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The World's First 3D-Printed Gun
MrSeb writes "An American gunsmith has become the first person to construct and shoot a pistol partly made out of plastic, 3D-printed parts. The creator, who goes by the name HaveBlue and is an AR-15/M16 enthusiast, has reportedly fired 200 rounds with his part-plastic pistol without any sign of wear and tear. HaveBlue's custom creation is a .22-caliber pistol, formed from a 3D-printed AR-15 (M16) lower receiver, and a normal, commercial upper. In other words, the main body of the gun is plastic, while the chamber — where the bullets are actually struck — is solid metal. ... While this pistol obviously wasn't created from scratch using a 3D printer, the interesting thing is that the lower receiver — in a legal sense at least — is what actually constitutes a firearm. This means that people without gun licenses — or people who have had their licenses revoked — could print their own lower receiver and build a complete, off-the-books gun." Here come the illegal shapes. Note that the legal fiction of receiver-as-firearm is true in the U.S., but may not be in other jurisdictions, and that no gun license is required in most of the U.S. to purchase or possess a semi-automatic weapon.
Who will they blame when some nut-job goes postal with one of these illegal shapes?
Will they ban 3D Printers?
You think this is the first 3D printed product? Is this your first day on the internet?
Most certainly not the first printed product by a long shot. Check google - the only thing new here is the application to a gun.
While the lower receiver is legally considered to be the serialized firearm it is fairly simple part. Folks have been making them on CNC machines for years. The metal upper receiver is much more difficult to manufacture and required precision metal machining. You need both to have a functional weapon. Without the upper, the lower is completely and utterly useless.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Micro-manufacturing will revolutionize the world just like digital, zero-cost copying. I'd guess it's not going to die, even if they declare it illegal.
The apparent amazement about the "plastic" pistol is a bit baffling. I mean come on.
And as far as concern over someone who can not lawfully own a gun using a 3d printer to manufacture a weapon, really? For a very small amount of money pretty much anyone who wants can go buy a gun on the street. For slightly more money they can purchase a totally legal gun through the classifieds or a gun show.
This is a long, long way from being the very first thing an American has used a 3d printer for. As for whether or not this is the first thing this particular guy printed, it doesn't say. However, he is a gunsmith so it does make sense that he would try printing a gun.
It'd be like saying "World's first 3d printed tea cup is made by housewares company in Britain... how British!" or "World's first 3d printed dildo with tentacles made by adult toy store in Japan... how Japanese"
Exactly. Anyone with access to milling equipment could mill their own lower reciever, assuming they knew the plans. Then they would still have to purchase the upper, the trigger assembly, and other parts. It's not really any different, and with the ability to mill a real receiver, they could make a firearm that can actuall handle .223/.308 rounds.
Or, you know, they could save themselves all of this time and trouble and just go to one of the myriad of websites that allow people to get in touch with others looking to buy or sell firearms. I visit one myself regularly that is part of the forums of an outdoor website dedicatedto my state, and I have even sold a firearm through it. All perfectly legal, with no documentation of transfer of ownership. And on this website alone there are often several AR- and AK- type rifles for sale, anywhere from $400-$1000. This development adds nothing to the equation.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
How is an American gunsmith creating a gun part with a 3d printer an example of someone circumventing the law?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
No gun license required? Why would anyone need a license to exercise a right guaranteed by the law of the land? Do you need a license to vote? Do you need a license to be safe from being enslaved? Do you need a license to own a printing press and open a newspaper? I'm totally lost here. What sort of brain structure causes this mental vomit to occur?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
That's just an illegal custom firearm. The AR-15 has a split receiver design and the lower is serialized and constitutes the firearm. By fabricating the lower receiver this gunsmith just made a new custom firearm (legal), but did not serialize it (illegal). Also a crappy plastic gun.
A synthetic AR-15 lower receiver is nothing new, printing one yourself is however. Is it dangerous? Yeah kinda, unless you a printing with a rather high strength polymer. Is it illegal? Not if you follow the BATF guidelines. Hobby machinists have been milling them from aluminum for ages. You can buy all sorts of jigs and receiver blanks. If you were to say start manufacturing lower receivers, or do not qualify to legally own them and get caught the penalties are very severe. Also as anyone who builds their own AR-15s will tell you, certain parts are in very high demand, you may wait weeks to months for something simple to complete your build. So I wouldn't worry about somebody building a ton of "off books" rifles any time soon.
I can make a gun with a wide range of tools. How is this fundamentally different then a CNC mill?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Shit, yo, why we gotta turn everything into weapons, huh? wouldn't we be more civilized without weapons?
