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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."
The Lulz Liberator uses more metal parts than the original Liberator...so at least this would be harder to sneak past a metal detector.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It may be a fun proof of concept, but about the only things it is good for are generating political hype and drawing attention to the inventors.
People fail to realize that it's much easier and cheaper to make a home made gun using existing tools and materials. Just because someone now made a [not very good] one using a 3D printer, everybody seems to be freaking out.
Further well-grounded and thoughtful discussion on the matter can be found here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/oh_no_its_the_plastic_3d_gun/
You can't 3d print a spring with a plastics printer.
Printing a Compression Spring on a RepRap / RepStrap 3D Printer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHrlasCSa3U