Working Handgun Printed On a Sub-$2,000 3D Printer

Just a few weeks after Cody Wilson and friends successfully fired an instance of their own 3-D printed handgun design, Sparrowvsrevolution writes, "a couple of Wisconsin hobbyist gunsmiths have already managed to adapt Defense Distributed's so-called Liberator firearm and print it on a $1,725 Lulzbot 3D printer, a consumer grade machine that's far cheaper than the industrial quality Stratasys machine Defense Distributed used. They then proceeded to record their cheaper gun (dubbed the 'Lulz Liberator') firing nine .380 rounds without any signs of cracking or melting. Eight of the rounds were fired from a single plastic barrel. (Defense Distributed only fired one through its prototype.) In total, the Lulz Liberator's materials cost around $25 and were printed over just 48 hours."

Define "working"

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA: " Over the course of its test firing, Joe and Guslick say it misfired several times, and some of its screws and its firing pin had to be replaced. After each firing, the ammo cartridges expanded enough that they had to be pounded out with a hammer."

Sure, so other than that...

so what

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1994 a friend and I assembled a .22 from hardware store pipe, a hacksaw, a drill, some nails, and springs. It had a hammer and a trigger. We followed no plans...we just knew you needed a barrel, and something to smack the rim of the bullets we had...and we improvised. It worked fine, but you have to unscrew the barrel to to reload its single shot.

Re:stratasys lies about strength?

[GameboyRMH]

When a marketing claim conflicts with real-world-testing-based claims by tinkerers, I consider the marketing claim to be false until proven otherwise.

Re:Requires more metal

[Bearhouse]

Both have a non-functional metal piece inserted in order to make them deliberately detectable, (and hence legal).
The ungodly would leave that bit out, I assume.

In addition, this modified version has bore rifling to escape restrictive legislation on smoothbore weapons.

But, FTA:

"After each firing, the ammo cartridges expanded enough that they had to be pounded out with a hammer."

Keep your Semmerling for the moment, Jack...

Re:Requires more metal

[i kan reed]

I think bullets and casings contain enough metal to set off most metal detectors anyways, though I'm already envisioning ways to bypass that.

Re:so what

[arkhan_jg]

In 1994 a friend and I assembled a .22 from hardware store pipe, a hacksaw, a drill, some nails, and springs. It had a hammer and a trigger. We followed no plans...we just knew you needed a barrel, and something to smack the rim of the bullets we had...and we improvised

Ah, but you forgot something something Libertarian something something Internet something something Freedom!

Re:Waiting for the nanny statists

[i kan reed]

Yes, yes, we know everyone who's really attached to their guns is paranoid about impending tyranny. You don't need to remind us.

Re:Requires more metal

[GameboyRMH]

Both use a metal firing pin and are designed with the non-functional metal piece, the Lulz version also uses some screws for structural strength that would be much harder to replace with something non-metallic.

here's a question

[slashmydots]

Everyone is freaking out like before this you needed to be God himself to create a firearm. How long does it take a gunsmith to build a gun from scratch? Compare that to the time it takes to design one in AutoCAD or whatever and then 3D print it and assemble it. It's probably pretty comparable and the metal one doesn't look like a bad sci fi prop. I bet I could design a working rifle that would fire a couple bullets from a trip to the hardware store, or especially a shotgun! You need a barrel, aka steel pipe. Then a handle so solder/glue basically anything on. Then you need an end cap with a semi-sealed firing pin to strike the bullet so a piece of scrap metal and a spring. Tada, gun (at about the same reliability level).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Waiting for the nanny statists

[Archangel Michael]

Tyranny is already here. It is just masked in Bureaucracy. All you need to know is that the Powers that be, have already targeted "enemies of the state", simply because they oppose the Bureaucracy's over reaching power.

Re:3D-Printed Revolver?

[i kan reed]

No, but neither is fertilizer when you get down to it. I'm about to go on a tirade for a position that isn't really even mine:
Gun control is about impulsive people.

You're never going to stop a McVeigh of Bin Laden with gun control. They're meticulous planners who will not be impeded by inconveniences, and will work around them. They'll build their own materials, circumvent safety control systems, and seek to maximize damage. Those people aren't the most common problem. Their problem is that they are certain that their cause is just.

The most common thread in criminals, particularly murderers, is poor impulse control and emotional volatility. People kill because they get angry, or desperate. 3/4 of people who attempt suicide will be deterred by a simple obstacle or obstruction in their way. People being rational don't murder. Gun control is about limiting the ease with which someone can engage in irrational acts.

