[quote]Sifu wrote:
Prohibition caused gangsters to resort to using military grade hardware like Tommy guns against each other.
It is important to note that before prohibition people weren’t using machine guns to do drive by shootings. It wasn’t a problem with the weaponry itself but was a consequence of prohibition.
It is the exact same situation that we face today. Much of Americas violent crime today is a direct consequence of Americas war on drugs. [/quote]
Excellent post.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
Sifu wrote:
Prohibition caused gangsters to resort to using military grade hardware like Tommy guns against each other.
It is important to note that before prohibition people weren’t using machine guns to do drive by shootings. It wasn’t a problem with the weaponry itself but was a consequence of prohibition.
It is the exact same situation that we face today. Much of Americas violent crime today is a direct consequence of Americas war on drugs.
Excellent post.[/quote]
If not entirely forthcoming. The Tommy Gun was the first submachine gun to be employed by the U.S. military, so it’s not like we had a half-century of hand held machine guns and then all of the sudden they started showing up on the street.
Moreover, it’s not like the gangsters were using the Tommy Guns to fight soldiers and represent the people against an oppressive police force.
On top of that, when murdering other gangsters and civilians in broad daylight with illegal weapons I think the last thing going through a gangster’s mind is/was ‘Damn, if only drugs were legal, I wouldn’t have to spray bullets like this!’ Especially when they steal the victim’s shoes immediately afterward.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Prohibition caused gangsters to resort to using military grade hardware like Tommy guns against each other.
It is important to note that before prohibition people weren’t using machine guns to do drive by shootings. It wasn’t a problem with the weaponry itself but was a consequence of prohibition.
It is the exact same situation that we face today. Much of Americas violent crime today is a direct consequence of Americas war on drugs. [/quote]
I would say Prohibition helped create the gangs. Lack of cooperation and organization caused the gangs to resort to violence. While wholesale slayings with automatic weapons were high profile, most of the violence took place execution style.
The Firearms Act of 1934 did little to reduce the violence. The formation of the national crime syndicate in the 1930s did more to stem the violence than federal law.
Hence my post. America looks violent because of all the gun violence. What is not understood is fighting over drug turf and the high price of drugs is what is causing people to resort to using guns.
Part of the reason why people don’t see the war on drugs as the cause is other contries have prohibitions also. The dynamic in America that makes it so violent is America is a wealthy country that can afford to waste vast amounts of money on the drug war policy of interdiction. But America also has a large population of poor who see dealing and using drugs as an escape from the poverty and misery of the ghetto.
Americas problem is self made. It is government policy that has put the people into conflict with one another.
Ok. I’ve been looking into this some more and I’ve read that milling operations can be done on a lathe. Is that true, Sifu? For the purposes of keeping things simple, I’d like to minimize the number of machines I own.
Also, I’ve been reading that revolver cylinders are made using hammer forging and subsequent heat treating. Do you have any info on how this was done in the past?
[quote]Makavali wrote:
I note that America also has the highest rate of death by gun in the world. Surely taking them out of the equation or at least making them hard to get would help this. I dunno, maybe it’s because I’m from NZ, but I’ve never met anyone that owns a gun (outside of a hunting rifle, or BB Gun).
Difference of culture, I guess.[/quote]
Is death by gun worse than death by knife, baseball bat, or any other weapon of choice?
[quote]dhickey wrote:
Is death by gun worse than death by knife, baseball bat, or any other weapon of choice?[/quote]
Where are you being shot? I’ve been stabbed, and while it’s not pleasant, I’d prefer it to being shot (which I have been, yay hunting!)
[quote]Makavali wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Is death by gun worse than death by knife, baseball bat, or any other weapon of choice?
Where are you being shot? I’ve been stabbed, and while it’s not pleasant, I’d prefer it to being shot (which I have been, yay hunting!)[/quote]
You aren’t friends with Dick Cheney by any chance are you?
This is a pretty interesting thread. I own plenty of guns and don’t have to worry about making my own since I wouldn’t give up the ones I have, but it seems like it’d be worthwhile to make your own gun just for the cool factor.
I mean, why work on a beater car? Why build your own house? I have never built my own gun, but I have put an AR together from a parts kit and converted my Saiga-308 AK to a pistol grip and it helped me really understand how my rifle works. That seems reason enough to build your own.
mike
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
This is a pretty interesting thread. I own plenty of guns and don’t have to worry about making my own since I wouldn’t give up the ones I have, but it seems like it’d be worthwhile to make your own gun just for the cool factor.
