How 3-D Printed Guns Evolved Into Serious Weapons in a Year

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/3d-printed-guns/

by relampago • 12 years ago

64 71 12 years ago

wired.com

pingburg• 12 years ago

I guess it's because of the plastic but all of the guns look like they were sold at Toys-R-Us.

BTW: The gun made in Japan (1st video in the article) has a background track that is hilarious and worth the click.

cgcardona• 12 years ago

FWIW I would think that how a weapon _looks_ matters less than how it performs. If it shoots and injures/kills it doesn't matter to me if it's bright pink with rainbows and unicorns all over—it's still a perfectly valid weapon.

Looking like a toy could even serve as a useful form of camouflage.

Finally I would say that the fidelity of 3d printers is going up and the price is coming down. I would imagine that they won't look like they were sold at Toys-R-Us for much longer.

dfc4• 12 years ago

  > I would think that how a weapon _looks_ matters less than how it performs.

Said no one who has been held up at knife point.

Put another way if someone waved a gun in your face and threatened you, would you need to see a tight grouping at 50 yards before you felt intimidated? Or would the mere potential for violence be enough to raise your anxiety level?

JoeAltmaier2• 12 years ago

You can spend $1000+ for a serious handgun, or $25 for one of these jokes. Why the price difference? Because handgun manufacturers are stupid?

No, its because machining hardened steel designed to contain the gas pressure required to project a bullet down a barrel at high speed is costly. Tolerances have to be very fine to fire again and again without jamming.

With a plastic gun, what kind of muzzle velocity is being achieved? Can it penetrate a pop can at 10 feet? Will it break skin? I'm dubious.

TeMPOraL• 12 years ago

Can it penetrate a pop can at 10 feet? Will it break skin? I'm dubious.

As far as I remember from the Liberator testing videos yes it can and yes it will. The real issue is: can it do it twice? Can it do it without inflicting more damage to the shooter than to the target?

As you said, there's a reason guns are made from metal and cost a bit more than $25.

The other thing is, even if you have you $25 everyone-now-equal-in-power anarchygun, you still need to get bullets ;).

JoeAltmaier2• 12 years ago

Actually I reload, from brass I scavenge at a shooting range. Haven't bought ammunition in ages.

cstejerean• 12 years ago

You can but a serious handgun brand new for a couple hundred dollars. I've seen WW2 era revolvers on sale for $99. Price is a terrible reason to risk your hand with a 3D printed gun.

celticninja6• 12 years ago

In the US. The US is not the world.

ChuckMcM2• 12 years ago

In my experience there is less to guns than you might think. Inmates have been making so-called 'zip' guns since they were first imprisoned, POWs have had similar sorts of experience. The truth seems to be that its possible to make something that can injure and kill another human being using a manufactured cartridge and some easy to come by materials.

That has been true forever of course, now however 3D printers have mind share so its kind of link-baity to use folks fear of guns to induce fear of 3d printers. My chemistry teacher pointed out that a stochastic mixture of hydrogen and oxygen was a high explosive (it burns super sonically), technically you can drop a battery into a sealed jar of water with an igniter and turn it into a bomb. (after the electrolysis has time to work).

All that proves is that knowledge of weapons is sufficient to build weapons.

sehugg• 12 years ago

I was reminded of this NY Times article describing how someone cleverly gamed a gun buyback program by making and returning homemade $5 zip guns: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/the-very-brief-...

HeyLaughingBoy• 12 years ago

I believe you meant "stoichiometric," not "stochastic." Otherwise, we could be in a bit of trouble on any given day :-)

In any case, you're correct. It's easy enough to do that I remember doing when I was about 11-12 years or so. Didn't get the mixture right and instead of an explosion (I triggered it with a string "fuze" from behind the couch), I only got a loud POP, but it was still an explosion from electrolyzed hydrogen made by a 12 year-old.