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
This actually could be a good thing. Right now, the public mentality is that gun owner = nut job. Unless Congress is willing to criminalize owning a 3D printer, it might actually force people think about the current state of laws and actually make sensible gun laws.
We don't live in Shouldland.
It won't stop here. Lots of physical things, many fairly easy to make, are kept out of general circulation. Not for much longer.
Think locksmithing. Download and 'print' an entire professional set. Print keys.
And if you think bongs and such haven't already been printed you aren't paying attention. Legislate shops all ya want, won't matter soon.
Probably can't print glassware anytime soon so that soft ban will last a bit longer. Remember when all us nerdy kids got a chemistry set? And then suddenly they all but disappeared? I want 3d printers good enough to bring em back. Getting some of the actual chemicals will still be a challenge.
Spare parts that aren't practical to large scale manufacture, won't it be great when we can haunt obscure websites for downloads of semi-legal scans of them and print them ourselves?
Good times ahead.
Democrat delenda est
Making your own firearms is a well-established hobby in the U.S. Lots of people do it. There are forums devoted to it. Federal law specifically provides for it. It's nothing new. Nor is composite as a material for AR lowers; youtube has plenty of videos of people shooting "Plum Crazy"-based AR rifles. And 3D printing has been around a while.
What's newsworthy here? I don't get it.
But that's the thing, 3D printing is energy and materials intensive in the way that copying files isn't. 3D printing is like carpentry in the 1950s and 1960s. I don't know if you are familiar with the magazines of the era, but they were filled with plans and designs for furniture and what not. Everyone had tools and a space it seems. How many people you know these days that build their own furniture? How many people make their own clothes? In the same amount as you think people will embrace 3D printing? This 3D printing fad just reflects our rotten value system as a society ("ooh making objects at home is what life is all about".) Would you wear clothes you made yourself?
How much work do you think this gunsmith had to do to the part before it was usable? How many prototypes did he try? It's a hobby, and anyone who wants a receiver will simply buy one.
Basically mass production beats 3D printing, and most people simply don't have the time, patience, resources or skills to dick around for weeks to get poorly aligned slobs of smelly expensive plastics to show their friends.
The same way mass-produced furniture beats dicking around the garage to end up with an inferior, more expensive product. It's that simple. Time will tell, and I'm sure I'm right. 3D printing will revolutionize nothing, since this is a hobby that comes from established industrial techniques, not the other way around. The world is *already* "revolutionized", you just have an expensive hobby.
They don't have an adapter that small; they'll have to custom fabricate it for you.
You can't print glass, are you sure about that?
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-06/24/solar-sinter
Shapeways also prints in glass and Stainless Steel.
Lots of silly information here. "Glock 17 Parabellum"? Seriously? Hammer Spring? On a striker-fired pistol?
(You may "handle firearms on a daily basis", but I'm a Glock Armorer.)
Cost. 3d printers can cost a LOT less than a CNC, both for purchase and continued operation.
And skill. Even if you have the CAD files or G-Code, a CNC mill requires a lot of skill to set up and run. With a 3D printer, you just push the "start" button.
My kids use a 3D printer to make toys and doll furniture. But they are not allowed to touch the Sherline CNC mill in the garage unless I am with them. It is dangerous and they don't have the skill to operate it.
Heh. One thing to realize is that the NRA is a bit like the ACLU. It's actually considered 'not extreme enough' and 'too willing to bend' by some, there are more extreme organizations out there like the 'Gun Owners of America'.
But I'll agree, the NRA does have some kooks in it, but mostly they're there because they recognize the NRA as the '800 pound gorilla', so they throw some support to it, while also supporting the 300 pound gorilla who is, theoretically speaking, mauling some of the anti-gun gorillas around the corner, so the big guy gets even more done. /Lifetime member of NRA AND GOA.
I don't read AC A human right
There is a reason why firearm manufacturers create parts out of single bar stock aluminum or steel metal pieces and machine them out, that is to maintain durability during firing process of the gun so it doesn't explode in your hands and injure you or worse and that it will last over repeated uses.
The most difficult part of creating the gun is the creation of the barrel with a chamber that can withstand pressures of 22,000 to 55,000 pounds-per-inch and not explode into shrapnel hurting you badly. Barrel creation is difficult and taken very seriously with many manufacturers using a magnetic particle inspection process to ensure that there are no metal weak points or fractures inside the walls of the barrels to prevent them from exploding.
Until these low priced home 3D printing machines can print out of aluminum, steel, or other metals to maintain some kind of rigidity on the parts these printed firearm pieces will just be an exercise in computer aided design and prototyping. Many of the pistols now use plastic frames
As far as legality of manufacturing your own firearm by people who are somehow restricted by law from owning one, well it's the possession and ownership that is restricted, not the creation so all possession restrictions still apply.
