A Poetic Journey To Watching A Custom Beretta Shotgun Being Assembled

Craftsman at Beretta gazing upon a piece of burled wood for the buttstock of a custom shotgun

"Human Technology is an artistic short movie celebrating the uniqueness and the distinction of every Beretta premium gun. This movie by Ancarani Studio, under the creative direction of Paola Manfrin, reveals through the minutia of the manufacturing process, the genesis of a luxury Beretta shotgun. A poetic journey through sterile robotic rooms is blended with five centuries of Beretta’s history, culminating in the final assembly by the gunsmith, ever the wise guardian of the art of manufacturing."

Find out more on Beretta Firearms


BERETTA "Human Technology" from Paola Manfrin on Vimeo.

Guitar Strap Giveaway - Target Shooting With A Pistol

Guitar Strap Giveaway - Target Shooting With A Pistol

For a proper introduction to our new line of Guitar Straps featuring the leather of wild hogs, we chose to give the first strap away in this style. Here is our version of the proper way to choose the winner. Thanks to everyone for the reposts, hashtags, links, etc.

$25 Gun Created With Cheap 3D Printer Fires Nine Shots

3D printing is slowly making its way into the mass consumer market and of course with that type of proliferation, all types of new products will be made. Did you ever think guns would be part of those new products? Maybe not, but then again mankind has always been inventing weapons as long as technology continues to advance. I am huge into the concept of 3D printing and this article is a damn great read about a single file that was downloaded over a hundred thousand times for a 3D printed gun.

Check out original post on Forbes

The Lulz Liberator, a working handgun printed on a $1,725 LulzBot 3D printer w/ $25 in plastic. (Credit: Michael Guslick)

"When high tech gunsmith group Defense Distributed test-fired the world’s first fully 3D-printed firearm earlier this month, some critics dismissed the demonstration as expensive and impractical, arguing it could only be done with a high-end industrial 3D printer and that the plastic weapon wouldn’t last more than a single shot. Now a couple of hobbyists have proven them wrong on both counts.

One evening late last week, a Wisconsin engineer who calls himself “Joe” test-fired a new version of that handgun printed on a $1,725 Lulzbot A0-101 consumer-grade 3D printer, far cheaper than the one used by Defense Distributed. Joe, who asked that I not reveal his full name, loaded the weapon with .380 caliber rounds and fired it nine times, using a string to pull its trigger for safety.
The weapon survived all nine shots over the course of an evening, as you can see in the YouTube video below. (The clip was filmed by Michael Guslick, a fellow Wisconsin engineer who helped Joe with his tests and who is known for printing one of the first working lower receivers for AR-15 semi-automatic rifles.)



Joe’s proof-of-concept could raise the stakes another notch in the growing controversy over 3D printed guns, an idea that threatens to circumvent gun control and let anyone download and create a lethal weapon in their garage as easily as they download and print a Word document. The first successfully fired 3D-printed gun that Defense Distributed revealed to Forbes earlier this month, dubbed the Liberator, was printed on an $8,000 secondhand Stratasys Dimension SST printer, a refrigerator-sized industrial machine. In testing, that prototype has generally only been fired once per printed barrel. The gun printed by Joe, which he’s nicknamed the “Lulz Liberator,” was printed over 48 hours with just $25 of plastic on a desktop machine affordable to many consumers, and was fired far more times. “People think this takes an $8,000 machine and that it blows up on the first shot. I want to dispel that,” says Joe. “This does work, and I want that to be known.”

Eight of Joe’s test-fires were performed using a single barrel before swapping it out for a new one on the ninth. After all those shots, the weapon’s main components remained intact–even the spiraled rifling inside of the barrel’s bore. “The only reason we stopped firing is because the sun went down,” he says.

Just how the Lulz Liberator survived those explosions isn’t exactly clear. Joe claims that the plastic he used, the generic Polylac PA-747 ABS fed into most consumer 3D printers, is actually stronger than the more expensive ABS plastic used in a Stratasys printer. In fact, before using a Lulzbot-printed barrel, he and Guslick tested one made on Guslick’s Stratasys printer. That barrel exploded on firing, though Joe blames the problem in part on its having been printed with a smaller chamber, the space at the back of the barrel into which the round is inserted.