As an aside, it's recalling stuff like this that makes me wonder what my 13 year old son is doing that I don't know about...

toomuchtodo• 12 years ago

Your argument is valid for plastic variants, but I would consider the effects of the cost of laser sintering coming down in price.

Boeing already uses laser sintering for titanium Dreamliner engine parts.

celticninja6• 12 years ago

That applies in the US. In the UK £1000 cannot buy a gun but it will buy you a 3d printer however.

As for muzzle velocity check out some of the videos of these guns. Sure it may not equate to a high end pistol but it beats the shit out of no gun at all.

XorNot• 12 years ago

Where are you going to buy the ammunition?

And if you're capable of making the ammunition, then you're also capable of realizing you don't need to 3D print anything, since you can fire a round off using thick-walled pipe and a nail.

Yet at the end of the day it will be just as illegal and get you just as arrested when it invariably gets discovered on your person.

Crito4• 12 years ago

In the UK, you could go down to the hardware store, pick up some pipes, plumbing fixtures and other assorted supplies for well less than £50, and make yourself a shotgun that would be far more reliable and effective than those plastic guns. With a smartphone that can watch youtube videos, you can even find teenagers in Appalachia that will walk you through the process, step by step.

Presumably the UK does not currently have an epedemic of gangbangers going to hardware stores to build shotguns, so why should more expensive, less effective 3d printers be a concern?

Expez• 12 years ago

I'm glad I live in a country (Norway) with a ton of guns and very little gun violence. I don't think easier access is going to change that going forward. Perhaps a little bit.

Other countries are less fortunate. It is my hope that instead of building higher walls--in the literal sense, or in the form of checkpoints--we can take a closer look at what drives the gun violence. Inequality seems to be a big factor. Access to psychiatric treatment might be another.

It saddens me that the easiest solution might be to simply ban 3d-printers. This would get someone a cheap political win, not actually solve the problem, and ruin something great for everyone else.

showerst• 12 years ago

You can counterfeit money on traditional printers, but we didn't ban printers (not as serious as building a deadly weapon, but still a huge crime in our society). The current solution is that big-league photo editing programs, copiers, and some high-end printers have mandated built-in detection algorithms for currency[1].

Maybe the same thing will happen for weapons? That becomes a harder problem in 3D, but are there common patterns unique to a receiver or barrel assembly or something?

I don't love any mandated black-box code running on my devices, but it would be better than most of the alternatives I can think of. (Banning, doing nothing at all)

[1] e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

ramayac• 12 years ago

Indeed, inequality is one of the biggest factors, and the gangs (maras) that are all over the place in Central America.

EDIT: spelling

Shivetya• 12 years ago

Suicide is the primary means of death by gun in the US, however that is not true if your black, your more than five times likely to die because of another person, usually black, killing you with a gun.

Do guns beget violence? There are those who think that access to guns makes suicide easier and while that may be true people who want to kill themselves will find a way.

Banning 3d printers won't make a dent in anything. It would be just like any new gun law, ignoring the problems that exist, especially within large cities where life isn't seen as important. Why is that? Who knows, some will point to lack of having to take of yourself or family because of assistance doesn't teach responsibility. When you only have to look out for yourself the risks get higher. Others will simply point to drugs or worse race and make claims that way.

Ban printers, why not ban knowledge. Making the illegal activity more difficult doesn't change the fact it was already illegal.

celticninja6• 12 years ago

The reprap is a 3d printer that can print the parts required to build another reprap. Banning 3d printers would never work.

Crito4• 12 years ago

It can't print all the parts... but you can find the rest of the parts at any poorly stocked downtown hardware store (let alone a real hardware store).

namlem• 12 years ago

Drug prohibition also plays a major role. Much of the violence is a result of dealers fighting for territory.

grannyg00se• 12 years ago

"a key part of a semi-automatic weapon called the lower receiver. That part, which comprises most of the body of a gun, is the most regulated element of a firearm. Print a lower receiver, and you can buy the rest of a gun’s components off the shelf without an ID or waiting period."