You can create your own firearms according to the Gun Control Act of 1968 for personal usage just not sale or distribution. If you decide to make these 3D printed firearm receivers you would have to apply for a Federal Firearms License type 7 or 10 and register your business then put serial numbers on these parts.
Just an aside. I was once denigrating clothing designers and was challenged to 'design something'. So I designed a bikini for my GF. She refused to even try it on. Didn't like my material choices (clear plastic wrap, dental floss and scotch tape).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Lots of silly information here. "Glock 17 Parabellum"? Seriously? Hammer Spring? On a striker-fired pistol?
(You may "handle firearms on a daily basis", but I'm a Glock Armorer.)
Oh, come on, I couldn't stop laughing over the "tenifer steel" compression ability. I wasn't aware that a metal treatment mere microns thick had that kind of power. Impressive.
Remington 1959, actually. Frame made of doped nylon.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
On locksmithing, it may depend on your state. Owning the tools is legal in my state, although having them on your person in suspicious circumstances might make you a person of interest. It's like having a baseball bat -- in the park, not a big deal. In a crowd outside city hall, something else again.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Actually the first printed part was much more utilitarian and non-controversial. The day before the printer was completed, a storm had knocked down a few of the trees on the property of the inventor, and instead of heading to the hardware store for the parts to repair his fence, he decided to build the parts needed. The horizontal rails were too large for the printer, so a replacement vertical piece was constructed. This 'first post' is still proudly displayed on the property.
Everyone knows the NRA's agenda. "Don't take away our guns! The Second Amendment says we can have 'em."
Actually, you don't learn their real agenda until you've 33rd degree OT XV NRAman.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
By pushing their extremist view of the constitution, ...
That is a very close minded and telling statement.
Not really. "Military Grade" is a political fiction, the civilian AR-15 is functionally identical to popular hunting rifles. It's "military" only in a cosmetic sense, black plastic instead of wood, same sights and controls as the M-16/M-4. In operation it functions like many hunting rifles, semi-automatic only (one shot per trigger squeeze), it leaves the factory with a 5 round magazine just like the hunting rifles, it uses the same ammunition, etc. The NRA opposes (in part) an assault rifle ban because they understand the functional definition of a rifle like the AR-15 (detachable magazine, semi-automatic, ...) would apply to many hunting rifles as well.
They think it's an infringement of their 'rights' to even be required to be trained to use the weapons they are buying.
The NRA is the largest firearms safety training organization in the world. They got into the political debate only because well meaning but ill-informed politicians were going down the path to outlaw (sometimes unintentionally) traditional hunting and target shooting firearms.
Wow. Somebody should tell the olympics. It seems that they are not aware of this fact.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Guns are irrelevant in the case of the Aurora shooter. He possessed enough intelligence to booby-trap his apartment. If guns were illegal, he could have done the same or greater damage with IEDs. If the materials to form IEDs were illegal, he could have done a lot of damage with acid the way the crazies in Afghanistan do.
In other words, you cannot totally prevent this sort of thing by any measure tolerable by a free society. This will always be the case until you tie every citizen's hands behind his back and only allow him to move them under closely monitored cases. Even then, the intelligent ones will find a way.
Let me suggest something controversial--let's correct the gross and systemic inequality, in material terms, of our society. That eliminates an entire swath of economic-based grievances. Let's also address the endemic prejudice of society against intelligent kids in favor of physical kids; this has been salient since Columbine, but no one in America has done anything meaningful against it except to further stigmatize intelligent kids.
I know, this is crazy talk. Let's all double-down on the status quo instead. Let's criminalize everything we possibly can, flying in the face of the constant march of technology. Nevermind that soon everyone will have the ability to manufacture their own guns and worse in defiance of all prohibitions. Nevermind that it will soon be possible for an enterprising, but disgruntled, teen-ager to manufacture his own variant of Ebola. Nevermind that it will soon be possible to enterprising nerds to mastermind the mass-execution of the 1% via swarm-controlled bots.
No, let's continue to plug our fingers in our ears and pretend that the status quo is fine. Remember, I said it here first.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Yup, because the lower on an AR-15 (which is considered the "firearm" by the BATFE) isn't a structural part - it simply keeps all the other parts in appropriate alignment.
And, perfectly legal to make your own firearm, as long as it isn't for commercial purposes (sale), and as long as you follow all NFA rules. You can make a SBR, AOW, etc. as long as you get the proper tax stamp first.... Only thing you can't make is a full auto since the NFA registry for FA/select fire stuff was closed in May 1986. Of course, if you have your FFL and SOT for NFA manufacture, you can still make FA/select fire items *with* the appropriate request for demo unit from a law enforcement agency or military.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos