A Blueprint to Let Anyone 3-D Print an Open-Source Gun At Home

Great Idea! 2nd amendemt for life!!

Life NRA member. No accountability for anything someone makes means this is just another nail in the coffin for gun freedom. People who do not act responsibly with firearms are the problem gun advocates are MOST threatened by.

Having said that, a plastic gun isn't going to work. You need too many metal parts, so this is all just BS.

Sure you can print a stock and grip, but not a barrel, bolt not even a magazine spring.

This is stupid and anyone spending money on it is...you guessed it.

Think before you spend.

Actually, it's worse than you think.

A plastic gun is likely to be successful in firing one or two bullets before the heat warps or destroys the barrel. Assuming you have a printer (or a friend with a printer) you can print one in 15 minutes for about $20 in materials.

That's more than adequate for typical home defense needs...which is good. But it's also more than adequate for those who actually seek to do harm. Plus, the weapons would become untraceable, and you can dispose of them with a cheese grater and a backyard grill. This is a weapon build for premeditated murder.

Unfortunately, this could also put handgun manufacturers and sellers out of business.

This is a terrible idea. If you want a gun, its not that hard to go through the legal channels. While this may not be an effective weapon, if made of plastic, it could in the future lead to more sophisticated methods.

All this is going to do is put more guns in the hands of people who can't obtain a gun legally i.e. gangs, drug cartel, children.

@Sudden

Heat warping the plastic is not the issue. The pressures generated by the shell are very likely to fragment a plastic barrel and turn the pistol into face-shrapnel...

But more to the point... Honestly, if we lower the bar and say the end-game is making a device that only needs to fire 2 rounds before it blows up in your hand, I could do the same with a 2x4 and a drill press... you can drill the right size hole in just about anything and throw a cartrige in it and get the thing to fire (though it will often end just as badly for the person firing it as the person it is pointed at). If that's what we're worried about, this is just a strawman for us to shiver and shake our fist at. All this is doing is making a crude weapon look prettier.

@lostviking & .ctigers124.

Something we keep over looking (though I and others keep pointing it out) is we have been able to privately manufacture fully working firearms for decades using widely available milling machines, CNC, and lathes...with zero regulation or accountability (provided you are using them for personal use and not selling them)... No need for registration with the feds or any other agency (unless it falls under NFA). It happens often, and the designs (and CAD models) have been available online for many many years.

The only thing this system offers is the ability to circumvent a lazy predisposition... rather than get out of our chair, buy a block of metal and drill a few holes in it, we can now just press a button and watch a machine make it. (though you'll have to get out of your chair to go pick it up... or at least wheel the chair over...)

The means are already in almost every basement to create a device that will fire a round once (or twice if you're lucky). How many people have some spare wood around? A hand drill? maybe a few pieces of scrap metal? That's all you need if you're just trying to get one round off...

@iambronco

agreed. We have had the capability to make a reliable untraceable firearm in our garages with minimal technical ability for years. This printer adds no new capabilities, only a new and inferior method.

The only danger I see here is with amateurs printing and testing these designs without taking proper precautions.

As our government declares Social Security and Medicare to become gone\bankrupt, I can see a lot of old folk buying 3D printers, followed by buying lots of bus passes to Capitol Hill.

Hmm, perhaps they should fix the budget!

As I look at my gun collection, there are a great deal of synthetic (plastic) parts on most of my new (20yrs or less) guns.

For the most part, these simply replace what would have been wooden furniture on an older gun.

For some, like my Kahr Arms 9mm pocket pistol, it is probably half the gun.

The battery, barrel, and reciever must be metal to absorb the heat and withstand the pressure of modern rounds. Springs are also not going to come from a printer, including those in the magazine.

However, with three springs (trigger, slide, and mag), a battery/barrel, and a reciever with pin, a firearm would be simple enough.

A smooth bore (shotgun stye) barrel could be had from any hardware store (boiler pipe) and the springs could likely be easily found at any car parts store.

A single shot junk gun is always easy to make, the ability to produce repetitive fire, however, is not. Since most junk guns lack accuracy, repetitive fire is what would open them up as useful weapons.

I agree that these would most often be used by those who society would consider the least desirable to have firearms, but the only real solution to that is to make firearms so legal, common, and cheap that noone feels the need to "print" their own.

Remember, there are only two kinds of safety when it comes to firearms: the society where noone has access to firearms and the society where everyone has access to firearms.

Nothing is more polite than a well armed society.

