by Hognose
Here’s the Imura Works’ latest Zig-Zag Revolver, the Flying Swallow. Imura Works is named for the Japanese martyr to the cause of home gunsmithing.
It has quick-change cylinders for rapid reloads.
Of course, this wouldn’t be that interesting if files weren’t available. But files are available — how ’bout that. The file pack includes not only the .stls that you need to print it out, but also assembly drawings that show how it all goes together.
Happy printing!
Beyond Printing: The Steel Rifled Barrel
Of course, a printed pistol has its limits; we’ve seen a lot of better examples of homemade guns made from steel. In an austere or denied environment, raw steel will always be available, but one stumbling block many small and home machinists have encountered has been rifling a barrel. But it turns out, there is a high-throughput, benchtop way to do it: electro-chemical machining (ECM). You don’t need a big ECM machine: you can improvise with innocuous parts and chemicals (table salt!). This is the whole setup:
Yep, the el cheapo battery charger is all the power supply you need. They used 33 AWG copper wire.
Here’s some results from an early series of experiments.
HERE it is! Rifling a barrel using the ECM (electrochemical machining) process by the one and only Jeffrod. This fosscad project is still in its early infancy so expect more to come! ECM is like reverse-electroplating where you are removing material instead of adding it. ECM is a very precise method and is more suitable for mass production. The ECM process can be used on hard materials that cannot be machined by other more traditional processes. Unlike the EDM (Electrical discharge machining) process, no sparks are generated with ECM between the cathode and anode.
That particular barrel used a pentagonal 3D-printed mandrel, copper wires, and three rounds of 5 minutes in a saline solution with 6 volts and 6 amps running through the wires. The rifling is 5-thousandths deep. It’s not a target barrel, but it’s a process that will produce a legal and likely functioning rifled barrel. And you can experiment with it with just some steel tubing, a bucket, wires and a mandrel. This is the mandrel, with the copper machining wires attached.
The whole process is recounted on this imgur thread, including several earlier experiments before this last barrel was produced. These barrels are a proof of concept, not in any particular caliber or chambering at this time. So we’re a long way from making, say, AR barrels, but a Sten barrel is close.
You can’t ban guns. Make one problem difficult, and the community reacts to the damage by detouring around it. Short of lobotomizing the whole community, this is only going to grow from here.