That's an easy fix I would think. But I'm surprised that the barrel isn't just as highly regulated.

pilom• 12 years ago

The barrel is just a metal tube. How do you regulate metal tubes?

guizzy• 12 years ago

Purpose. If the police can prove or otherwise convince a judge that the purpose of that metal tube is to serve as a gun barrel, then it's a gun barrel. Circumstances would go a long way in these cases. Say, if the barrel is mounted on a gun. If the owner is known to be making a gun. If the owner has no reason whatsoever to explain why he has a precisely rifled metal tube and a bunch of gun parts on him.

bwhite2• 12 years ago

Rifled barrels which have been machined to tight tolerances are non-trivial to make. But a smoothbore barrel is just a tube. For plenty of low-power cartridges, it doesn't even need to be metal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm

ufmace2• 12 years ago

This doesn't seem to me like nearly as big of a revolution as the media is making it out to be. You can already buy all the CNC mills and lathes and other machine tools that you have space and money for, and use them to manufacture firearms if you want to. Granted, it takes a lot more time and money than using 3D printers.

At least in the US, the laws are pretty clear and established on manufacturing firearms, and I don't see how they would be any different for 3D printed guns. Right now, as an individual, you can manufacture and posses any firearm that meets the legal definition of a pistol, rifle, or shotgun with no licenses at all, unless prohibited by state laws. You only need a license if you want to sell them. AFAIK, you can actually sell the guns you build, as long as you aren't believed to be in the business of manufacturing them for sale, which is a bit of a fuzzy line.

If you want to manufacture anything full-auto, anything explosive, or certain other categories of weapons, then you need a special manufacturer's license for that, regardless of what you plan to do with them, and are much more strictly prohibited on who you can sell them to and how. AFAIK, currently, any newly manufactured full-auto firearm can only be sold legally to either police departments or other licensed dealers.

Nevertheless, this is still an interesting field, and I'd like to see what the 3D printing innovators manage to come up with as far as useful firearms.

bwhite2• 12 years ago

You need a Federal Firearms License if you are "engaged in the business", which is clarified further as having a "principal objective of livelihood and profit through the sale or distribution of the firearms manufactured". See 18.921.a.21.A. The ATF and FBI have employed a wide range of interpretations for this clause, so an FFL might be warranted.

There are already shows and traveling folks with portable CNC setups who will mill a block of aluminum into various types of frames or AR-15 lowers. The 3d-printed issue seems quite similar to that.

celticninja6• 12 years ago

The difference is that a 3d printer is almost at the domestic use stage and takes up far less space than a CNC Mill and lathe.

Now combine that with countries such as the UK where gun ownership is highly restricted and you can understand how revolutionary it really is.

The article talks of only needing to make a lower receiver and buying the remaining parts legally. This applies mainly to the USA, you cannot buy those parts in the UK. The ability to print an entire gun is revolutionary it is just that you are viewing it from a US perspective only and this is the sort of technology that crosses international boundaries easily and quickly.

adwf2• 12 years ago

Yeah, as the UK is an island, we've pretty much only ever had to monitor some clearly defined locations to prevent arms from being distributed (borders, army bases, farms, legacy firearms, etc).

Now with 3D printing, they could be manufactured with ease anywhere within the country. It's a whole different situation for the police to be dealing with.

Mostly though, it's the massively reduced cost from a CNC mill to a 3D printer (that's why they're so exciting!). A £50k+ purchase for a mill and then the expertise/blueprints to program it is very prohibitive for the general population. Whereas the 3D printer for ~£1k with freely downloaded click-and-go plans from the internet? Almost anyone could scrape that together if they tried.