Joe’s printed gun contains a few more pieces of metal hardware than the original Liberator. Rather than print plastic pins to hold the hammer in the body, for instance, he used hardware store screws. Like Defense Distributed’s gun, the Lulz Liberator also uses a metal nail for a firing pin, and includes a chunk of non-functional steel designed to make it detectable with a metal detector so that it complies with the Undetectable Firearms Act. The rifling that Joe added to the barrel is designed to skirt the National Firearms Act, which regulates improvised weapons and those with smooth-bored barrels.

Still, Joe’s cheap homemade gun isn’t without its bugs. Over the course of its test firing, Joe and Guslick say it misfired several times, and some of its screws and its firing pin had to be replaced. After each firing, the ammo cartridges expanded enough that they had to be pounded out with a hammer. “Other than that, it’s pretty much confirming that yes, Defense Distributed is correct that this functions,” says Guslick. “And it’s possible to make one on a much lower cost printer.”

The Lulz Liberator's barrel after eight shots.

It’s not yet clear if or when Joe or Guslick plans to release their modified blueprint for the Liberator online. That kind of publication may be legally tricky: When Defense Distributed put its CAD files online earlier this month the State Department responded with a letter demanding that it take the files down until they could be reviewed for export control violations. But that didn’t stop the Liberator files from being downloaded 100,000 times in their first two days online and then spreading further on filesharing websites like the Pirate Bay.

When Defense Distributed founder and anarchist Cody Wilson set out to create the world’s first 3D-printed gun last year, he told me at the time that his focus was on making guns as widely accessible as possible via the Internet, a move he believed would demonstrate governments’ inability to control digital objects. He planned to eventually adapt his model to be printable on a sub-$1,000 printer known as a RepRap. “Anywhere there’s a computer and an Internet connection, there would be the promise of a gun,” Wilson said at the time.

Joe’s experiment brings that idea of a universally-available gun with uncensorable online blueprints one step closer to reality. “I’m trying to do the same thing Cody wants to do. I’m not an anarchist, but I don’t like the idea that the government is telling us ‘You can’t have that,’” he says. “I agree with Cody’s idea that this is a perfect fusion of the first and second amendments.”

Of course, there’s a certain thrill of pioneering a new gun design, too, Joe admits. “I may be the first person in the history of mankind to fire a bullet through a plastic rifled barrel. It’s an interesting feeling,” he says. “I feel like Samuel Colt.”

On May 3, high tech gunsmithing group Defense Distributed gave Forbes a first look at the world's first fully 3D-printed gun, what it called the "Liberator."

These are the gun's sixteen pieces, including plastic spiral springs used in its hammer mechanism and its one non-printed part, a common hardware store nail used as the firing pin.

The CAD file for the gun's body shown on the screen of a Defense Distributed volunteer.

The Stratasys printhead lays down fine layers of ABS plastic to create components like the trigger spring being printed here.

Pepperbox Pistols, The Belgian Hand Cannon

More firepower you say? Well, look no further than the past to understand how this rationale has forever been a part of the mindset of gun aficionado's. The one thing that bugs us though, is how would you ever be able to holster this hand cannon? We dig the ingenuity though and surely many a steampunk lover can get some ideas from this piece of history.

Dig into some more info on all that is Gilles Mariette

More information on all that is hand guns from Genitron

Gilles Mariette pepperbox cluster revolver

Need some fireworks ideas, try out the hand cannons of Gilles Mariette

"Gilles Mariette, an arms manufacturer in Cheratte, Belgium, pateneted the 'cluster revolver (pepperbox) with double action' in 1837. This percussion-era weapon is distinguished by its mutliple rotating barrel design. Its barrels, instead of being bored from a single block, were screwed separately onto individual chambers milled into a rotating breechblock.

Each barrel had four rectangular slots at 90 degree intervals round the muzzle to facilitate its removal with a special key, and each barrel was also numbered, along with each chamber. The cluster of barrels was screwed to a spindle on the standing breech, access to which was gained by way of the space left in the center of the cluster of barrels. Various pepperbox designs had as few as four barrels to as many as eighteen barrels, as shown here.

In most designs the percussion cap nipples were in the same axis as the barrels. This reduced the chances of a misfire and made the arm neat and compact, although in models with larger numbers of barrels some cap nipples had to be offset from their barrels. Pressure on the ring-trigger caused the barrels to rotate, bringing each in turn into line, and also drew back and released the internal hammer, which struck the cap nipple on the lowest barrel.

