

Making an Untraceable AR-15 ‘Ghost Gun’ - uptown
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/i-made-an-untraceable-ar-15-ghost-gun/

======
ChuckMcM
As others have mentioned this isn't particularly newsworthy, you've been able
to make guns at home since forever. Its a rifle of course, and rifle
ammunition you can't make at home, but as others have mentioned you can make
black powder weapons in a completely untraceable way (from making your own
black powder, to casting your own lead ball shot) but we're not worried about
a bunch of home hobbiests fielding a Napoleonic infantry. They don't mention
how you can make a gun out of a stuff you can buy past security at an airport
[1].

Its just click bate. Next up, 'I made an untraceable battle tank at home with
some steel pipe and an arc welder!'

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsem22DkIjw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsem22DkIjw)

~~~
urda
> and rifle ammunition you can't make at home

You can absolutely make rifle ammunition at home.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handloading](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handloading)

~~~
ChuckMcM
I was focused more on the 'making' rather than the assembling. I've reloaded
shotgun shells for a long time for example, and pistol rounds. However I've
always purchased the powder, balls (bullet ends), and primers.

Of the three, primers are particularly challenging (certainly for reliability)
but making a good, high performance, smokeless gunpowder is not just a simple
"mix and hope its good" kind of thing.

It should not be surprising that developing the capability to make high
performance weapons "off grid" as it were is fairly actively tracked (which I
discovered when ordering chemicals from Aldritch one time and getting a call
back from them to fill out some government paperwork before it could proceed)

~~~
hga
From reading about how Lake City does it, I got the strong impression that
making reliable, military grade primers was pretty easy, albeit with access to
the right chemicals. And there are several generations of chemicals that can
be used, e.g. from corrosive to the newest lead free formulations.

On the other hand, I'll point out that single base smokeless powder is made
from nitrocellulose (the explosive also known as guncotton), and double base
adds nitroglycerin to the fun.

------
vdnkh
_My editor, Joe Brown, who came into the room to watch the machine at work,
remains convinced the machine was programmed to play a piece of composed
music._

A bit off topic, but there exists a program [0] which generates instructions
from a MIDI file to play music with a CNC/3Dprinters steppers. Here's a 3d
printer playing the Ressikan Flute song from TNG:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81WLqN3q7M0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81WLqN3q7M0)

[0] [https://github.com/michthom/MIDI-to-
CNC](https://github.com/michthom/MIDI-to-CNC)

~~~
a3n
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4OV2UofPFg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4OV2UofPFg)

Aperture Science logo being laser cut at periods and frequencies that play the
Still Alive end song.

------
brixon
Nothing illegal about making your own gun. You cannot pay someone else to do
the work for you, it has to be done by you. You can never sell the gun since
only licensed guns are allowed to be sold.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Actually, that's not exactly true.

You cannot legally manufacture a firearm intended for sale without having an
appropriate FFL (and ITAR certification, etc.)

You can absolutely manufacture a firearm for your own use, and then at a later
date, sell that firearm.

~~~
pliftkl
Small clarification - I don't think you can sell it to an FFL or through an
FFL. I think you'd be able to sell it directly to another person, but there's
no mechanism to have it go through the NICS system (which requires a
manufacturer and serial number).

~~~
joshuapants
Guns made before the serial number requirement can still be sold through FFLs,
I see no reason why this would be different as long as everything else is
legally up-to-snuff.

------
rilita
It's hardly untraceable. There are only 1000 ghost gunner mills in the
country. It is feasible that they are all being tracked by the USPS. Fedex and
UPS refuse to mail them... That means the government likely knows where each
was sent, and has a name too to go with the location.

There is a paper trail associated with being able to receive such a heavy
thing in the mail ( you'd have to send it to a location you control / own /
rent etc )

Suppose you buy the machine, build your own gun, use it for some bad purpose.
If the gun was ever found, it could likely be traced back to you. How many
people have guns created with the ghost gunner machine? Not many. Can you tell
a ghost gunner cut lower from other methods? Yes.