I would use 3-d printing for designing a mold that i could cast metal in, it'd be nice if there was a binary material that would harden when it mixed and cooled so that we could reliably cast stuff like iron bronze brass and other things. even if only for a one time use, maybe have a macro installed that prints everything but what you've designed leaving hole for air pockets and metal pours and stuff like that, then building an I-beam would be as simple as printing the schematic and buying the thermite needed to fill the mold, light it on fire and watch the fireworks!

i think that making a weapon and a community like this is a great idea, the government has been trying to pacify the civilian populous for a long time now; making guns illegal under the guise of reducing crime, denying people who would speak out against the president from his news meetings, and other such things. with this we would arm the populous and make it technically impossible to fully disarm the public, we have ensured that when the proverbial crap hits the fan that we will be armed, but we have also ensured that when the war breaks out it will be terrifyingly bloody.

to mars or bust!

also social security is something that we really need to drop as a policy ASAP. we should pay out for those who have paid into it because we should be a nation of principles, but the sooner we get rid of it the better. socialistic ideals do not work effectively, or at all, in a largely capitalistic society.

to mars or bust!

ghost,
I have been working and paying taxes since I was 14. I love to get ALL my taxes back, I paid in. Great Idea!

lol take that metal detectors! they will be deemed obsolete soon.

"You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." -Morpheus

God loves us and forgives us.
Jesus loves us and forgives us.

The Holy Spirit lives in us and around us; knowing the true intent of our hearts.

One can not ask for forgiveness as a means to do evil and get away with it. That would lead to chaos and the Holy Spirit will know your insincerity. This would be considered contempt of the Holy Spirit, God and Jesus, an unforgiveable sin.

Mov'n on.

Ok, now you are pregant. You know another life exist in your belly and what will happen 9 month from now; a baby will be born. You make a consious choice and with your own action do something so that baby is not born.

How will you be judged. I can't answer that.

But be sure, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit knows the truth of you heart and you intentions. You will be judged fairly.

God bless you.

Side note: Not all people go to heaven....

@Robot
side note: Not all people care about your fairy tale land;
aka stop posting irrelevant garbage

3D print me some AMMO please, :O the UN allows USA to ship ammo to terrorist allg!!

Alchemy, Yes you can 3D print plastic atm
As soon as we can change 1 atom into another we will fully destroy the dollar and be free.
We are ready, Its coming!
Information is free, soon elements will be as-well

.ctigers124.,
Yes, I am very obviously aware that many people have different opinions and outlooks than my own. Take care. ;)

.ctigers124.,
The article is about 3D printing and illustrates the manufacturing of automatic weapons. There are moral complications with owning weapons. I am very much home ownership of fire arms, but I am very much against violence and consider the moral applications to situations. My above comment - even if you disagree with the religious parts does pertain to the overall topic and flow of the conversation. I will make my opinion and always encourage others to make theirs and your opinion too.

Even if you do not agree with the religious source of my comments, its main point was individauls need to take sincere responsibility for your own choices life.

Take care. ;)

@robot

Automatic weapons were never discussed here... I don't mean to jump on you, but many people commonly confuse much of the debate at hand related to firearms by bringing up 'automatic weapons'... (many also seem to confuse 'assault weapon' with 'automatic weapons' as well... but that is another issue).

Just to clarify/summarize, the recent articles about 3d printing and firearms have nothing to do with producing WORKING firearms (only non-critical parts). They have nothing to do with automatic weapons. Any finally, this is not a new capability. It's just letting lazy people do it.

This is a great project. When I go into a gun store there are always AR type weapons on display that are .22 LR and most of the the weapon is composite. My concealed carry pistol is composite on the lower receiver. With .22 LR this project should be fine. Barrel, bolt carrier group will need to be metal. As for having a composite plastic lower on a weapon that fire 5.56 mm military grade ammo, well I wouldn't want to be the first to shoot it.

BTW you can have a fully composite magazine. Spring and all, if you use the right material. How well will it feed though?

The lower receiver on an AR type weapon (The one pictured) is the part that needs you to got through a background check to buy from a store, but in many states not checked at all from a private seller. The rest of it can be bought on the internet or at gun store that carry parts legally with no background checks.

Read the next part carefully. It is FULLY legal for a person create, make or machine a weapon for personal use if it is legal for them to own it in their jurisdiction. The BATF has a ruling on this on their web site. You should inscribe a serial number of some kind for various reasons, but you can NEVER legally transfer this weapon to anyone.

www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/firearms-technology.html

Go down to the question about Glock conversions. (BTW Composite frame.) Above that is the paragraph I'm talking about.

If you want argue about "Sporting" use, then it's useless to continue the conversation here.

iambronco,
I thought the premise behind all tools was for lazy humans and their intelligence wanted to do something in a simpler way. God bless lazy! ;)

Anyone with a credit card can go online and buy every part of a gun without a background check of any kind, except the lower reciever.

Lower recievers are often composite (plastic).

Thus, any felon could legally purchase all but one, easy to print, part.

Or, he could take the cost of the printer and the parts and buy a dozen second hand guns from any citizen who will sell them to him (people to people sales don't require background checks).

What excites me is what this might do to prices.

Right now, an assault rifle (AR15 style) ranges from 500 to 2500. Most of the production cost is in barrel while the cost to consumer is split between the lower (trigger part) and upper(barrel) recievers (one due to true cost, one due to the fact that it "is" the firearm under law).

