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'Download This Gun' — 3-D Printed Gun Reliable Up To 600 Rounds
An anonymous reader writes "We've talked previously about Texan gunsmith Cody Wilson's efforts to create 3-D-printable parts for firearms. He has a printed magazine that can withstand normal operation for quite a while. But he's also been working on building parts of the gun itself. An early version of a 3-D printed 'lower receiver' — the part of the gun holding the operating parts — failed after firing just 6 rounds. Now, a new video posted by Wilson's organization shows their design has improved enough to withstand over 600 rounds. Plus, their test only ended because they used up their ammunition; they say the receiver could have easily withstood a thousand rounds or more. Speaking to Ars, Wilson gave some insight into his reasoning behind this creation with regard to gun laws. 'I believe in evading and disintermediating the state. It seemed to be something we could build an organization around. Just like Bitcoin can circumvent financial mechanisms. ... The message is in what we're doing—the message is: download this gun.' A spokesperson for the ATF said that while operating a business as a firearm manufacturer requires a license, an individual manufacturing one for personal use is legal."
I wouldn't be surprised if this guy met with an unfortunate accident.
There has been a lot of that happening recently in the gun-rights subculture.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
sound a idea for a in the line of fire 2
Someone whose stated goal is "evading and disintermediating the state" being tied to gun ownership and production. Plays right into the gun-control crowd's narrative of how gun owners are all crazies and trying to subvert the government or think a civil war is about to happen. Wilson, please do all of us gun owners a favor and shut up. Feel free to keep working on 3D printed firearms-to me they are no different than purchasing an 80% receiver and milling the rest yourself- just don't talk.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
They are simply doing what the law allows them to do. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A GUN
I do get it. The public mood concerning guns is highly amplified at the moment and nothing would draw attention as quickly as a gun that could be printed easily at home. Beneath that may reside an unusually powerful change in the very basics of society as we know it. Obviously if one can print a gun then one could print almost everything else. Need a bicycle, a car or a new home? Then turn on the printer. The entire monetary and investment systems now in play would be shot not only in one foot but in both feet with a shot to the head in good measure. The notions of employment, investment and even concepts of ownership could be highly effected. After all, why bother to own a bicycle when a printer can whip one out for you as needed? It is next to impossible for the bulk of the public to sense the shifting sands beneath their feet. I feel that the next thirty years will see more changes in our lives and social structures than in all of human history combined. Future shock may no longer describe the situation. Maybe we can picture it as future shock from a very potent, very large, high voltage, power line with no fuse, contacting our scalps while we stand in a pool of liquid mercury.
According to the ATF, the lower of an AR is 'the gun'. Transfer of that part alone requires paper work; buying it requires a background check and can only be sold in a private transfer or by a licensed dealer. All the other parts of the AR platform are add ons, and require no paperwork before purchase. Yes, that includes the upper, the barrels, even the trigger assembly. So no, in the eyes of the government, this is a "3D printed gun".
It's also not that big of a deal. 3D mills have existed for a while, and any machine shop with one could turn out a milled aluminium lower in about the same amount of time. The ATF has rules on who can do that, and what you can do with it after it's made. They seem not to be too worried about polymer lowers.
To those who aren't AR-15 enthusiasts:
The only 3D printed part is what is referred to as the "lower reciever" (the part that appears white or clear in the pics/vid). While printing this part (which can last 600 rounds apparently) is an achievement, it probably isn't even among the top 10 parts which experience the most stress...come back and talk to me when they can print:
- The barrel ...etc.
- The chamber
- The upper reciever
- the bolt
- the bold carrier
- the gas tube
The confusion might be from the fact that (according to US law) the serial numbered "reciever" (what that part is varies from one weapon to another) is what the ATF considers to be "The gun" (everything is a part). For example, if I want to buy a serialed AR-15 lower reciever, I go to a firearms dealer, get a background check, etc...everything else that makes up the gun can be purchased online and mailed to my home no problemo.
The part they printed is the part that legally makes it a gun and whose manufacture is highly regulated.
If there was a "legally key part" of a car whose manufacture was highly regulated, then you would have a good analogy.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
>building your own gun using never-before-tested techniques is bound to result in some unfortunate mishaps before all the kinks are worked out.
That's how gun technology got developed in the first place.
