For NFA items I’ve been using the MAF heat set serial number tags (https://maf-arms.com/product/heat-set-serial-number-tag/). I add the recess as a negative part in the slicer (there’s a link to my STL file on MAF’s product page). Then I drop the plate in with a drop of super-glue and use a soldering iron to melt over the posts to further lock it in.

If your FFL is just doing the engraving of a serial number you picked/registered, the MAF plates are cheaper/easier. Unfortunately, if your FFL is assigning a serial as part of a 4473 transfer, they probably won’t give you the serial in advance. The heat-set approach may still be viable, but you’ll have to source your own blank plate(s).

Advice:

• Test and calibration prints are the difference between good and great prints. I probably printed 50 little test objects in the process of learning/tuning support settings alone. The Ellis Print Tuning Guide is a good (albeit a little advanced) resource: https://ellis3dp.com/Print-Tuning-Guide/ . I say “advanced” because not everything in there is applicable to all printers so you’ll have to put a little effort into learning what to use and what to ignore.
• Start with a reputable brand of PLA+ or PLA Pro. Skip the “artistic” filaments, and don’t bother with the engineering materials (nylons, etc.) until you have working builds in PLA+/Pro. I have plenty of experience with other materials and I still use PLA+ for the first time I print any design. Once I have 1000 rounds through something and I’m sure I want to keep it long-term, I might reprint in something more advanced. But I’ve thrown away several kg of parts over the last couple years because the print quality didn’t meet my standards, the design had problems, there were aspects I wanted to change/customize, or it just wasn’t that enjoyable to shoot. It hurts to trash $60+/kg parts.
• Learn some modeling. Blender for customizing STL files, your choice of CAD programs for design or major modifications. It’s really not that hard to learn (just different) and there are lots of good tutorials and even interactive teaching sessions. Customizing, not just building, is how you truly take advantage of the “open source” aspect of FOSSCAD.

There’s no such thing :) PAHT is a marketing department invention, not an actual polymer. It’s usually either PA12 or PPA, but you need to check with the manufacturer to find out what you’re really getting.

If you’re annealing at the correct temperature, there’s no need to pack PPA-CF in salt. The annealing temperature is well below the un-annealed heat deflection temperature so you shouldn’t experience any warping or distortion.

In 2025 there is almost no reason to manually adjust all the speeds in your print profile. If you want to slow things down, go to your filament settings and under “Volumetric speed limitation” there’s a field for “Max volumetric speed”. If you reduce that, it will automatically “cap” your max speed. Each filament will have it’s own setting for “Max volumetric speed” so if some can print faster you won’t have to go muck around with all your print profile settings each time you switch filaments.

To compute the number based on the max speed you want to run, use this calculator: https://advanced3dprinting.com/pages/flow-rate-calculator. You can also run a volumetric flow calibration test (under the “calibration” menu) to figure out the highest flow your hotend can handle with a specific filament. Reduce that number by 20% for margin and you’ll have a speed limit that will give strong prints without slowing things down more than necessary.

It’s all in the data sheets. PA6-CF has significantly better impact strength - especially when it’s had a chance to absorb some moisture. That goes hand in hand with PPA being significantly stiffer.

PPA-CF has a little better tensile strength and layer adhesion, but they’re both good enough (assuming you can print hot enough) that the difference doesn’t matter much. Last but not least, PPA-CF has a little higher heat deflection temperature.

My advice is set aside the steel rod and get the 40cr or 42cr hydraulic tubing listed in the ECM Tutorial document (16mm OD, 8.0 - 8.6mm ID). Then follow the tutorial. Yes, it’s more expensive than stainless steel rod. That’s because it’s actually designed to contain the kind of pressure a 9mm cartridge will produce. The 40cr and 42cr steel is significantly stronger and harder than your stainless steel rod (which is probably 304 or 316 alloy).

I can’t emphasize this enough – taking shortcuts when making a 9mm barrel puts you at high risk of serious injury or even death. If you can’t do it right due to cost or material availability, don’t do it.

The NAG is a pretty advanced build. I’ve seen very few people get a successful build and most of them have a lot of experience.

Lot’s of people recommend Glock clones, but to me they’re really not the ideal starter project …

• Relatively expensive. A quality slide and barrel and OEM parts kits cost as much or more than just buying a good used Glock.
• Obviously not an option in places that restrict the sale of gun parts.
• Too easy to slap all the parts together with zero understanding of how the thing actually works.
• You don’t learn much. You’re printing one part and buying everything else.

My advice is start with the Decker 380 (https://guncadindex.com/detail/RELEASE-Decker-3.0.1:d). So cool to be able to post links! Low cost, easy to print (you can actually print every part without any supports), easy to understand, and quite innovative. You can buy a barrel (no need to ECM) but that’s the only gun part you need – everything else is hardware store material. The design is quite safe, and doesn’t demand a lot of manufacturing skill or experience or any special tools.

It’s also fun to shoot (the release even includes an optional designed-in Recoil Assisted Reset trigger) and a real attention grabber. I had a new development version at the range Friday for testing and the ROs were literally lining up to take pictures of it :)

https://forum.guncadindex.com/verify_email/8b7659a8-e164-4506-91e0-6311a59161fb

Huge thanks to shittinator for setting this up! I’ve been telling everyone that would listen that moving from Reddit to Lemmy is the smart play. I dumped Reddit when they started their API gold rush and only reluctantly went back because of FOSSCAD. I’d really love to be able to kick them to the curb again :)

I did (briefly) get a validation success page but then it quickly redirected to a URL that 404s.