#Printing

Welcome back to another edition of Concealed Carry Corner. Last week, we talked about how handgun size can affect your overall carrying experience. If you happened to miss that article, don’t worry, since I’ve left a link to that article here. This week, I want to address some common perceptions I see in the gun community that may not always be true. Whether it’s worrying about printing or not carrying enough stuff, there are plenty of things that people have various perceptions of that may not be true. Let’s take a closer look at what some carry topics that are perception vs reality.

I have made many, many mistakes in my life. Some are hysterical to look back on and make for great stories. Some cause me to physically cringe as I’m falling asleep and will remain unspoken until the day I die. Or get sufficiently drunk. Anyway. The point is, you are supposed to learn from your mistakes. But you should also learn from other people’s mistakes whenever you can. That way, you don’t have to make the same mistakes as them. Instead, you can create brand new mistakes that are all your own. With that philosophy in mind, here are the top 5 mistakes I personally made while concealed carrying.

While at the Cody Firearms Museum symposium Arsenals of History, an interesting thought experiment was brought up after a presentation by Scott Gausen, of the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, on 3D printing and scanning in museums. While discussing this, several of us threw out a thought experiment that would be a radical change to how we view firearms images and especially reference images.

Canton Ohio custom gunmaker Middlebranch Machine has released a teaser image of a new kind of suppressor, which they say is made of “carbon fiber composite” construction. Unlike previous efforts at making carbon fiber suppressors, Middlebranch Machine’s design does not seem to use a straight carbon-fiber tubing body, but appears to be 3D printed, instead. This is strongly suggested by the background of the image which shows a customized Glock with a unique looking suppressor in front of what is probably a Markforged Mark Two carbon fiber 3D printer. Mark Twos are some of the only carbon fiber 3D printing machines in the world.

Full Conceal is now shipping their Glock 19 folding pistol conversion called M3. The folding mechanism allows having a more compact carry package which in a matter of seconds unfolds and becomes a Glock 19 with a 21-round magazine. The reason why they advertise it with the 22-round capacity (21 round mag plus one in the chamber) is that the 21-round magazine most efficiently fits the slide length neither sticking out nor coming short of the overall length of the folded gun. The M3 pistol is available for purchase on Full Conceal’s website for $1,399 (the price includes one Magpul 21-round magazine).

Sintercore LLC have developed a range of muzzle brakes that I believe are the first commercially produced gun parts to be manufactured using a 3D printer. The printing technology they are using is Direct Metal Laser Sintering. DMLS makes objects by using a high powered laser to melt metallic powder, building up the object one layer at a time. The end result is supposed to be very durable. The advantage of this system is that intricate parts can easily be made.

Reporters from an Israeli news program entered the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, twice with a 3D printed pistol based on DefCad’s Liberator design. Haaretz.co.il reports (click through to watch the video) …

Redditor Halvors7 has published the printable parts to build his FN P90-inspired Charon AR-15 lower. The Charon features an integrated buttstock, handgrip and trigger guard. The stock is fixed but can be adjusted for length-of-pull by using spacers. The lower even supports a number of P90 style foregrips!

Forbes has published an article about some of the modifications and upgrades that the 3D printing community have made to the open source DefCad Liberator Pistol. Andy Greenberg writes …

Stratasys Inc. confiscated the 3D printer they leased to Cody Wilson, the law student behind the Wiki Weapon project. Slate reports …