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."

Re:and because of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be surprised if some type of DRM appeared on printers to prevent this, similar to the algorithm in color copiers which at best locks up a copier, at worst phones home, if someone places a dollar or Euro on the glass and hits copy.

The DRM could look for blueprint designs by hash, or certain "gun-like" items.

This could easily become law in days.

Of course, it will result in a cat and mouse game, but in a cat and mouse game, the cat almost always wins.

Re:3D-Printed Revolver?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Despite it no longer being a "3d printed gun", it would still be a game changer in the sense that this would be a functional multi-shot gun that can be manufactured by pretty much anyone with access to a crappy consumer-grade printer, without requiring any gunsmithing, metal working or other mechanical skills. If you can assemble a simple Lego kit, you can put together such a gun.

Re:and because of this.

[SirGarlon]

Of course, it will result in a cat and mouse game, but in a cat and mouse game, the cat almost always wins.

Sorry for the digression, but real predator-prey dynamics are more complicated than that. Predators are far short of 100% efficient (citation needed; I am lazy!), and predator and prey populations are interdependent [wikipedia.org]. I can only speculate about the analogy to regulation and disobedience, but it seems possible that it still holds up. There could be the same back-and-forth between the success of regulators and the success of those who circumvent or evade the regulation.

Re:3D-Printed Revolver?

[Ferzerp]

It does appear that the goal is not to reduce crime, though that is used as a statistic. I do agree that the banning of guns appears to be an end on its own for these people. It makes little sense. There is an irrational fear, probably instilled at an early age. It is similar to the irrational fear that other people have towards people instead of objects. I think it is the same base motivation, and the separate groups each see their cause as just. It doesn't mean they both aren't delusional though.

Re:Requires more metal

[modecx]

Because it becomes a title 2 device, "Any Other Weapon", and you legally have to go through all of the hullabaloo of registering it with the feds.

Re:Requires more metal

[budgenator]

You'd be surprised, at the Atlanta Olympics we had a security breach and had to bomb sweep the building. Durring the sweep a piece of 2 inch diameter metal pipe that was 4 inches long and had a reducing nipple on it that was lost durring the building construction was found. I looked examined the pipe, saw that it was hollow (as opposed filled with explosives) and kept it. I carried that pipe through the mag-line, in my MOPP carrier for a week and a half with out any of the magnetometers going off. That pipe probably had enough metal to make a couple glocks

Re:Requires more metal

[CanHasDIY]

Those are for attaching composite decking, the screws are metal. They are simply coated with a polymer to avoid rusting and staining the composite decking.

So they are (curse your misleading headers, Lowe's!)... but these are not:

http://www.fastenercomponents.com/plastic_materials.html [fastenercomponents.com]

http://raptornails.com/ [raptornails.com]

http://www.netmotion.com/htm_files/ot_screws.htm [netmotion.com]

I even found a supplier of high tensile strength ceramic fasteners [kida.co.jp], which seem ideal for such an application.

Re:Define "working"

[RobinH]

This story isn't about 3D printing weapons at home, it's about people doing things that make all people with hobbyist 3D printers at home (myself included) look like gun-nut-freaks to the general public (before that it was just pretty nerdy). The first time I mentioned my printer to my mother, she told me about some cop show (CSI, Criminal Minds?) episode she'd seen the previous night where the killer had 3D printed his handgun to get it through security. This has now become the primary thing that the general public associates with 3D printers. It's sad.

Re:Requires more metal

[Medievalist]

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

There may be a way (composite round/casing), but you're going to be hard pressed to make firearm ammo that can bypass the scrutiny of trained gunpowder-sniffing dogs.

Paper cartridges with ceramic or stone payloads dipped twice in a clean hard wax doped with a little lavender oil ought to do the trick. You might have to press them in a mold after the second dip in order to get enough regularity for automatic feed, though, and you'd have to have something close to a clean room set up....