World’s First 3D Printed Metal Gun

[MrDakka]

Pretty neato burrito since nothing was machined and they have a Federal Firearm License (FFL)

http://blog.solidconcepts.com/industry- ... metal-gun/

[Sea Skimmer]

Neat but as the laser melting machines start at 600,000 dollars and go up in price rapidly; at that point you could just buy conventional machine tools to make hoards of guns a lot quicker then melting metal together one 20 nanometer layer at a time. It will be interesting to see what a full scale durability test reveals though, say 50,000 rounds.

[Zeropoint]

As a technology demonstration, it's pretty cool, and certainly attention-getting--which they obviously knew it would be.

As a concern regarding "firearms proliferation", it's pretty much irrelevant, as Sea Skimmer pointed out. Several thousand dollars would get you all you need to machine pro-quality guns, and there are people in Pakistan making decent guns with even less equipment.

However . . . that's the state of the art right NOW. Are selective laser sintering machines always going to be $600k? Is it within the realm of possibility that, in my lifetime, I'll see a machine with these capabilities come down to "merely" several thousand dollars? I'd say that it is. Right now, it takes time and a non-trivial amount of skill to make a firearm (but not as much as you might think!). When anyone can create a working firearm by simply downloading a file and pushing a few buttons, then things will be different. I expect that fear of such a scenario will lead governments to begin restricting fabrication rights sometime in the near future. Therefore, I suggest that people start organizing for fabrication rights before that happens, lest we have a future where our cheap 3D printers are crippled by legally mandated government malware.

[Mr Bean]

Someone in the comments section made a valid point on why guns get such attention. Simply because they make an excellent tester for how good your 3d making process is. You have to make over twenty parts to tight tolerances and expect them to stand up to large spike forces and mechanical actions. And the end result is an easy pass/fail, does the gun hold together? Is it accurate? Do all the parts move together smoothy?

The end complexity makes the point much clearer than a state of liberty copy or a series of gears fit together.

[Formless]

Neat but as the laser melting machines start at 600,000 dollars and go up in price rapidly; at that point you could just buy conventional machine tools to make hoards of guns a lot quicker then melting metal together one 20 nanometer layer at a time. It will be interesting to see what a full scale durability test reveals though, say 50,000 rounds.

If you watch the video in the link, one of the things they made a point of saying was that they weren't trying to find a cheaper gun manufacturing technique. This is about the printing technology itself, and like Mr Bean said a firearm (while sensational and easy to get distracted by) is a very highly engineered machine that undergoes pretty extreme stresses when used. They specifically want to show that the printed parts are durable enough and made precisely enough to handle the .45 ACP cartridge, cycle like the weapon is supposed to, and do it again 50 times or more. And I will be honest, I am surprised that the technology is up to that task.

[Beowulf]

Something else to note is that it may be cheaper to mass produce guns in other ways for quite some time, but the reason they have an FFL is because they make replacement gun parts, which it may not be cheaper to make in other ways, because it may only be a single part that you're making, and you want it to precisely fit the customer's old C96 Mauser, or whatever.

[Irbis]

As a concern regarding "firearms proliferation", it's pretty much irrelevant, as Sea Skimmer pointed out.

I disagree. Machinery to produce guns conventionally might be cheaper, but also in most cases easier to notice and harder to operate. With this, you only need access enough to smuggle production of part from time to time. It's a lot like drugs - police can track and raid labs producing crack using normal equipment, but good luck doing it when there are 50 legit chemical synthesizers in every city only occasionally producing next dose.

As for reliability, why you need more than 500? It was good enough for Breivik, will be good for almost all purposes. Slap extra large, custom magazine on, too, and you don't even need to reload as you gun down people like in a level of video game. Psychopaths are going to love it.

