Gun Talk 3D printed clone Molot vepr magazines

Just buy bulk springs, i think you can get U.S. made ones


Local fab shop could pop out a bulk of baseplates for you probably pretty cheap


Print followers

stone1030:

Just buy bulk springs, i think you can get U.S. made ones


Local fab shop could pop out a bulk of baseplates for you probably pretty cheap


Print followers

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Good idea on the local fab shop, I probably could get someone to do that for me. If you have any idea where I could find bulk ak74 mag springs that would help a TON.

Followers I can print yeah. Appreciate the input brother man. You sold all your plum 74 stuff?

Sovietcollecter:

Good idea on the local fab shop, I probably could get someone to do that for me. If you have any idea where I could find bulk ak74 mag springs that would help a TON.

Followers I can print yeah. Appreciate the input brother man. You sold all your plum 74 stuff?

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Yep all sold off, got a sweet RPK otw

1, definetly start small. I don't know much about 3d printed mags, but while a 3d printed 45rd RPK mag would be cool, I don't know how well the printed components would hold up with 45rds of steel cased 5.45 and and all that spring pressure. Stone1030 was right, bulk components are probably your best bet.

2, for the lugs, what I would do for the rear lug would be to have a lug manufactured with 2 thin wings on the sides. Have holes for the wings in the back of the body of the mag and an indentation inside the body of the mag so you can fold the wings with a flush fit. After you fold them maybe you could try to fit them together so they don't come loose in the mag, and to add sturdiness. Some glue might also help to secure things. For the front lug you should probably try to design a lug that can slide into a notch in the mag body and be glued. I think glue is kind of the best you can do with some of this 3d printed stuff. I also really suggest trying to figure out steel feed lips, I don't think the printed lips would hold up very well. There is another aspect to some of these stress parts, though, and that's that these metal inserts will definetly help but they'll only hold up as well as the printed material around them, which will probably be weaker than every polymer being used in commercial mags today. I'm not an expert on 3d printing but that's just my opinion.

3, not me

4, you could probably replicate the plum color pretty easily, if you were looking to sell the mags you should probably just do that

5, it's kind of hard to say but this is probably the most important question here. I would start with the demand for something like this. I feel like most people who might be interested in reproduction Molot Vepr style mags might just buy a mag that looks similar enough, like a ProMag or Circle 10, and then just give it the plum paint. The tradeoff for some of the looks might be worth it for the fact that the mags are made of more durable polymer, and ProMags are like $20 new and the Circle 10s are about $50. In my eyes that would be your competition. Regardless, I'm sure some people would still be interested in the printed mags. I'm sure you would have to have a bunch of steel parts fabricated to make the mags function well and hold up over time, and after R&D to find out what works well those might end up costing more than the material and energy to print the mag bodies. That being said, I'm no expert. After your costs for those parts you'd have to add the price of the surplus internals and shipping, and the mags might come out to costing you like $35 (depending on how you'd get those metal parts fabricated, I could be way off) and then I'm sure you'd want to make some profit from that to make it worth your while. At the end of the day, if one of your mags cost a consumer about $50, I'm not sure if that many people would go for it. I could be way off, but like I said earlier I think a lot of people might just end up going with cheaper, mass produced polymer mags that look close enough, and then painting them.

I really admire your ambition for this project, and I really don't want to come off the wrong way with any of the stuff I'm saying about demand or possible problems with the mags. I'm no expert on this stuff but as I said earlier I'm not sure how well PLA would hold up with an AK style mag. Between the spring pressure on the floor plate, the pressure on the feed lips, and rocking and locking the mags, I could see there being some problems. That's just my $.02, and I wish you the best of luck