many people during the comission of crimes (other than premeditated murder) if they had no access to handguns. It's a lot more personal to beat someone to death with a pipe than to pull a trigger.

Morons have easier access to cars and alcohol. A combination which kills far more than guns in the hands of morons. But when it comes to cars and alcohol people blame the person and not the item. when a gun is used people blame the item more than the person. And if they want you dead you're dead. Mcveigh killed more and used no gun at all.

*sigh*

Cars have a primary purpose, which is getting you and your stuff from here to there.
Guns have a primary purpose, which is to kill people quickly and easily.

I would hope you can see the difference, but i'm afraid you cannot.

Alcohol in combination with many otherwise mundane things kills and injures, so that's really irrelevant to the discussion.

If it makes any difference to you, i have owned several guns, both handguns and long arms.

After living in every kind of neighborhood, from rich suburb to inner city ghetto to the sticks, I find that one can value a weapon for self-defence or target practice while still recognising the need for far stricter gun control laws, as well as the overabundance of cheap handguns which results in escalation of otherwise minor events to shootings and murders.

Come live in my neighborhood for a while.

control over most anything I'm all for given the human nature to abuse things. Bans on anything I oppose as it restricts my freedom to think for myslef and to choose

And where are ya from? i may have lived in your neighborhood since I've moved around so much. Lived in farmland, woodland, LA, SanDiego, Philly and a few other places.



[Edited on Nov 08, 2003 by Troll]

I'm currently in the northeastern corner of Center City Phila. within a stone's throw of 15th and Fairmount Ave.

It's coming up rapidly, with new-construction townhomes on most blocks, going for $350,000 - $590,000. Still got lots of hookers, crackheads, johns and petty thieves, though.




edited because there's a T or two in northeast.



[Edited on Nov 08, 2003 by Stiles]

so given the fact that criminals with guns may commit crimes, you'd probably wanna own one legally for self-defense? I know I would. and as I've said several times on this board, I have used a firearm 2 times and never fired a shot or killed anyone, as a civilian. I know for a fact that in the first case outside Diego, it was gonna be me or him and he backed down and I had the reasoning capabilities to realize that that was good enough.

Now you either have to consider me high on the plate of this meal of life or you try to knock me down and yet I committed no crime and harmed no one. He lived and so did I. And yes, he was armed with a S&W .38 when he was arrested. The mere fact that his agression was met with a Desert Eagle .357 with winchester silver tip hollow points, in the hands of a Marine is what prevented him from dying that day. He came to my door and met the hand of the next level of existance. this was 1995, his previous transgressions along with that one bought him a 25 and up. I'm still here and free

Hmmm....Conrad, I knew it.

Nah, not really. My home self defense needs for the last several years have been nicely met with an 18" Poulan chainsaw, a baseball bat, and a big 'ole can of mace - depending on location.
Never had to use any of them, just display them.

Even in my friend's neighborhood (North 5th and Allegheny ave, commonly referred to as the "Badlands" of Philly), I've never felt the need to carry a gun.

A little common sense and a few minor precautions go a long way.