Engineers Build The World’s First Real 3D-Printed Gun. The Liberator, for all the hoopla, was not really a gun. This 3D-printed firearm, on the other hand, is a gun. It is a copy of a 1911 made using public-domain plans and a laser sintering system that solidifies metal powder. It fires just like a real semi-automatic pistol The gun, created by Solid Concepts, is completely legal. The company has a Federal Firearms License and it’s trivial to find the blueprints online. The company created a 3D model of the 1911 and then simply blasted metal powder, heating it up and creating a solid, fireable item. “We made it to prove out metal laser sintering technology,” said VP of Marketing Scott McGowan. McGowan expects to be able to help gunsmiths acquire difficult-to-build parts using this technology. “We’re proving this is possible, the technology is at a place now where we can manufacture a gun with 3D Metal Printing,” wrote Kent Firestone, Vice President of Additive Manufacturing at Solid Concepts.
FYI: Is It Legal To 3-D Print A Handgun? Earlier this week, the Wiki Weapons Project--an initiative to create a 3-D printed handgun and distribute the digital design file for free online--ran into a stumbling block when 3-D printer provider Stratasys pulled the lease on a printer it had provided the group. Stratasys cited a clause in the lease agreement that allows the company to rescind a lease for printers believed to be used for unlawful purposes.
That raises the obvious (and thorny) question: Is the Wiki Weapons Project doing anything illegal? We at PopSci are experts on many things, but federal firearms regulations and intellectual property law are not among them. As we understand it, one is required to obtain a federal firearms manufacturing license to produce firearms in this country--if those firearms are for sale. And the law doesn't have much to say about that, not explicitly, anyway. "You have an Anarchist's Cookbook kind of question. That's a common sentiment among the experts we talked to. At least not yet. 3-D Printed Gun Only Lasts 6 Shots | Danger Room. A group of 3-D printing gunsmiths have taken another step toward making a gun you can download off the internet. This weekend, the desktop weaponeers took a partially printed rifle out to test how long its plastic parts survived spewing bullets.
The result? Six rounds until it snapped apart. But that was also the point, the group’s founder tells Danger Room. “We knew it would break, probably,” says Cody Wilson, who heads the Wiki Weapon project. “But I don’t think we thought it’d break within six [rounds]. We thought it’d break within 20.” It’s the first live testing done by Wilson and Defense Distributed, the online collective that aims not only produce the world’s first fully 3-D printed gun, or “Wiki Weapon,” but create a clearinghouse for sharing weapons blueprints over the internet. The gun tested this weekend was not fully 3-D printed, only partially. But Wilson learned a few things about how to improve it. For weeks, they haven’t been able to even start. 'Catastrophic failure' of 3D-printed gun in Oz Police test. The New South Wales Police Force, guardians of Australia's most-populous state, have gotten themselves into a panic over the Liberator, the 3D-printable pistol.
The Force's Commissioner Andrew Schipione today appeared at a press conference to denounce the Liberator and urge residents of the State not to download plans for the gun. Schipione offered this advice after the Force's ballistics team acquired a 3D printer, downloaded plans for the Liberator and assembled a pair of the pistols. One, when fired into a resin block said to simulate human flesh, is said to have penetrated to a depth of 17 fatal-injury-inducing centimetres. The other experienced “catastrophic failure”, as we predicted a couple of weeks ago. Here's the Force's video, complete with shots of the Liberator firing, and falling apart. That failure didn't stop Schipione declaring the Liberator a threat to public safety.
“Download this gun”: 3D-printed semi-automatic fires over 600 rounds. Cody Wilson, like many Texan gunsmiths, is fast-talkin’ and fast-shootin’—but unlike his predecessors in the Lone Star State, he’s got 3D printing technology to help him with his craft. Wilson’s nonprofit organization, Defense Distributed, released a video this week showing a gun firing off over 600 rounds—illustrating what is likely to be the first wave of semi-automatic and automatic weapons produced by the additive manufacturing process.
Last year, his group famously demonstrated that it could use a 3D-printed “lower” for an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle—but the gun failed after six rounds. Now, after some re-tooling, Defense Distributed has shown that it has fixed the design flaws and a gun using its lower can seemingly fire for quite a while. (The AR-15 is the civilian version of the military M16 rifle.) The lower, or "lower receiver" part of a firearm, is the crucial part that contains all of the gun's operating parts, including the trigger group and the magazine port. Totally legal. Bill Regulating 3D Printed Guns Announced In NYC.
NEW YORK—A new bill to regulate 3D printed guns was introduced by Council Member Lewis Fidler (D-Brooklyn) on June 12. The bill would amend the New York administrative code to make it illegal to use a 3D printer to create any part of a firearm unless the person is a licensed gunsmith. A gunsmith using a 3D printer to print any part of a gun would be required to notify the NYPD and register it within 72 hours. Proposed revisions to the code include language ensuring 3D printed guns fall under the same regulations as other firearms. This includes clarification on systems to feed bullets, requirements for a serial number, and regulations against destroying weapons. Cody Wilson, creator of the first 3D printed guns, and founder of Defense Distributed, said in an email interview, “Such legislation is a deprivation of equal protection and works in clear ignorance of Title I and II of U.S. gun laws.”
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