When new models are being developed and tested at Colt, Ruger, Smith and Wesson, Winchester, Marlin, Glock, etc .... they put the gun in a "vice like" stand, behind a barrier, and fire it remotely - especially when testing high pressure rounds that you can't buy (some folks do load their own with higher than standard loads, but usually they do their research and have a pretty good idea on how far to push it. Usually.) in order to test the gun - if it survives the high pressure round then it will survive the standard one.
So, the point is, folks aren't taking unnecessary risks in gun development and I would assume that someone with the knowledge and intelligence to create a gun from a 3D printer would have the sense not to take unnecessary risks.
Now of course in this big World and with the Internet, we will see some asshat who will print a gun using sub standard material, load it up with high pressure rounds, turn the camera on, and create a Fark headline.
He will be an outlier.
A single bullet can easily cost you the chair, or life in prison, or millions of dollars. Gun control is keeping your finger off the trigger until you are on target and are sure of your target and what is beyond it. Killing innocent bystanders already costs far more than five thousand dollars. Taking your advice on self defense and safety from a comedian is.... well comedic.
I'm just waiting to see this ad: "Level 10 city blocks. Costs very little with parts you can purchase at Home depot. Download the plans online."
Kill people just because you can is not a healthy attitude. Neither is making it easy for others to do it on a whim.
We should not have to make everything you should not do illegal.
So the question is how, short of making it illegal, do we stop cretins like this who think they have the right to do this sort of unhealthy social engineering?
If you don't like the "state" you live under then move or change it. It's okay to think subversive thoughts but there are lines.
While I wouldn't do what he's doing, I'll fight for his right to do it. I have no idea what killing people because you can has to do with being able to print your own firearm. Wake me when you can print your own ammunition too.
First off: plans for DIY fuel air explosives are already available online.
Second off: none of this stuff can be done "on a whim". First, you need the right 3D printer, then you need the right plastics, then you need the plans. Finally, you need to know enough about firearms to be able to print and assemble and test the thing. You're also going to need to get some ammunition.
We should never attempt to stop cretins from doing things we don't like -- we SHOULD make our society one in which doing things that are illegal is seen to be unappetizing.
Personally, I have fewer issues with someone providing plans to print a gun than I do with the entertainment industry -- every day on my way to work, I have to pass an ad for a TV show that depicts an attractive young woman in front of a chart of mugshots with "killed" stamped over them -- and huge letters saying "Murder is only the beginning." Think about that for a moment. This poster is MUCH more likely to result in someone committing a violent act than someone being able to make their own gun. I guess gangs and crime syndicates might like these guns because they're untraceable, but they've already got untraceable guns - being able to print and toss will just allow them to stop robbing people for their firearms and will deflate the prices for unmarked guns on the black market -- both of which are good things.
Of course, the first time a printed gun is proven to have been used in an actual crime, things will get nasty.
Someone tried to fax me a gun but it came out flat and my 3-D bullets would not load.
I bet if i download it though the inter-tubes it won't get squashed. *note to self - do NOT compress the download or the gun might be too small for my bullets*
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
they just tested a single beta copy by firing 600 rounds and it did not fail. There's a difference.
Which is not to say this isn't an impressive achievement from an engineering standpoint, or that it doesn't have important policy implications. It's just that I deal with that particular conflation of a successful test with statistically meaningful proof every day. My teenaged son will do something stupid, and when I say that he'll break his neck if he keeps doing it his response is always, "Yeah, but I *didn't*."
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The resolution and materials commonly available for FDM/FFF are too poor for application like these. The quality of the print is just too poor and they are only using p400 ABS for material. That is why their prints aren't very durable.
SLA however offers the resolution and the materials to produce parts that are strong and reliable enough for these types of rugged applications. Some photopolymers for SLA are 100-1,000 x stronger than the ABS they are using.
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
first they came for the ellipses
i do not use ellipses so i did nothing
then they came for capital letters
i do not use capital letters so i did nothing
then they came for lowercase letters
and between me and e e cummings we were too weak to stop them
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The UK has the most stringent gun laws in the EU (though Germany is close) and even there you may own rifles and shotguns. Belgians and the Czechs have very active firearm cultures that are not related to hunting. I know Switzerland is not a member, but they are in the region and they also have such a culture. The remaining states mostly have hunting related firearm cultures from what I have read.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
"If you don't like the "state" you live under then move or change it."