Paranoid? IRS? Fast & Furious? Seized Records?

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly, paranoid people! Why, it's like they believe they live in a country where:

• The IRS routinely conducts spite audits of the President's enemies [investors.com].
• Or sicks the FBI, ATF and OSHA on them as well. [townhall.com]
• Where the DOJ can seize the phone records of reporters without a warrant [foxnews.com].
• Or where the DOJ illegally seizing the health records of 10 million Americans [courthousenews.com].
• Or where the government gave weapons to Mexican drug lords [scribd.com] in order to make the case for gun control.
• Or where a leading Democrat publically stated she wanted to confiscated the guns of all Americans [breitbart.com].

Silly, paranoid gun owners!

Thank God we live in America rather than that paranoid, nightmarish, Orwellian police state!

Re:It's not a gun

[JaredOfEuropa]

Is this a gun, as in a fully functional and useful tool? No. But it's not proof of any kind that 3d guns are impractical in principle (as that Register article claims); quite the contrary. The Liberator proved that it's possible to print a gun that can be fired (unreliably) on a printer, without blowing up. The Lulz version proves it is possible to create one that can be fired repeatedly, and can be created on a consumer grade printer. From here on in the reliability will improve, and perhaps someone will come up with a double barreled one or a six-shooter even.

This development is not interesting for gun enthusiasts. It may be interesting for people who need to smuggle a gun past security (you still need to get the metal parts + cartridges through the detector). It's not that interesting for people with the skills, tools and smarts to build their own gun, nor is it for criminals who can (in most countries) quite simply acquire a gun from an illegal source. But it is very interesting for people who want to acquire a gun illegally, not necessarily because they want to use it for criminal purposes, but in case they want one to defend themselves but the gov't doesn't let them have one.

And for that purpose, you wouldn't really need something that can reliably fire 10.000 rounds. 6 reliable shots would already be a vast improvement over nothing at all. And given the progress already made on these printers, I'd say that printing and assembling such a gun by anyone may well be viable in a few years.

Re:3D-Printed Revolver?

[Anonymous Coward]

*Gun control is about limiting the ease with which someone can engage in irrational acts.*

Then maybe, just maybe, we ought to be working on helping the irrational rather than banning inanimate objects that can do nothing at all on their own.

But you know what? It will never happen, because the gun banners DON"T CARE about addressing the base cause of violent crime, they just want to ban guns. Period.

Re:3D-Printed Revolver?

[Dan667]

no, he is making a valid point. Mental health program budgets have been slashed and many of the people that have gone on to spree kill were identified or asked for help, but the system was not capable of helping them.

Re:3D-Printed Revolver?

[nbauman]

It's a lot easier to take away guns from irrational people than it is to get them to control their impulses. When you figure out how to get irrational people to control their impulses, let me know.

I don't know where you get the idea that gun banners don't care about addressing the base cause of violent crime. The people who led the effort were doctors who got tired of having people dying from gun wounds in the emergency room. They were happy to reduce violence any way they could do it. The easiest way was to start by taking away the guns.

They're the same people who are trying to reduce poverty, increase education, etc. but that's a long, indirect path.

Re:Al Qaieda

[cusco]

It's a lot easier and cheaper to just buy them second-hand out of the classified ads in the newspaper. I really don't understand why people think they have to 1) have millions of dollars in funding, 2) need fake passports and visas, 3) need to smuggle their weapons into a country already awash with them, 4) need to be willing to commit suicide to be effective. I blame Hollyweird to some extent, but mostly I think that people are just too stupid and lazy to spend 30 seconds to think about any of those points to realize how absurd they are.

Re:Education

[moeinvt]

The NRA still does a lot of firearms education and training. The rabid anti-gun folks stand in the way of these efforts at every opportunity however. Firearms-related accidents are good for the anti-gun agenda

Check out the Eddie Eagle program:

http://www.nra.org/Article.aspx?id=1353 [nra.org]

Now, try attending a city council or school board meeting and proposing that you have the NRA come in and give a firearms safety presentation to the school kids.

In many places, people will be screaming at the top of their lungs at the idea of having anything NRA-related coming anywhere near the schools.

The NRA didn't suddenly get "whacked out" and shift its focus. The 1960s is when the big push for new federal anti-gun legislation came along. The last thing the federal government wanted at the time was a bunch of well armed black people demanding equality.