It's a tipping point situation that has really scary implications for any country that has gun control.

ufmace2• 12 years ago

I'm curious actually where the UK draws the line on gun parts. A barrel, for example, is a pretty specialized part that isn't too hard to recognize as a gun part, and isn't useful for anything else. A lot of other parts are simple little bits of machined or stamped metal, though, or stuff like springs.

If I mailed somebody in the UK a barrel, I assume it would be found and everybody involved would get in some sort of trouble. What about a spring, though? Would anybody get in trouble if you were mailed a spring? Can then even tell whether that spring is the mainspring for a 1911 pistol, or a part for a pressure valve at a factory or something? How about an AK trigger guard, which is a funny-looking bit of stamped steel? God only knows what some random person seeing that would think it's for.

commandar• 12 years ago

The difference is that a 3d printer is almost at the domestic use stage and takes up far less space than a CNC Mill and lathe.

Not 3D printers capable of printing with high tensile strength materials needed to produce a working firearm. That's not that far removed from CNCs and lathes suitable for woodworking being far more attainable than those intended for machine work.

bradleysmith5• 12 years ago

The difference is that a 3d printer is almost at the domestic use stage and takes up far less space than a CNC Mill and lathe.

That's not necessarily true. There are a plethora of available mills that require a similar skill-set for producing finished working parts. More importantly, the parts you pull off these machines could be used hundreds or thousands of times. I've listed a couple from quick google searches below.

http://www.taigtools.com/cmill.html http://www.pocketnc.com/products/

I was born and raised in a country where firearms are completely illegal. Even there, you would be able to build a higher quality zipgun (which is effectively what a Liberator is) from parts available in a hardware store. The ammunition becomes the most regulated portion of the weapon in either case, and 3D printing as a tech does nothing to change that.

Crito4• 12 years ago

Obligatory "Shit Shovel" AK-47: http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DI...!

TL;DR: A man starts with a shovel (formerly used for shovelling shit) and forms an AK receiver using little more than a furnace, some hammers, a spot welder and a drill.

So yeah, the printers change very little. What they have actually done is effectively communicated the idea that guns can be made in your garage (previously that message was not getting through for some reason which I cannot for the life of me understand).

dllthomas2• 12 years ago

The difference is the amount of know-how and effort involved. I think people overestimate these for the machine-shop approach and underestimate (for now) in the 3D printer case, but in principle the latter eventually allows that know-how to be entirely baked into a digital file and distributed and the effort will eventually come down.

I'm still not sure that this is terribly important but it is a distinction with some basis in reality.

bradleysmith5• 12 years ago

That's rad, thanks for sharing this.

baddox• 12 years ago

Granted, it takes a lot more time and money than using 3D printers.

That is the entire point, so I don't think it can be waved away in a single sentence. Obviously, for centuries you could buy an entire forge, for decades you could buy commercial CNC equipment, for maybe a decade you could by cheaper "prosumer" CNC equipment, and for a year or three you could buy consumer 3D printers.

sitkack• 12 years ago

I don't yet see how these are serious, but with advances in material science for 3d feedstocks they definitely will.

On a threat level, printed guns probably rank lower than death by bee sting.

jqm• 12 years ago

Printing 3-D guns is pretty useless unless one can also print 3-D bullets.

(for the record I would be a bit leery of operating a device used to explode gunpowder in a chamber and force a projectile down a tube at high velocity that had been printed from plastic on a hobbyists printer...)

ISL• 12 years ago

Chris Rock might agree with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZrFVtmRXrw

Making low-quality bullets isn't that hard, nor is reloading brass, but at present, neither can be done with a 3-D printer.

damoncali• 12 years ago

That may not be as hard as it sounds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caseless_ammunition

artificialidiot4• 12 years ago

For the about the same price of a 3d printer and plastics, you can buy a small lathe and aluminium stock to build a gun far superiour yet just as dangerous for the user. Required skill is comparable. Why aren't there any talks about banning those hobby machines too? Because you need a good scary story to sell and cutting metal is old news. I don't buy the plastic widget manufacturers getting in the way angle either. Do you have any idea how much cheaper is buying a mass produced thing instead of designing, building and botching the same piece with worse tolerances and worse materials?

gutnor2• 12 years ago

The fear comes from being able to buy a relatively cheap 3D printer at Walmart, download a firearm template and build yourself a firearm that way.