If I could "print" lower recievers, all the FFL fees and retail are taken out of the equasion. For the price of parts I could assemble the rest of the firearm - cutting the price almost in half, and more for some firearms (likely a 60% saving on a semi-auto shotgun after barrel and parts).

Sure, I could never "sell" them - to anyone who would not simply claim they had "printed" them instead of me.

I wouldn't make a mint, but I could probably come out enough ahead to break even on a much larger firearm collection than I currently carry.

Once 3D printing gets metal or metal strength materials down, this should truely open up a golden age of firearm ownership.

As it is, I would encourage anyone with the metal fabrication skills to do so to look into manufacture. The market is fat and growing and supply has done a terrible job keeping up.

@ghost: Print with wax, include pour/air holes; make mold out of a sand/glue mixture; melt away wax; cast out of desired metal; assemble. Both art and cannons were made this way, once.
@iambronco The 3d printing process allows for CAD prototyping to lead to a phycial object. What parts are not able to be made from PVC certainly can be made of wax and then cast - including a fully automatic sear. So, in effect it is aobut automatic weapons.

Oh no, here we go again.

I like to see a 3D printed laser gun. Now that would be so COOL-able!

Didn't I SAY this was going to happen? Didn't I tell you on the "Brass" knickles incident? Didin't I? But did yall believe me, i.e Democedes, Robot, D13 (though I seem to remember you were on the fence), all of you who know me, did't I say this was going to happen?

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
Mae West
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Mark Twain

TeslasDisciple,
I do not believe your revelation is really a revelation to which no other person thought about before. In fact, I am very sure the creators of the 3D printer and those who issued the plans are making this point. But hey, if you wish to pat yourself on the back or eat a cookie, please enjoy, lol. ;)

Defense Distributed, you're neither innovators nor revolutionaries. You're just a bunch of opportunists with no vision or sense of responsibility. You're not creators; you're reactors. You say your project can't fail but that's only because you lack the foresight to envision this idea to its end. You're not taking the time to analyze the impact of your actions. You have no concern and take no responsibility for what you're creating. You act like you're not responsible for the printed product because we live in a world where this is already possible.. So then what are you doing?? Clearly you're contributing to this reality.

All I'm saying is that you people developing and funding this file need to realize what you're creating and stop denying your own accountability. Although you tell yourself that you're living in a world where 3D printed guns are available to everyone, they're not. The truth is that as soon as you put this file on the internet, that world will have been created by YOU.. not someone else.. not the technology of your generation.. It will be by your collective funding and development.

TAKE THAT Defense Distributed!! Finally, some moral accountability.. Thank you, Stratasys!!

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19813382

Wow.. Exactly what you guys in the US need, an even easier less traceable way of acquiring guns!

Exactly how many massacres do there need to be to have at least something of a re-think on the gun laws?

Not that these chumps will actually be able to print the parts required to assemble a hand gun in the first place, given that 3D printers work by extruding melted plastic (Correct me if I'm wrong) and the propellent in ammunition works via rapidly expanding hot gasses.. I spot a slight problem there.

Just a quick question on the whole right to bear arms thing, I can half see that owning a non-automatic hand gun for 'home defence' is sort of justifiable, but what's with the fully automatic assault rifles and such?? Do you have rampaging hoards over there?? Armies of burglars that require military fire power to mow them down in their dozens??

@Dr.Zoidberg

Gun laws don't solve anything and only further the issue of stripping law abiding citizens from defending themselves and others. Half of the "massacres" you so colorfully brought up could have been quickly prevented or reduced the death and injuries sustained from such events if someone simply took out the offending person with a legal method of defense. Statistics generally show that stricter gun laws do exactly the opposite of what everyone wants. That is everyone living. Also, just because you don't understand the purpose of something doesn't mean you have to come on here and display your ignorance. To help with your obviously uneducated mind, take a read of some relevant information. Google the obvious "Gun laws reduce violence" and see what comes up!

Cheers!

Zoidberg, Do you seriously believe that if you say "No", all criminals will obey criminal law? You are correct in that propellants used create pressures that make plastic useful for only unstrained parts (lower receivers for AR15's, pistol frames, furniture, and the like.)There is nothing wrong with semi autos- It is simply a mechanism that uses existing recoil (and thus actually reducing the power)to bring the firearm back into battery. Full auto weapons are heavily regulated (us law abiding folks have more red tape to deal with than buying a tank) and AR15s and civvie AK's are not assault rifles, but "assault weapons"- a thoroughly inaccurate term- they have the "scary" cosmetics of a military arm- militaries use good stuff, so following military choices are oft wise ones.

@suddenmischief
This really doesn't open up anything new for criminals look up the term Zip gun.

Criminal types have been making fire arms out of things like pieces of pipe for years and a pipe gun would likely be generally more reliable then 3d one made of plastic.

It's just a matter of time before someone prints one with titanium powder or some ceramic/tungsten cermetal composition.