TFB TV "We Made a "0%" Chassis-Based Glock"

I'm glad they brought up 10mm. That's the direction I lean. Once they get their stuff straight for 10mm, I may have to start digging Into this more.
 
This product is still evolving GG3 recently came out now there’s a GG3S, the older models are obsolete already. Big ticket paperweight. I think it’s still to early to get one.
The chassis is very nice however, still need a decent high temp 3D printer to make a strong frame. All of this tooling = cost prohibitive highly expensive firearm.
 
One thing I do like is the idea of a Glock chassis. Very good idea. Takes the stress off the plastic and puts it on the metal. This pistol should last forever without fatigue damage, though I would think about making it in steel and heat treating it to give the rails surface hardness. Long term, this is the way to make one.

Maybe a future project for me. No, I'm not going to buy a GG3.... but I've thought about adding a CNC controller to my own mill. There are open-source arduino based controllers out there, just a matter of dedicating the time to get up the learning curve.
 
I haven't delved too much into the Sig 320 80% FCU. I admit the chasis concept is an interesting idea and I can see some benefit of an integrated front/rear rail system. It is still all attached to a frame at some point though, so is it truly that much "stronger" than the current split front/rear design we have?

I guess it feel like it is also more dangerous water as if we pull in this direction then with a stroke of a pen the ATF could call the rails (i.e. current rails) the regulated firearm which would open up a different can of worms. I like the hobby. I spent quite a bit on a 5D tactical jig for the AR builds. Can't see spending 5x to 6x or more on a CNC machine unless I planned to build things for sale. Definitely wouldn't consider a costly CNC machine that gets versioned out frequently. I could see pursuing something like @clm2112 refers to with a more open sourced controller. Though I don't have a mill either ;)
 
Hmmm.... I don't see that as a "0%" Glock frame. It's a chassis that has to be fitted into a frame that you'll have to buy or print. So, I don't see the advantages of it.

Talk to me when we can take a billet of polymer or metal and mill it into a Glock-compatible receiver that only needs the parts (like a P80 frame).
 
The strength comes from how much surface area you can spread the force over.

In a P80 or a normal Glock, all the force of firing the pistol concentrated on the plastic that surrounds the front rails, take-down catch, and the front pin(s). The G0 "chassis" spreads the forces out to several places on the plastic grip with a much larger surface area. That addresses some of the areas that normally break on a 3D printed Glock in use.

I'm not keen on the Ghost Gunner hardware. Looks kinda cheap, and I see they had to reinforce it as a retrofit kit to handle cutting steel, which kinda tells me the machine is flimsy to start with. The table area is also kinda small, and they are dealing with chip removal by running the cutter sideways and blowing air into the cut with a fan. But it was intended to for people who probably read the "Sharper Image" catalog from cover to cover.

On the plus side, it is suppose to accept TinyG command files as an input... that's open source G-code. And whaddayaknow... in the downloads portion of the GG3's support page, you are downloading Arduino Uno code. Ahem, the guts of the GG3 controller is an Arduino micro-controller running an interface board to the actual stepper motors and switches that run the GG3.

So, in the long run, if you want a really capable machine, get a full size mill, hang the motors and limit switches on it, and use an open source controller on it. It will not be a table-top unit, but man you will be able to go way beyond what the GG3 could ever do.
 
clm2112 said:
In a P80 or a normal Glock, all the force of firing the pistol concentrated on the plastic that surrounds the front rails, take-down catch, and the front pin(s). The G0 "chassis" spreads the forces out to several places on the plastic grip with a much larger surface area. That addresses some of the areas that normally break on a 3D printed Glock in use.
Click to expand...

Ah... so it's a solution looking for the problem / Achilles Heel of PRINTED frames, which is that they are inherently weaker than pressure molded polymer frames like P80s.

So, again... it would get my attention more if it could mill a "0%" solid block of metal or polymer into a working frame.
 
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Racer88 said:
Ah... so it's a solution looking for the problem / Achilles Heel of PRINTED frames, which is that they are inherently weaker than pressure molded polymer frames like P80s.

So, again... it would get my attention more if it could mill a "0%" solid block of metal or polymer into a working frame.
Click to expand...

In a way, yes. Unless you are into doing your own injection molding, you are never going to get a 0% glock frame.

Now, just like we discussed last week on how to make an AR out of a block of aluminum... you can make a complete Glock out of aluminum the same way. Split the glock frame down the middle into a left and right halves. Mill those two halves to form the interior shapes, then join them together and mill all the exterior shapes. A lot of polymer pistol are actually made this way... a left and right halve moldings that are ultra-sonicly welded together.
 
clm2112 said:
In a way, yes. Unless you are into doing your own injection molding, you are never going to get a 0% glock frame.

Now, just like we discussed last week on how to make an AR out of a block of aluminum... you can make a complete Glock out of aluminum the same way. Split the glock frame down the middle into a left and right halves. Mill those two halves to form the interior shapes, then join them together and mill all the exterior shapes. A lot of polymer pistol are actually made this way... a left and right halve moldings that are ultra-sonicly welded together.
Click to expand...

Well... I've got enough P80 frames to keep me busy for a long while. And if they continue to be available, then I don't see any sense in going down the milling road... yet.
 
Did a little digging. TinyG controller boards are still out there.