Also, I disagree guns are in any way good machines for testing. They are built to function in even very bad conditions. Note 1911 these guys made worked despite bad slide fit, little oil and weak spring. Just moved awkwardly. No, if I wanted to test anything, I'd make engine or some other mechanism that is supposed to move continuously for even short period, as you can't hide imperfections there.

[Forgothrax]

I disagree. Machinery to produce guns conventionally might be cheaper, but also in most cases easier to notice and harder to operate. With this, you only need access enough to smuggle production of part from time to time. It's a lot like drugs - police can track and raid labs producing crack using normal equipment, but good luck doing it when there are 50 legit chemical synthesizers in every city only occasionally producing next dose.

As for reliability, why you need more than 500? It was good enough for Breivik, will be good for almost all purposes. Slap extra large, custom magazine on, too, and you don't even need to reload as you gun down people like in a level of video game. Psychopaths are going to love it.

$600k of equipment is not easy to track? What have you been smoking, and can I have some? You can make a fucking Sten gun in your basement with basic hand tools and a welder, dipshit. The cops are not going to be able to pick out your tool purchases apart from the tens of thousands of similar purchases made every day. Nor will they be able to determine that you're using sheet metal as the components for a gun. At that point, the only limiting factor is ammunition, which is no different from the 3D printer in question. And no, you won't be 3D-printing ammunition anytime soon.

And before you bitch about production from a 3D printer being "easier" than traditional methods, actually printing something like a 1:1 copy of a traditionally built firearm requires some skill with CAD to either make your own plans or to modify those freely available to work for your printer. Not to mention, you know, actually requiring over half a million dollars to buy the machine in the first place.

Finally, the equipment that can build guns like that 1911? A CNC machine. You can buy benchtop machines that will carve the parts out of metal for you, requiring similar levels of skill that programming that 3D printer would require, for under $10k. And a CNC machine has multiple uses for the hobbyist, so any potential Breiviks would have a significant smoke screen protecting them from the authorities. Or hell, take classes at your local trade school in machining and buy a manual milling machine to do the job for even less; for that matter, decent machine shops are a lot more common than $600k 3D printer shops, so it's a lot easier to get access to the equipment you need if you can't or won't buy it. A 3D printer, simply because of its novelty and price tag, will stand out much more to any sweeps by the authorities.

[His Divine Shadow]

It might be an interesting way to start producing goods if/when the technology gets cheaper and the end result is durable enough. I could see it being useful if say you started a company dedicated to make making custom spare parts for all those old guns like luger or C96 pistols which involved a crazy amount of machining which are just too expensive to make with modern day methods.

[Simon_Jester]

How, exactly, would they be too expensive to make when you could literally just code the (already known) shape of the part into a computerized machine? I know the technical drawings may be unavailable these days, but it's not like you couldn't get a guy with a pair of calipers to measure all the relevant parameters.

[His Divine Shadow]

I dunno, it obviously hasn't happened, maybe that kinda equipment is as expensive as that 3d printing stuff is now.

[Simon_Jester]

I know plenty of shops could do the individual parts, and any competent mechanical engineering student should be able to make the drawings if given a sample. Reverse-engineering a firearm just isn't that hard.

[Formless]

Actually, Simon, I have it on good authority that CAD is every bit as hard as suggested. Take the skills needed to do 3d design, and then add another layer of difficulty (or three). And an engineer with those skills could probably make a gun anyway, and to my understanding its not even illegal in the US! It just can't be an illegal gun, nor for sale.

Criminals will always find it easier to just steal a gun or buy one off the black market. This is more useful for recreating old, antiquated and hard to find guns, the kind that would be featured on Forgotten weapons.

And to Irbis: what knowledge do you have of metallurgy? And of the materials used in metal printers? Seriously, guns explode if they don't have a strong enough construction. They didn't slap a commercial barrel into this, they even printed the rifling if you believe their website.

[His Divine Shadow]

I know plenty of shops could do the individual parts, and any competent mechanical engineering student should be able to make the drawings if given a sample. Reverse-engineering a firearm just isn't that hard.