I mean, why work on a beater car? Why build your own house? I have never built my own gun, but I have put an AR together from a parts kit and converted my Saiga-308 AK to a pistol grip and it helped me really understand how my rifle works. That seems reason enough to build your own.
mike[/quote]
The thing holding me back is the $2k for a mill, lathe and tooling. But I want to make a hybrid FAL/AR-180 and a revolver. Both would have great utility.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
You aren’t friends with Dick Cheney by any chance are you?[/quote]
I lol’d!
Nah, it was actually an accident.
I’m pretty sure that carbon-fiber layup and vacuum bagging techniques could be used to build a reliable AR-15 lower:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8801536764731290932
The thing to do would be to first try to make one out of 6 oz fiberglass cloth and a fast epoxy (Resin Research or West System). I think a mold could be constructed by cutting out some PVC or PU foam and coating it with something slick followed by mold release wax. The lower could then be made in 2 parts by laying up the wet fiber glass onto the mold and vacuum bagging the first half, and then the other. The entire thing could then be epoxied together. It appears the carbon fiber lowers are becoming more common and don’t look that tough to make at home, as long as one is willing to build oneself a vacuum pump assembly ($300):
I didn’t read the whole thread, so excuse me if I’m repeating.
You don’t have to make a whole gun from scratch. The only part that counts as a gun is the receiver (in most cases). So you can buy barrels, slides, magazines, etc. So in the case of a 1911, you buy an 80% finished receiver, which does not count as a firearm, and all the other parts. When you finish the receiver (rails, ejector, etc) and all of the fitting, it will be considered a gun. This would be much easier than building a sheet metal gun. It requires no FFL to order any parts.
The same can be done with ARs, or I recently saw an M1919 for $300 minus the side plate (no FFL required).
[quote]johnnytang24 wrote:
I didn’t read the whole thread, so excuse me if I’m repeating.
You don’t have to make a whole gun from scratch. The only part that counts as a gun is the receiver (in most cases). So you can buy barrels, slides, magazines, etc. So in the case of a 1911, you buy an 80% finished receiver, which does not count as a firearm, and all the other parts. When you finish the receiver (rails, ejector, etc) and all of the fitting, it will be considered a gun. This would be much easier than building a sheet metal gun. It requires no FFL to order any parts.
The same can be done with ARs, or I recently saw an M1919 for $300 minus the side plate (no FFL required). [/quote]
That is an interesting train of thought and I´d like you to elaborate.
If you happened to live in a country were most discrete firearms were sort of banned and you just happened to want to own a derringer or two, just in case, how would you do that?
[quote]orion wrote:
johnnytang24 wrote:
I didn’t read the whole thread, so excuse me if I’m repeating.
You don’t have to make a whole gun from scratch. The only part that counts as a gun is the receiver (in most cases). So you can buy barrels, slides, magazines, etc. So in the case of a 1911, you buy an 80% finished receiver, which does not count as a firearm, and all the other parts. When you finish the receiver (rails, ejector, etc) and all of the fitting, it will be considered a gun. This would be much easier than building a sheet metal gun. It requires no FFL to order any parts.
The same can be done with ARs, or I recently saw an M1919 for $300 minus the side plate (no FFL required).
That is an interesting train of thought and I´d like you to elaborate.
If you happened to live in a country were most discrete firearms were sort of banned and you just happened to want to own a derringer or two, just in case, how would you do that?
[/quote]
Read my last post.
Also, visit this site:
Making barrels is the hardest part.
[quote]johnnytang24 wrote:
I didn’t read the whole thread, so excuse me if I’m repeating.
You don’t have to make a whole gun from scratch. The only part that counts as a gun is the receiver (in most cases). So you can buy barrels, slides, magazines, etc. So in the case of a 1911, you buy an 80% finished receiver, which does not count as a firearm, and all the other parts. When you finish the receiver (rails, ejector, etc) and all of the fitting, it will be considered a gun. This would be much easier than building a sheet metal gun. It requires no FFL to order any parts.
The same can be done with ARs, or I recently saw an M1919 for $300 minus the side plate (no FFL required). [/quote]
I’m aware of all this. This thread is required in the case that liberals get their way with the 2nd amendment, which shouldn’t be long.
Anyways, this carbon fiber stuff is pretty much the way to go for someone without a mill and lathe (barrel excluded). Does anyone know anything about injection molding carbon fiber?
Better, in my estimation, to invest in a really good rifle, a really good pistol, spare parts for each, and all the equipment and supplies for manufacturing your own ammunition.