TinyG CNC Controller Board v8

So, yeah, you can convert any mill into a CNC without becoming a slave to someone's proprietory hardware. But you will have to get really educated in the process. It looks like a steep learning curve and I'm getting older by the second. ;)
 
All the 3D printers are outgrowths of the same basic design, though a 3D printer needs more than just four axis of control, since you have to also have to control filament temp and bed temp.. more sensors than the TinyG boards support.
 
Found another potential option... LinuxCNC, it has been out there for years and I kinda ignored it. But I have converted my digital life over to Linux (yeah I still have Win 7 environments in VM's and a couple of Hackentoshes, but everything I use on a day to day basis is running one flavor or Linux or another.) I probably should review this and see if it is a fit for CNC'ing my mill.

LinuxCNC

Now this is an even lower-level CNC tool... it is intel PC or RasberryPi based. You are doing even more integration of components you source yourself. The idea is the same... use a PC to translate G-Code commands into stepper motor outputs, one for each axis of the mill.

Why would this be better than using a Ghost Gunner 3? Rigidity of the mill and a much larger working space to cut in. GG3 has to make anything it does fit inside the cabinet and the cube that represents all the places the milling bit can reach. It is not very big, just barely able to take an entire AR-15 lower, which gives you a hint as to why they resorted to making their AR-15 lower in three separate chunks. With a Bridgeport or similar knee mill, your table area is several times larger that what the GG3 offers. You also get a larger range of actual mill bits you can use to cut the metal... the GG3 is nothing more than a largish dremel motor.

It might be a tight squeeze on the budget, but I think you could cobble together a CNC mill for less than the $2500 price of entry for the GG3 and have a better machine over-all. One that really could make a 0% receiver that works... and make non-firearms related parts as well... lottsa parts to amortize the cost of the machine.

I get where GG is coming from. They want a machine they can sell and ship to anyone with the desire to extend their middle finger at the gubberment. They are not selling a milling machine, they are selling a toaster. I suspect that most of the GG3's they will sell will never finish a single firearm part.... just think how many firearms are sold that haven't fire a single bullet after it left the factory.
 
Interesting. I haven't gone all in on Linux yet as there always seems to be a couple of things that I can't do with it. Last time I tried setting up a day-to-day environment on it it came pretty close though. The next time I need to buy a windows version will be a push for me to do it again. Great respect for the Linux flavors in general as they are pretty solid environments.

Glancing at the LinuxCNC itself, looks like a pretty cool option. Works with a lot more than CNC. I haven't dug much into the GG specs. It'd be an interesting angle if they built a machine that worked with a publicly available OS/firmware like this that you could at least be assured the software could evolve even if they walked away from the machine. That's a driving reason why I swapped mother boards in a couple of my 3D printers is they had proprietary firmware and with an MB swap I could use open source Marlin.

$2500 would probably still be more than I'd do for a "toy" right now. Of course I have spent more than that on my 80% builds so maybe not considering there could be some possible DIY products that could be made and sold too just like is done in the 3D printer world.

Keep us posted. I'm certainly curious if you dip your toes into it a little more.
 
brian said:
Keep us posted. I'm certainly curious if you dip your toes into it a little more.
Click to expand...

Well, yes, I'm going to CNC the milling machine. Been thinking about it all night and most of today. I downloaded the latest LinuxCNC installation .ISO this morning. Going to dig around the old PC graveyard and see if I have one that can be dedicated to a CNC controller.

Then, well, time to go shopping for a controller board that uses the printer port of the PC to break out the signals for the actual stepper motor drivers and i/o switches. That will probably chew up $100 right off the bat. The plan I've come up with is to do three machines. Each one adds another layer of complexity to work through.

The simplest is converting a Sear floor-mount drill press from belt-drive fixed speed A/C into a variable speed DC motor drive. That will give me some experience controlling spindle speeds via the computer. I really have no idea how fast I can spin the chuck on this press. It does have ball bearings in the quill and has never shown any sign of being out of balance... it might just become the biggest Dremel tool ever made.
The drill press is the one piece of equipment I can afford to f-up to a fair-thee-well and not leave myself in a bind. I've been doing most of the drill operations on the mill anyways.

If that is successful, the next one under the knife is the Atlas 6" lathe. Again, converting it to variable speed on the head-stock the same way the drill press got done, and adding one axis of motion by driving the lead screw via a stepper motor. The threading gears on this lathe are shot, so removing the transmission isn't a big deal. At some point I have to get a rotary table & dividing head for the mill so I can make whole new threading gears.

And last, do the milling machine, applying everything learned from the other two. Spindle speed and three axis of motion. This is going to take a lot of planing, since I will likely have to fabricate the mounting plates and other hardware on the mill before trying to install them.
 
clm2112 said:
In a way, yes. Unless you are into doing your own injection molding, you are never going to get a 0% glock frame.

Now, just like we discussed last week on how to make an AR out of a block of aluminum... you can make a complete Glock out of aluminum the same way. Split the glock frame down the middle into a left and right halves. Mill those two halves to form the interior shapes, then join them together and mill all the exterior shapes. A lot of polymer pistol are actually made this way... a left and right halve moldings that are ultra-sonicly welded together.
Click to expand...
What thread was this on? I’d be curious to read more about it. Was the idea to braze the two halves together once the needed inside sections were milled?

Edit: ignore, was able to find it.
 
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