Luigi Mangione shouts a message to the American people on his way to court:
“This is completely unjust and an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience.”
Luigi Mangione shouts a message to the American people on his way to court:
“This is completely unjust and an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience.”
That wasn’t a 3D printed silencer in the video.
If it was, that material is way stronger than anything I’ve worked with.
Nowadays, you can print guns out of basic PLA. At least in .22 caliber, I don’t know about anything larger, though I do know 3d printed Glock frames are definitely a thing. A 3d printed suppressor is definitely feasible, as I’ve seen at least 1 design for PETG.
Now, as to whether or not that’s what can be seen in the video? Who knows. I certainly can’t tell.
So I’m not into firearms. Guns aren’t reaaally my thing. However, I imagine with quality material you need a larger silencer for a larger caliber, or a modified design to rapidly reduce pressure. It stands to reason then that with a design less capable of withstanding that pressure, you must then compensate with a larger design even at lower calibers. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, though this then stands to reason that even a .22 would need a much larger design, or a modified design which would by nature increase noise via gas release.
That said, a silencer doesn’t silence, it reduces. If he was as prepared as we think he was, he’d know that.
AFAIK, a silencer is essentially a double-walled tin-can filled with some form of metal mesh or other way to divert and slow down the gases (like baffles or valves) between the walls and holes to allow gas into that space.
I think you’re right on needing a larger design, as I remember the one I saw had pretty thick walls and was a single piece design meant for printing in PETG, but I think heat is more of a concern rather than pressure, because you still want the gas to exit the front of the gun, you just want it to take longer to do so by traveling through more space before exiting the barrel. The one I saw looked larger than what I would expect a silencer to be, but probably only by about 50%, and I believe it was designed for an AR-15, which is usually chambered in 5.56, which is a projectile that’s just a tiny bit wider than a .22, but has more gunpowder in a longer casing for a faster projectile. I believe the Mythbusters back in the day did an episode where they proved that even something like a potato or a pillow does work as a silencer for a pistol, if only for one shot.
I believe that glocks are usually chambered for 9mm, which is a bigger bullet but has a comparatively small amount of gunpowder for the size, and if he was using subsonic ammo, that would reduce the gunpowder even more. If that’s what he was using, it would stand to reason that he wouldn’t need as sturdy a silencer for the gun (and would also explain why he had to manually cycle the gun after each shot as there probably wasn’t enough pressure to fully cycle the gun normally). But it’s all conjecture anyway on whether or not he actually 3d printed a silencer because it’s too hard to tell from the footage that we have without knowing specific 3d printed silencer designs that it could be.