The whole thing is just a publicity stunt. When there is a local shop in a
major city where I can go in and rent a ghost gunner machine for a day, in
cash, providing nothing but a large deposit to guarantee I bring it back, then
and only then can such things really be untraceable.

~~~
lmm
> When there is a local shop in a major city where I can go in and rent a
> ghost gunner machine for a day, in cash, providing nothing but a large
> deposit to guarantee I bring it back, then and only then can such things
> really be untraceable.

Wired has the machine, they could start running such a service tomorrow if
they wanted to. I don't see any substantial barriers to it.

~~~
rilita
Seems kind of doubtful they would be willing. The way his description reads
it's like he is nervous that he created a gun. Why not keep it? He owned it...
just lock it up?

Plus that is in San Francisco. I live on the opposite coast. I won't be over
there for a while.

I was searching online to see if renting one of these things is legal. I found
at least one person stating that it has been said officially by the feds that
renting one of these would be considering "manufacturing". I can't see how,
but that is what was said.

I doubt Wired wants to get into the middle of that. Perhaps the NRA might, or
the ACLU, but not Wired.

Really both the NRA and ACLU should both buy like 50 of these things and rent
them out. That would be interesting.

------
lmm
Calling the company kind of ruins the symmetry of the experiment. If he'd been
willing to call a makerbot expert - or someone who passed high-school shop
class - who's to say his other two efforts couldn't've been made into
something usable?

~~~
hga
Or just practice with one of these first:
[http://www.80percentarms.com/products/0-billet-
ar-15-lower-r...](http://www.80percentarms.com/products/0-billet-ar-15-lower-
receiver) ^_^ ("0% BILLET AR-15 LOWER RECEIVER").

Or scrap aluminum, this sort of thing really isn't that hard if you've got
some manual dexterity, but, well, that's why the classic first wood shop
project is something like a bread board.

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erikb
Maybe I'm too "linuxy" but I think if there's a method to do it yourself by
learning a skill then that should be the preferred way to do it. Having a
machine instead of a skill is a way for lazy people (my subjective opinion)
and never works as well as having acquired the corresponding skill.

edit: And the gun wasn't made in his office. Only one part was made there. The
assembly of the gun was done in a shop of a professional gunsmith.

~~~
jokr004
"I'm too "linuxy"" .. "Having a machine instead of a skill is a way for lazy
people"

There's a good balance between skill and technology, otherwise I might tell
you to just throw away your computer. And for the record, operating a CNC mill
still takes a good bit of skill.

~~~
erikb
You mean the machine to manually carve holes into that metal? Yes, that needs
skill. But I mean the machine that does the carving for you. As far as I've
understood you put that 80% thing into it and then it does the job for you
while you eat a sandwich. That's where people start to think that they don't
have a problem instead of learning to handle it.

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jacknews
Guns need bullets.

I really can't see the controversy with 3d printed, or untraceable guns. Just
regulate, and mark with ID, the bullets. Or if that starts being circumvented
with diy bullets, control the propellant, and mark it with isotopes or
whatever.

Very few people have a legitimate use for explosives, it should be easy to
control, along with the obvious "possesion of unregistered firearm, or of an
unlicensed design, or using homebrew propellant" laws.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Politics on this issue aside, think this through for a moment.

Would you care to share how you'd like to individually code the more than
10,000,000,000 rounds of ammunition in manufactured each year in the US, in a
manner not easily defeated, on a surface that is launched at ~1,000 feet per
second and is literally designed to deform as much as possible upon impact?

~~~
protomyth
Sadly, individually coding things that shouldn't be individually coded no
matter how foolish is not out of the realm possibility for our government. I
point you to labeling of biodiesel
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Identification_Number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Identification_Number)

I do agree with you, it is impractical and non-effective.

------
yellowapple
Has there been any success in 3D-printing a template lower receiver and
turning it into a mold for casting metal receivers? To me, that seems like the
next logical step here.

~~~
15155
Lost-PLA casting could probably be pretty feasible with the geometry of an AR
lower.

Pretty neat stuff.

