Apparently a $200 printer is perfectly sufficient, as well. Lost sight of this stuff for a long while and was fairly impressed to catch wind of it again.
The question is what can actually be produced with that $200 printer and are the parts makes a sufficient quality to substitute for conventional components, particularly the areas that see a lot of stress like barrels, gas blocks etc…
There are different kinds. Most common right now are 3d printed frames with untracked parts kits to finish the guns. Ie real metal barrels/springs/rails/fire control groups. All the REALLY stressed or super precise parts are often bought and everything else can be printed.
The commmunity is currently working on perfecting a (already proven) method for at home electrochemical machining of rifled barrels out of cheap already hardened (normally pain in the ass to machine) metal. just need a ~$50-90 in equipment (a bench power supply) and the metal is around $10 for enough for about 2 attempts.
currently the one thats most popular is mostly printed(FGC9) , with the ecm barrel, half an AK spring, and the fcg of an AR15. None of which requires any sort of background check (or check at all) to obtain.
The reliability isn’t as many rounds as a traditional counterpart (1000 instead of 10000) before some plastic parts start failing.
Its rare to need to put more than 1000 rounds through a gun before you teardown and rebuild it. And any plastic parts can just be reprinted for pennies.