I do too but they would charge you a lot for it given the amount of human time it would require, in addition to the CAD work most such shops probably wouldn't have one single machine that plops out a finished part I think. First they'd get a piece of bar stock steel or something and cut off a suitable piece and and either put it in a lathe or mill, they would probably need to design multiple operations of milling for various stages which would require some human intervention here and there, which is the thing that adds to cost (man-hours).

I know a guy that uses advanced CNC machinery to make bullet molds and it's not a one-step operation from CAD to machine to finished part, though it certainly does multiple steps at one time it can't do them all. The 3d printing technique here seems to me like it could save up a lot on that manual labor, you'd give it the CAD file and it would plop out a finished part.

As for making your own guns, thats legal in most places that allows gunownership (i.e. most of western world), some placces you require a permit like when buying one. But you can make your own instead. I've seen some nicely made stuff come out of peoples garages.

[Sea Skimmer]

If you watch the video in the link, one of the things they made a point of saying was that they weren't trying to find a cheaper gun manufacturing technique. This is about the printing technology itself, and like Mr Bean said a firearm (while sensational and easy to get distracted by) is a very highly engineered machine that undergoes pretty extreme stresses when used.

That's why I thought a real durability test would be interesting. 50 rounds isn't a test of a firearms construction except in the most superficial sense. Considerably overpowered ammo wont blowup most guns in that few shots. Of course they also did an 1911 on purpose, because its a rock solid gun from a century ago that has wiggle room on the strength factor a newer lighter design might not. The engineering is somewhat limited on a blowback operated firearm in any case, remember you can make a fully automatic blowback Sten gun firing a cartridge of similar material out of random scrap metal, it just wont last a long time. So nice step one, making the gun fire a proper proof test, and making a weapon with a locking breach would be a lot better if they want to really prove this.

[His Divine Shadow]

The 1911 is not a blowback weapon and has a locked breech though. The short recoil system that John Browning designed is pretty much copied by every modern pistol maker.

[AMX]

50 rounds isn't a test of a firearms construction except in the most superficial sense.

On that note, they are up to 600 now.

[salm]

Actually, Simon, I have it on good authority that CAD is every bit as hard as suggested.

This article doesn´t seem to apply in this case. It mainly tells us that industrial design is difficult. That is true. But in order to print a part of a gun you don´t need any or very little knowlege in industrial design. Industrial design is the process of developing a new object, knowing what kind of shapes make it stable/comfortable/economical/andsoon, what materials to use and things like that.
With the gun spare part some one else has allready done all the designing and you´re only copying them.

If you have the blueprints printing the whole thing is rather trivial if you have access to the hardware. It´s not like you don´t have to know anything but it´s not that much.

This is one of the charms of 3D printing for mainstream use. Like mentioned in your article other technologies have been around. CNC mills (with their subractive nature) require more knowlege to use and you are less flexible than with a 3D printer, though.

Take the skills needed to do 3d design, and then add another layer of difficulty (or three). And an engineer with those skills could probably make a gun anyway, and to my understanding its not even illegal in the US! It just can't be an illegal gun, nor for sale.

I find that claim dubious. I use 3d Programms and CAD professionally and non of them is more difficult than the other. They´re both just programs with a lot of buttons you have to learn. In fact, the interfaces and their complexity are very similar.
You don´t have to be an engineer either. Draftsmen in my experience handle CAD programs better than engineers but don´t know that much about designing an object. Furthermore there are plenty of different kinds of engineers. Some types perhaps could design their own gun some couldn´t. But a lot more could reverse design a gun part.

[InsaneTD]

I did a couple CAD courses back in highschool and remember most of the basic stuff still. We didn't get into the really advanced stuff but we did start learning the basics of 3D in the second course. Having the numbers, I could draw a part in Cad. I wouldn't know how to export it into a 3D printer or CNC mill though.