There are partitions between the nipples, and in addition, a further shield rose as the hammer fell to completely cover the cap being fired. Re-capping was achieved by pressing the trigger sufficiently to allow the barrels to be manually rotated; a small slot was provided in the right-hand side of the frame, allowing the caps to be slid into place."

Even Street Gangs Need Business Cards

Found this random post from a blog called We Are Supervision on old business cards from the 70's and 80's that gangs in Chicago would pass out. Never thought we would see literal calling cards and now all we can think of is the Warriors...

Link to We Are Supervision

"Today, we are pulling out some goodies from the archives for everyone. Every city has its own gang history, part of Chicago's are Gang cards, most prominent in the 70's and early 80's, back in the day when a gang was more of a neighborhood crew then what it is today. Fists, bats, and bottles days, before guns became the norm in the gang. Most of the gangs were just about the neighborhood and hanging out together. Stock art from the printer as well as some hand drawn illustrations were the back bone of many of the cards. Some cards are pretty humorous, with some off the wall illustrations, logos, sayings, and rhymes. They don't make them like they used to..."

We took some inspiration from the original gang cards and did a little round of our own, revamped cards...

Ballistic Shell Flute Pan From Instructables

Necessity is the mother of invention or maybe just idle hands along with spare time and access to a lot of source material gets ideas brewing. Take for example this here pan flute created by Rabidiga over on Instructables. If you have ever blown some air through your gun barrel, most likely you have heard a distinct sound. With a change in pitch, depth and pressure a cacophany of sounds can be heard. Guess what, now you just stumbled into the rudimentary principles of how an air flow music instruments works. Start looking around at other instruments that can be made from objects laying around. 

Check out the build process over on Instructables.com

Need to play some music with your own homemade death whistle?

"Pan Pipe made by scavenging a few bullet casings and random bits of junk to make a musical instrument perfect for the post apocalypse jam session!

I came up with this for a contest being held over at www.wastelandoutpost.com where we were to build a post apocalyptic musical instrument for under thirty dollars. Being the cheapskate I am I made this one from scraps lying around the house, though to buy the stuff new it would still be under $10.

Super easy to make. Took me about an hour even though I am clumsy as hell when it comes to working with wire. Depending on your choice of supplies it could have easily been finished in half the time. And while they don't sound perfect I was able to belt out a killer 'Ode to Joy' even if it was a bit out of tune.

!!!WARNING!!!
It has been brought to my attention by instrucatable member kill-a-watt that some very overly paranoid laws may make this build illegal in a few select places. Known locations so far are - Washington DC and Massachusetts.

Apparently they consider any component of ammunition to be ammunition. For more information check out this blog post http://stuckinmassachusetts.blogspot.com/2010/03/just-for-emphasis.html
Thanks Kill-A-Watt!

Step 1 Supplies

Supplies needed to make ballistic pan flute

Spent casings ready to re-purposed

Things you will need-

Bullets of different length, As many as you can find, in general the longer the bullet the deeper the note. Also only bullets that get smaller at the tip make a noise, the casings that are open the entire length just make a whoosh sound.

TIP: Find a shooting range near you. People just leave their spent shells on the  ground, you will find hundreds of them for free. Wash them though.

2 Rods. These rods will vary in length depending on how many bullet shells you find. Line up your casings as you want them to end up and measure out your rods giving a few inches extra for the ends. These rods can be anything stiff, Coat hangers, nails, bolts, a pen, a stick, a fork... I used a couple of all thread bolts because I had them lying around and the wire held in place against the bolt threads as I worked with it.

Wire or other Binding Material. you need something to bind the bullets to the rods. I used beading wire I stole from my wife but you can use anything from string to electrical tape.

Pliers / wire cutters. You only need these if you are using wire. Mostly you just need the wire cutter aspect but the pliers can be handy for cinching that last little bit of the wire or if your bullet casings are bent you can gently squeeze them back into shape.

Step 2 Attach a Bullet

Attaching the bullet to the bolt with some wire

One batch of bullets attached with wire to the bolt

This is the part that takes some patience and a touch of dexterity. If you need to cheat use super glue and then come back later. Even without the super glue though the wire will be plenty to hold them in place (I didn't use glue).