There really aren't any places to flee to any more. Most governments are turning oppresive, corrupt and are trampling civil liberties. Computers and networking are making it extremely easy to make a police states these days. When East Germany and the U.S.S.R. did oppresive police state it was man power intensive, its much easier now. There is almost no effective defense of civil liberties being mounted any more. Once your government stacks the courts in their favor there is almost no peaceful path to oppose stripping your civil liberties. The U.S. can and frequently does use "state secrets" provision to shut down any challenge to its power. Y
ou can pretend ballot boxes in the places that have them will make a difference but they seldom do.
In particular, the reach of the U.S. government has extended to most of the nooks and crannies on the planet, with the possible exception of places like China, North Korea and Iran which are sufficiently oppresive without any help from the U.S. The U.S. has military bases and FBI offices in a staggering number of countries. They've used rendition all over the world to snatch people, sometimes innocent people, off the streets to torture . With drone bases in the middle of all of the hard to reach places the U.S. will soon have total global coverage and the ability to assassinate by drone anyone, anywhere, with no judiicial oversight.
Its the down side of living on a small planet with no frontiers left and a civilization with accelerating technology development.
There isn't any place to go if you want to escape.
@de_machina
If you own the mill you can make yourself a firearm without consulting the ATF as is mentioned in the summary. 3d mills are considerably more expensive than 3d printers which is the only reason this story is a story at all.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
"If you don't like the "state" you live under then move or change it."
Unless the public have lethal force options there is zero reason for the State to respect their will. "Changing" the State was done by the American Revolution.
Sometimes the only way to remove human obstacles is to take their lives, and under some onerous situations that is reasonable and good.
If you will not kill to be free and free others, how dare you say you deserve freedom you won't fight for? Fighting for freedom includes embedding the practical capability for revolution in the hands of the public. The Second Amerndment codified that RIGHT. The People have Rights under the Constitution, hence the wording.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Guns aren't hard to acquire now and even with decent gun control they probably won't be that hard to acquire in the future.
The problem with the US (well a problem for me) is the gun culture where having a gun is considered cool and manly, as a result lots of people have guns and feel normal keeping them and using them. Change the culture so gun ownership is weird, so that when you tell someone you own a device designed to kill people they give you an odd look and get uncomfortable, once that happens you'll see a real drop in guns and violence. I don't see 3D printed guns as being a big factor either way.
I stole this Sig
When it comes to anything involving large amounts of resources (such as building and testing significant numbers of prototypes) they pretty much are.
I don't think that even in the good old days you're herp-derping about people made their own muskets. Of the minority that did some didn't make their own clothes and bread (because they were professional gunsmiths) and the rest blew themselves up.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why don't you name some of the countries and we will evaluate how really free they are and how insulated they are from the reach of the U.S. government.
@de_machina
Armed insurrection is the most fundamental right of a free people. Without the means and will to resist oppression, such oppression is inevitable. The gun grabbers are attacking both the means and the will of the people to secure their own liberty. They not only want to remove weapons from the hands of the public, they want to reshape the public's mindset (as evidenced by several posts in this very discussion) to innately oppose such self reliance. They call this "gun culture" but what they really mean is "we don't want people making decisions for themselves". They're using bully pulpits and school shootings to get attention now, but they'll use public schools and political brainwashing to see their ultimate goal is achieved. We're only one or two generations of clueless hipster progeny away from ceding any legitimate claim to armed resistance right into the hands of the tyrants.
The armed forces and police, directed by the government, probably won't permit a violent revolution to take place in this modern day, they are too well organised
That's why you shoot the politicians, not the police.
There's a reason for that "You can tell it's Mattel" joke.
I've seen A1s with broken handguards and stocks from being transported neatly packed inside a crate, in the back of a truck, mostly over asphalt-paved roads, to a distance of maybe a dozen kilometers.
And those were real, honesttogod, real gun factory produced and tested M16A1s.
Everything else that makes up the system is there for operation and function, rather than strength. No one is talking about printing the critical parts.
It's a gun, not a club.
Every part needed to make it operational IS critical.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Of course there were. Don't be silly. Most guns were made by a single guy in a shop. It's all about having the right tools. Personally, one of my hobbies is trying to build everything, at least once. Guns are not complicated, and one of the first things I did myself. I've blacksmithed my own kitchen knives (a lot harder than the gun) I've built a truck from parts out of a junkyard. I've replaced broken parts on that same truck by putting them in a sand mold to get their shape and then smelted them myself. You can do anything you want if you're clever, have access to the internet and are persistent.
I picked PERCENTAGES.
That is how you compare crime rates between countries with different populations.
Picking absolute numbers is meaningless unless the two countries have the same size population.