• Boozilla@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Dumb question: how do the Europeans get ammo for these 3d-printed guns? Isn’t ammunition also tightly controlled / regulated over there?

    • 11111one11111@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      No clue to the answer to your question but it’s not difficult to load your own ammunition. Gun powder, shells and slugs aren’t usually as heavily regulated in the US I’d assume to some degree that’d be true elsewhere. Can prolly buy it off eBay or craigslist if you really looked.

      Then it’s just a matter of measuring and packing it all into a single bullet with a special fitted hand press. Super tedious and time consuming but easy to do. Wanna say old timers did it back when it was cheaper but the only people I know who still do it do it to controll their ammo consistency for either competition shooting or rifle hunting.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        eBay does not allow the selling of ammunition components, but you can buy some gun parts. I can’t say for certain, but I strongly suspect that powder, brass, primers, and projectiles are all tightly regulated in countries that have strict firearm regulations.

        Reloading isn’t particularly tedious unless you’re using a single-stage press. A progressive press moves things along pretty well; once I have my brass prepped (cleaned, sized, trimmed, crimps removed, etc.), I can usually load 100 rounds in 15 minutes or so. Pistol ammo is faster, since I don’t have to spend as much time worrying about trimming or removing primer crimps; it’s just clean and go (decapping/sizing is the first station in the progressive press). Does it save money? Absolutely. I’ll save about $.01-.02/bullet on 9mm, and about $.1/bullet on 5.56x45mm. BUT I’ve spent well over $1000 on reloading equipment (!!!), which means that I’d need to reload 10k 5.56x45mm bullets to break even.