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A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries.
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with both hands and braced firmly against the shooter's shoulder via a buttstock for stability during shooting. Rifles are used extensively in warfare, law enforcement, hunting and target shooting sports.
The Colt AR-15 is a lightweight, magazine-fed, gas-operated semi-automatic rifle. It is a semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle sold for the civilian and law enforcement markets in the United States. The AR in AR-15 stands for ArmaLite rifle, after the company that developed it in the 1950s. Colt's Manufacturing Company currently owns the AR-15 trademark, which is used exclusively for its line of semi-automatic AR-15 rifles.
In guns, particularly firearms, but not artillery, where a different definition may apply, caliber is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore matches that specification. It is measured in inches or in millimeters. In the United States it is expressed in hundredths of an inch; in the United Kingdom in thousandths; and elsewhere in millimeters. For example, a US "45 caliber" firearm has a barrel diameter of roughly 0.45 inches (11 mm). Barrel diameters can also be expressed using metric dimensions. For example, a "9 mm pistol" has a barrel diameter of about 9 millimeters. Since metric and US customary units do not convert evenly at this scale, metric conversions of caliber measured in decimal inches are typically approximations of the precise specifications in non-metric units, and vice versa.
The .50 BMG, also known as 12.7×99mm NATO, and designated as the 50 Browning by the C.I.P., is a .50 in (12.7 mm) caliber cartridge developed for the M2 Browning heavy machine gun in the late 1910s, entering official service in 1921. Under STANAG 4383, it is a standard service cartridge for NATO forces, as well as many non-NATO countries. The cartridge itself has been made in many variants: multiple generations of regular ball, tracer, armor-piercing (AP), incendiary, and saboted sub-caliber rounds. The rounds intended for machine guns are made into a continuous ammunition belt using metallic links.
The two most common assault rifles in the world are the Soviet AK-47 and the American M16. These Cold War-era rifles have been used in conflicts both large and small since the 1960s. They are used by military, police, security forces, revolutionaries, terrorists, criminals and civilians alike and will most likely continue to be used for decades to come. As a result, they have been the subject of countless comparisons and endless debate.
A caliber conversion sleeve or adapter sleeve is a device which can be used to non-permanently alter a firearm to allow it to fire a different cartridge than the one it was originally designed to fire. The different cartridge must be smaller in some dimensions than the original design cartridge, and since smaller cartridges are usually cheaper, the device allows less expensive fire practice.
The .338 Winchester Magnum is a .338 in (8.6 mm) caliber, belted, rimless, bottlenecked cartridge introduced in 1958 by Winchester Repeating Arms. It is based on the blown-out, shortened .375 H&H Magnum. The .338 in (8.6 mm) is the caliber at which medium-bore cartridges are considered to begin. The .338 Winchester Magnum is the first choice among professional brown bear guides in Alaska to back up clients where a powerful stopping caliber is required on charging bears. It is also the most popular medium-bore cartridge in North America and has the most widely available choice in rifles among medium bore rifles. The action length is the same as a .30-06, and most major rifle manufacturers in the United States chamber rifles for the cartridge including the semi-automatic Browning BAR Mk II Safari, making it a very powerful combination against charging dangerous game. The cartridge was intended for larger North American big-game species and has found use as for the hunting of thin-skinned African plains-game species.
The Marlin Model 336 is a lever-action rifle and carbine made by Marlin Firearms. Since its introduction in 1948, it has been offered in a number of different calibers and barrel lengths, but is commonly chambered in .30-30 Winchester or .35 Remington, using a 20- or 24-inch barrel. Currently, the model with a 24-inch barrel is only available in .30-30 Winchester. The Model 336 is now back in production as of March 27, 2023.
The .220 Swift (5.56×56mmSR) is a semi-rimmed rifle cartridge developed by Winchester and introduced in 1935 for small game and varmint hunting. It was the first factory-loaded rifle cartridge with a muzzle velocity of over 1,200 m/s (4,000 ft/s).
Improvised firearms are firearms manufactured other than by a firearms manufacturer or a gunsmith, and are typically constructed by adapting existing materials to the purpose. They range in quality from crude weapons that are as much a danger to the user as the target to high-quality arms produced by cottage industries using salvaged and repurposed materials.
Stratasys, Ltd. is an American-Israeli manufacturer of 3D printers, software, and materials for polymer additive manufacturing as well as 3D-printed parts on-demand. The company is incorporated in Israel. Engineers use Stratasys systems to model complex geometries in a wide range of polymer materials, including: ABS, polyphenylsulfone (PPSF), polycarbonate (PC) and polyetherimide and Nylon 12.
MakerBot Industries, LLC was an American desktop 3D printer manufacturer company headquartered in New York City. It was founded in January 2009 by Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer, and Zach "Hoeken" Smith to build on the early progress of the RepRap Project. It was acquired by Stratasys in June 2013. As of April 2016, MakerBot had sold over 100,000 desktop 3D printers worldwide. Between 2009 and 2019, the company released 7 generations of 3D printers, ending with the METHOD and METHOD X. It was at one point the leader of the desktop market with an important presence in the media, but its market share declined over the late 2010s. MakerBot also founded and operated Thingiverse, the largest online 3D printing community and file repository. In August 2022, the company completed a merger with its long-time competitor Ultimaker. The combined company is known as UltiMaker, but retains the MakerBot name for its Sketch line of education-focused 3D printers.
Defense Distributed is an online, open-source hardware and software organization that develops digital schematics of firearms in CAD files, or "wiki weapons", that may be downloaded from the Internet and used in 3D printing or CNC milling applications. Among the organization's goals is to develop and freely publish firearms-related design schematics that can be downloaded and reproduced by anyone with a 3D printer or milling machine, facilitating the popular production of homemade firearms.
A 3D printed firearm is a firearm that is partially or primarily produced with a 3D printer. While plastic printed firearms are associated with improvised firearms, or the politics of gun control, digitally-produced metal firearms are more associated with commercial manufacturing or experiments in traditional firearms design.
The Cuomo Mag is a 3D printed AR-15 magazine named after the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, who signed the NY SAFE Act into law banning magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. It was created by Defense Distributed and made public around January 2013
The AR Lower V5 is a 3D printed lower receiver for the AR-15 rifle. It was created in March 2013 Defense Distributed printed using the Stratasys Dimension SST 3-D printer using the fused deposition modeling (FDM) method.
The Zig Zag revolver is a 3D-printed .38-caliber pepperbox type revolver made public in May 2014. It was created using a $500 plastic 3D-printer, however the name of the printer was not revealed by the creator. It was created by a Japanese citizen from Kawasaki named Yoshitomo Imura. He was arrested in May 2014 after he had posted a video online of himself firing a 3D-printed Zig Zag revolver. It is the first known 3D-printed gun design from Japan.
The FGC-9 is a physible, 3D-printable semiautomatic pistol caliber carbine, first released in early 2020. Based on the Shuty AP-9 by Derwood, the FGC-9 was designed and first manufactured by a German-Kurdish gun designer named Jacob Duygu, under the pseudonym JStark1809.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 First 3-D printed rifle fires bullet, then breaks, NBC News, July 26, 2013. () Archived 2023-04-09 at the Wayback Machine
- 1 2 3 World's first 3D-printed rifle gets update, fires 14 shots, The Verge, August 4, 2013.()Archived 2023-04-09 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ World's Possibly First 3D-Printed Rifle Is Fired on YouTube, Mashable, August 2013. () Archived 2023-04-11 at the Wayback Machine