Meet The 'Liberator': Test-Firing The World's First Fully 3D-Printed Gun

[TampaAnimusVortex]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/05/05/meet-the-liberator-test-firing-the-worlds-first-fully-3d-printed-gun/

“Alright. One…two…”

Before “three” arrives, a shot reverberates across the overcast central Texas landscape. A tall, sandy blond engineer named John has just pulled a twenty-foot length of yellow string tied to a trigger, which has successfully fired the world’s first entirely 3D-printed gun for the very first time, rocketing a .380 caliber bullet into a berm of dirt and prairie brush.

“Fuckin’ A!” yells John, who has asked me not to publish his full name. He hurries over to examine the firearm bolted to an aluminum frame. But the first to get there is Cody Wilson, a square-jawed and stubbled 25 year-old in a polo shirt and baseball cap. John may have pulled the trigger, but the gun is Wilson’s brainchild. He’s spent more than a year dreaming of its creation, and dubbed it “the Liberator” in an homage to the cheap, one-shot pistols designed to be air-dropped by the Allies over France during its Nazi occupation in World War II.

Unlike the original, steel Liberator, though, Wilson’s weapon is almost entirely plastic: Fifteen of its 16 pieces have been created inside an $8,000 second-hand Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer, a machine that lays down threads of melted polymer that add up to precisely-shaped solid objects just as easily as a traditional printer lays ink on a page. The only non-printed piece is a common hardware store nail used as its firing pin.

[rrneck]

1. Only a matter of time. nt

[MrSlayer]

2. Great. They have this advanced technology and decide to be as primitive as possible.

"First thing, let's make a killing device!" Yay!

Ridiculous.

[rightsideout]

27. It's the American way

[Warpy]

3. Might have known one of the first things they'd print would be a fucking gun

Meanwhile, I have friends who are more interested in plowshares who have been printing spinning wheel bobbins.

I wish more people would turn to plowshares, realizing swords aren't really all that useful.

[oldhippie]

6. Swords are useful enough ....

... to take your plowshares. History - It's a good thing.

[Warpy]

9. If they do that, they'll starve.

Or they'll have to take up the plow, themselves, something your garden variety warrior would rather be shot than do.

Mostly they wave their swords around and try to scare us into working harder.

[MindPilot]

29. Of course every new technology will be used for making weapons...and porn.

That's after we can't figure out a way to use it to get high. It's just how we are.

But the reality is much of this kind of technology is finding its way into doing exactly the opposite; making prosthetic devices. The capability to go directly from a scanned image to an object is a dream-come-true for any fabricator or moldmaker. Especially if the molds are of people and even more difficult--animals. I foresee the film industry being one of the heaviest early adopters.

I saw a demo of a CNC machine last year at a trade show. It scanned a man's left arm, then, in about 30 minutes, it cut an aluminum mold of a perfect replica of his right arm! That is easily a week's work even for a skilled sculptor and mold-maker.

[Warpy]

30. Actually, I think we try to eat it first

but I think you're right about that. There are some people who view everything according to its potential to harm other people.

I'm glad to hear some of this technology is being used to create prosthetics.

[NightWatcher]

4. a single shot gun produced on an $8000 printer?

meanwhile you can pick up a Saturday Night Special for a couple hundred. They'll also shoot more than one before blowing up in your hand

[TampaAnimusVortex]

11. True - but a few years from now and your looking at something else.

A supply of cheap metal tube inserts and a 200 dollar 3D printer from 2015 will get you a reliable multi-shot weapon factory.

[Gravitycollapse]

5. Reliable, multi-shot, high power printed firearms are a LONG way off fortunately.

The plastic cannot withstand higher pressure rounds.

[TampaAnimusVortex]

12. Indeed. Luckily these cant be modified to include a metal barrel...

Well... at least without spending all of 15 minutes with a CAD program tweaking the blueprints. No one would ever be so diabolical as to ever try that of course.

[Gravitycollapse]

14. Cutting hardened metal barrels is not exactly easy.

CNC machines are not usually cheap. And it is not just the barrel that really should be made from harder substances.

[TampaAnimusVortex]

15. One doesnt need hardened metal...

Assuming were dealing with a criminal who wants a weapon to rob a bank or some multi-fire short term operations...

Standard quality steel water pipe is sufficient as long as its surrounded by plastic hard and strong enough to keep it together - which if the creator here is already using it to fire rounds currently with plastic only... obviously it is. The problem he has now is the heat, which would still build up in normal pipe. It would be less accurate than a normal pistol obviously, but given most pistols are short range weapons anyways, it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

Your just guessing on the idea that other parts would need to be reinforced... but even assuming the area right behind the bullet needed some metal, one could see a slight modification involving metal washers handling that pretty easily.

[Gravitycollapse]

17. Yeah, I am not just guessing.

This is especially the case with any attempt to print semiautomatic firearms. Basic components of the slide and receiver would also need to be made of metal. There are ways to build primitive firearms cheaply right now. I don't see a proliferation of guns built from parts at Home Depot.