Manufacture of a weapon may require the same skill using lathe and other machining tools but duplication can become very easy with 3D printer after the initial weapon has been created.

Nevertheless that is just media made circus. Getting firearm is currently so easy there is no underground manufacture even with cheap tools and low skill needed. So at worst 3D printing could change the type of weapon in circulation, not change the overall availability.

artificialidiot4• 12 years ago

If you can operate a computer equipped with a plastic printer, I think you can operate a 18th century machine following a blueprint on paper. It is not like machinist design those lower receivers from scratch either.

infruset• 12 years ago

That's in the US, though. In most european countries, there are close to no guns in circulation and this could change a lot of things.

Zak• 12 years ago

In the US, one can simply buy a gun at Walmart and skip the building it at home part. Even at the low end, it will probably be a better gun than one made on a 3D printer.

In some countries with stricter gun laws, illegally-made guns are pretty common. You can see examples at http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/author/improguns/ - many of them are submachineguns, which are a bit more scary than single-shot pistols and pepperbox revolvers.

bmelton5• 12 years ago

Why aren't there any talks about banning those hobby machines too?

There are.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/unfini...

artificialidiot4• 12 years ago

TFA doesn't mention banning the machines themselves. In fact only thing worth mentioning is the seizure of plastic %80 lowers because they were just too easy to finish while leaving the metal ones. There is no intent to regulate even the %80 lowers.

bradleysmith5• 12 years ago

Full disclosure: I was involved in the defense distributed project of initially designing the Liberator. A startup I was helping run printed their first AR-15 lower receiver. I actually pressed print on a number of their first builds.

As user ufmace (and artificialidiot) points out, this is NOT nearly as big of a revolution as the media is making it out to be. You CAN buy CNC mills or lathes to build higher quality weapons with little or no licensure, for generally the same or less $$ than a 3D printer. You could also buy much of what is necessary to build a Liberator-style weapon in a Home Depot. You could also buy a czech-stamped 9x18 makarov pistol for under $150, and put hundreds or thousands of rounds through it, all without talking to an FFL holder.

This was a perfect storm of tech interest and general wonderment in 3D printing meeting zealotry applied towards gun laws, from both directions. People from Defense Distributed are well aware of this; nonsense or not, it made a great launch pad and buzz mill. Mr. Wilson has already signed his book deal and on to his Dark Wallet project.

Me personally, I've always thought that building some STL files of the solvent trap adapter[0] or adapter used in the Econo-Can suppressor[1] would be more meaningful parts to distribute via 3D printers (If you're all into the freedom-of-weapons via technology bandwagon, which I'm not). Suppressors are a very real tactical advantage, and small threaded adapters are much more likely to stand up to the stresses of weapons use.

[0] https://cadizgunworks.com/store/index.php?route=product/prod... [1]-https://cadizgunworks.com/store/index.php?route=product/cate...

pessimizer• 12 years ago

Gunsmithing in Pakistan:

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2012/07/30/gunsmithing-in...

edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinRqCocwGE

bradleysmith5• 12 years ago

good stuff, thanks for the share.

jmzbond• 12 years ago

The first thing this made me think of is that there are a burgeoning group of "share economy" type 3D printing services. What happens if a buyer essentially crowdsources 3D printing of various parts for a functional gun and then uses it to commit a crime?

Interesting to think about...

krapp• 12 years ago

If this takes place in the United States, depending on where you are, just buying a gun is always going to be easier and less expensive. Elsewhere, it might make more sense.

How 3-D Printed Guns Evolved Into Serious Weapons in a Year

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