High-quality firearms last forever, if properly maintained. Semi-automatic models do tend to show their age after several decades, but even rack-grade Garands and Colt 1911s made in the 1940s will still do anything required of them today.
The problem is ammunition supply. In the event of a complete meltdown of society, or a complete ban on private ownership of firearms, I envision that guns will be widely (if illegally) available, but ammunition will be extremely hard to come by.
This is especially true of a cartridge like 7.62 NATO, which is going to be scarfed up by the military and police.
Therefore, a good multi-stage rotary press from Dillon or Hornady, all of the dies for your pistol and rifle cartridges, and an ample supply of primers and powder seems high up on the desiderata scale.
You can re-use your own brass, although the extraction and ejection cycles on most self-loading weapons do a number on fired brass, reducing their effective life.
The bright side is, if you’re lucky you may find brass on the ground after “incidents” between military/police units and “insurgents”. If you’re really lucky, you may be able to scrounge ammo off the dead.
Most of it will likely be 5.56, but not all.
In any event, my advice remains. Guns will be relatively easy to procure even when they are completely banned. Ammunition, however, will not be. Get your guns now, stock up on ammo, and prepare to roll your own.
[quote]orion wrote:
johnnytang24 wrote:
I didn’t read the whole thread, so excuse me if I’m repeating.
You don’t have to make a whole gun from scratch. The only part that counts as a gun is the receiver (in most cases). So you can buy barrels, slides, magazines, etc. So in the case of a 1911, you buy an 80% finished receiver, which does not count as a firearm, and all the other parts. When you finish the receiver (rails, ejector, etc) and all of the fitting, it will be considered a gun. This would be much easier than building a sheet metal gun. It requires no FFL to order any parts.
The same can be done with ARs, or I recently saw an M1919 for $300 minus the side plate (no FFL required).
That is an interesting train of thought and I´d like you to elaborate.
If you happened to live in a country were most discrete firearms were sort of banned and you just happened to want to own a derringer or two, just in case, how would you do that?
[/quote]
I don’t know anything about the laws in other countries, so I don’t know if they do the 80% thing or not. If not, then even an 80% finished receiver might be too much.
As far as Derringers go, I think they would be more difficult, being that the receiver is most of the gun, whereas something like the 1911, the receiver is much less. An 80% finished reciever is still just a hunk of metal, and if I had to guess, it may be less than 80% in some countries, and in even more restrictive places, even parts such as barrels would be banned. If I were going to try to build one, I’d look at the law on what constitutes being a ‘firearm’, and at what point in the process. Surely not any hardened metal tube is a barrel? It wouldn’t need rifling. How about the slide? At what point is a rectangular piece of metal considered a slide?
I think more difficult than the firearm would be the ammo. I’m sure empty shells aren’t illegal, and bullets are easy to cast, but what about primers and powder? I imagine those would have to be smuggled. I suppose black powder (not the same as modern smokeless powder) could be made. Black powder might even make your cases last longer. Primers might also be made using fireworks or something, but they would probably be highly unreliable.
I’m a little late to the party here, but revisiting this off-topic post, I don’t think the point was necessarily what guns the bad guys were using, nor their philosophical ideas on their weapons.
The point is that by making things like alcohol and drugs illegal, it increases the prices of those things, thereby making them profitable for criminals as well as making poor addicts willing to commit crimes to meet the higher prices.
If politicians showed up on TV and said “we have designed a federal program to spend $4 billion a year in taxpayer dollars to raise crime and murder rates, as well as fill our jails, which will increase the taxpayer cost even more”, those politicians would be out on their ass.
But that’s exactly what the “war on drugs” is. Are drugs bad for people? Generally, yes. But the solution has destroyed far, far, far more lives.
[quote]lucasa wrote:
If not entirely forthcoming. The Tommy Gun was the first submachine gun to be employed by the U.S. military, so it’s not like we had a half-century of hand held machine guns and then all of the sudden they started showing up on the street.
Moreover, it’s not like the gangsters were using the Tommy Guns to fight soldiers and represent the people against an oppressive police force.
On top of that, when murdering other gangsters and civilians in broad daylight with illegal weapons I think the last thing going through a gangster’s mind is/was ‘Damn, if only drugs were legal, I wouldn’t have to spray bullets like this!’ Especially when they steal the victim’s shoes immediately afterward.[/quote]
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Most of it will likely be 5.56, but not all.
[/quote]
This is why, although I will readily concede the superiority of the 7.62x51 I still will field an AR before an M1A, FAL, ect.
mike