The fear around these 3D printed guns is manufactured. And it distracts from meaningful attempts at discussing gun control.

[NickB79]

16. Who needs a barrel when a basic pipe will do?

Get the internal diameter close enough, use a lower-power round (.22LR, .25 ACP, .32 ACP, etc) and away you go. You don't need rifling for shooting at short range that most crime is committed; even a smoothbore probably would put 5 shots into a man-sized target at 10 yards.

But I do agree with you that the barrel isn't the only part that should be metal; the chamber holding the round must also survive excessive force upon firing.

[Gravitycollapse]

18. I have doubts about the accuracy of a smooth bore barrel at 30 feet.

[MineralMan]

20. And you're right to have those doubts.

But, it doesn't matter, really. This plastic thing and most zip guns are meant to be used at point-blank range, anyhow. Accuracy and the ability to fire multiple rounds aren't really issues at all for such weapons. They're throwaways to begin with.

The only thing unique about this printed single-use weapon is that it's printed. I can, and have, made a .25 ACP single-use zip gun with nothing but materials purchased at my local Ace Hardware. The only tool needed was an electric drill and a couple of drill bits. It took me less than half an hour to assemble the thing, which fired just fine the first time.

The difference was that I didn't need an $8000 3D printer to accomplish this. I made it to win a $20 bet with a guy who said it couldn't be done. I didn't hold the thing when it was test-fired, but it clearly demonstrated that I could have.

A later project, also made on a bet, was a 12 ga. shotgun, also made with almost unaltered hardware store components.

[TampaAnimusVortex]

21. That $8000 dollar printer now will be a $300 dollar printer shortly.

And sitting on the desk of just about every house in every civilized country.

[MineralMan]

23. Actually, no. There will be some sort of 3D

printer sitting on some desks. For most people, the usefulness won't be that great for printing plastic toys and the like. And serious, precision desktop 3D printers that will make useful stuff won't be $300.

So, I think you're incorrect about that prediction. I know that I've thought about 3D printers, but can't, for the life of me, think of any way one would be useful to me. The thermoplastics they use are not something I consider to be useful for making anything I need. Now, if they printed sintered metal, or fireable ceramics and had an attached kiln, I might be interested. But I don't use much cheap plastic crap in my life, to tell you the truth. I don't prototype things for manufacture, and just can't think of any reason I might have to own such a thing.

Now, a computer-controlled milling machine that could carve stuff out of billets of metal? That I could use. Those are also available, but won't be available at a price I can afford with the size capacity I'd need. If you can work on that for me, it'd be great.

[Occulus]

28. Everything in your post is incorrect.

And that's not even the best way to do it. The Zcorp printers are the best, but cost the better part of $100K. That price will drop as time passes.

The tech is already deployed, though, and some of the high end printers (like the Zcorp ones I mentioned) can print in glass, gold, silver, stainless steel, bronze, and other metals. (Did I see your ears perk up in interest?) The printer in the video above runs for $3200. You can order one now if you like, and it'll ship in July. That price will drop as the tech catches hold, which I assure you it will. By the way, Shapeways already uses the Zcorp printers (very, very expensive, to be sure, but that's right now) to print precision Formula-1 and medical parts in titanium and aluminum:

I've been following this tech for several years now. The ability to print a fully-functional firearm in metal, at home, is only a few years off. The tech to do it at all is already here and already in use (fortunately, Shapeways will not produce weapons).

[jmowreader]

19. Who said anything about cutting hardened steel?

If you've got an oxyacetylene torch with a rosebud tip for heating and a gallon of motor oil for quenching, you can temper steel without difficulty. You can also buy small metal lathes at Harbor Freight for a few hundred dollars.

[MindPilot]

31. At this level of mass production, it only has to work once.

For example a printed plastic gun could have a cartridge of single-use plastic barrels

[MindPilot]

22. There are probably not going to be any further developments in plastics

and no doubt 3-D printing will never evolve to the point of using metals.

So yeah, nothing to be concerned about.

[pediatricmedic]

24. You were saying about printing in metals?

http://production3dprinters.com/slm/direct-metal-slm

[MindPilot]

25. We have these where I work -- aerospace fabrication

I saw one demo'd at a trade show last year. The capability for prosthetic devices is incredible. Take a laser scan of the good limb. The machine can invert & reverse that image to make a mold of the missing limb--an exact replica (for the molded silicone version). Or it can fabricate it directly. It can also fabricate the internal frame, supports and joints.




So I guess the takeaway here is scan your hand BEFORE firing the plastic gun.

[Blue_Tires]

7. What's the real point of this?

Can't you get a real, honest to goodness weapon for next to nothing already, even in the so-called "strict" gun states?

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Blow through any and all gun control legislation

If I can print it at home, it makes all those silly background checks unenforceable....whoohoo a libertarian paradise.

in case it's needed.

[Robb]

10. Pew pew pew!

Last edited Mon May 6, 2013, 06:06 PM - Edit history (1)

[ileus]

13. I'd still rather have a p227

[Kolesar]

26. Or, someone evil could just get one from his mother ... eom