First cut a length of wire about 20-30 inches long (eyeball it). Then place your bullet casing against your rod and start looping the wire around both pieces in a crisscross pattern. If you are going for the 'rough' look like mine then don't worry about being perfect. Once you have enough loops around it twist the two ends together like a twist tie on a loaf of bread. If you want you can use wire cutters to snip off the extra, I left mine on trying to get a barbed wire look.

Go down the entire rod adding all of your casings. Make sure you leave enough room between them, too close together and you will be hitting two notes at once when you play. I found about 1/2 an inch was plenty, or about the width of another casing.

Step 3 Bottom Row

Bottom bolt now attached to the bullets to complete the pan flute

Now that your top row is all attached you need to add the bottom row

"But Iga, WHY do we need a bottom row? They are all held in place already.."

Good question! If you only have 1 rod the bullets casings are going to swivel freely around the rod, making it so that you can't blow evenly across them all. The second rod puts them all evenly up and down.

Now when attaching the bottom rod you will use the same technique as the first. But make sure to attach the two outer casings first, this will lock in the rod and make it worlds easier to attach all the middle bullets.

Once they are all tied on you can now tweak each bullet moving them up and down until they are relatively strait along the tops. This makes it easier to find the holes as you play, they don't have to be perfect but as long as they aren't all over the place it will work fine.

Tip 1- Now you can add a dab of superglue down between the casing and the rod. This will help keep them from moving around on you later. They do slide up and down still and could potentially fall out if you drop it.

Tip 2- I suppose if you really want you could fine tune the sounds by dropping tiny amounts of craft glue into the bullets. Try not to hit the wall of the casing, you want it to pool at the bottom. This in effect makes the chamber of the casing shorter, giving it a higher pitch. It's like a soda bottle, the more liquid you have in it the higher the note.

Congratulations, you now have a ballistic pan flute!

Step 4 Playing your flute

The best way I can describe it is like blowing across the top of a bottle.

Pucker your lips like you are going to whistle (don't whistle though) and gently blow across the holes, not into them. A little bit of experimentation and you will be a virtuoso of the pan pipes"

The .700 WTF : For Hunting Dinosaurs From The Firearms Blog

So you have hatched a plan to go out and hunt wabbits. Those pesky furry varmints that are only cute around easter, continue to raid your garden and you can only imagine taking out their population in one fell swoop of manliness. Well compadres, we have found the shoulder cannon just for you. This gun also doubles as a dinosaur hunter if you choose to turn on ye ol' time machine and go back a few million years for T-Rex sushi.

Link to post on the Firearms Blog

"A member of the Cast Boolits forums posted photos and video of a rifle and .700 caliber cartridge he designed. The only component he did not make himself was the barrel.

The tools of the trade in firing a .700 WTF cartridge and 1132 grain bullet

The cartridge, named the .700 WTF ("What The F...") and is made by fire forming a .50 BMG brass case, trimming it to 3" in length and then sizing it. The round is loaded with a 1132 grain paper patched .700 lead cast bullet.

The rifle, with just a 16.25" barrel, can push the 1132 grain of lead up to 2300 fps. Thats 13,000 ft/lbs of energy, right up there with the .50 BMG and far exceeding the .700 Nitro Express. The cast lead bullet has enough energy to pass clean through a 1/4" steel plate.

Look at the size of that casing and bullet compared to the revolver

The rifle uses a shell-holder style action. My understanding is that the difference between a shell holder and a bolt action is that a shell holder lacks an automatic ejector and must be entirely removed from the action in order to load a new cartridge. Note how in the video below the shell holder, holding the cartridge, it loaded into he rifle.

the .700 WTF Caliber bullet and rifle even comes in camo

The rifle is accessorized with a Magpul pistol grip (probably the largest caliber gun to ever be fitted with a Magpul accessory), a Limbsaver recoil pad and a Aimpoint comp M4.

Need a scope to pick off tanks and small dinosaurs at a couple hundred yards?

Juding by the video case extraction is tough. If you miss your shot at a charging
Rhino

T-Rex, you need to be able to reload quickly.

UPDATE: The inventor believes the rifle is not classified by the BATFE as a destructive because it is a sporting weapon. There is sporting weapons, such as shotguns and big bore double rifles, are exempt, the usual procedure it to obtain a letter from the BATFE stating that the particular weapon is a sporting weapon."