[Formless]

This article doesn´t seem to apply in this case. It mainly tells us that industrial design is difficult. That is true. But in order to print a part of a gun you don´t need any or very little knowlege in industrial design. Industrial design is the process of developing a new object, knowing what kind of shapes make it stable/comfortable/economical/andsoon, what materials to use and things like that.
With the gun spare part some one else has allready done all the designing and you´re only copying them.

If you have the blueprints printing the whole thing is rather trivial if you have access to the hardware. It´s not like you don´t have to know anything but it´s not that much.

However, I suspect that the point they make about material expansion and related industrial design considerations are important to pay attention to. Unlike a CNC machine which subtracts material by cutting it away, a 3d printer adds material by melting it onto the part being made. Now you have to take into account how the material reacts to being heated during the manufacturing process, just like you do when casting metal. Depending on the material, that could be a variable that current technologies that rely on CAD don't have to take into account. A blueprint is useless if you have the wrong steel.

Besides, like I said, most people who would have knowledge of CAD can probably already make their own guns if they have access to the right tools, like a CNC machine. I've seen some pretty interesting projects made that way before, like this Volcanic pistol. People seem to worry about printers giving normal people access to weapons, not professionals like yourself. That's the kind of naivety that makes me roll my eyes and keep that link bookmarked.

[salm]

However, I suspect that the point they make about material expansion and related industrial design considerations are important to pay attention to. Unlike a CNC machine which subtracts material by cutting it away, a 3d printer adds material by melting it onto the part being made. Now you have to take into account how the material reacts to being heated during the manufacturing process, just like you do when casting metal. Depending on the material, that could be a variable that current technologies that rely on CAD don't have to take into account. A blueprint is useless if you have the wrong steel.

Yes, I think the choice of material can be difficult at first. But this would also be something that could end up as easily downloadable information on the internet as the blueprint itself. So after someone has managed to build a gun part he can simply upload the blueprint and add the information: "use steel powder type x, y or z."

Besides, like I said, most people who would have knowledge of CAD can probably already make their own guns if they have access to the right tools, like a CNC machine. I've seen some pretty interesting projects made that way before, like this Volcanic pistol. People seem to worry about printers giving normal people access to weapons, not professionals like yourself. That's the kind of naivety that makes me roll my eyes and keep that link bookmarked.

[/quote]
This I doubt. There are plenty of people who work on a professional level with CAD and don´t know anything about guns. I couldn´t make one, draftsmen couldn´t make one, civil engineers couldn´t make one and I assume that plenty of other types of engineers couldn´t make them either. At least not without plenty of research.

Now if you have a blueprint and instructions about which materials to use I believe normal people could actually make a gun. Perhaps I´m wrong and I´m missing something but a significant knowlege of CAD ist really not necessary.

Some more explanation about the blueprint: The blueprint needs to be set up in a certain way and contain certain information if you want to use it as a blueprint for 3D printing or CNC machines. But if you can download it from the internet it is rather trivial to feed a machine with it.

[Formless]

True, but a normal person can make a shotgun out of just a few pieces of pipe of the right gauge. The people of the Philippines proved that much.

Really, its not just about CAD, but the whole process. CAD is the part I think most people will have the hardest time with because they will think they are doing it right at first, but without training in industrial design somehow it will come out crap and frustrate them. And right now, I don't think the machines have a select menu that says "use steel alloy x, Y/N?" In fact, I'm pretty sure most of these machines only use a few select materials at all.

I'm not an expert on this, but from the expert opinions I have access to 3D printing is easy to overestimate its current capabilities or underestimate its limitations. I'm still doubtful, for instance, that metal printers will ever become cheaper to own or run than a milling machine, even if they might become more convenient for several purposes. And besides which, you might just be selling yourself short or overestimating others. Its like the Dunning-Kruger effect, but backwards: until you've seen what the average person really can or can't do its hard to know how good you are at what you do by comparison. Make, on the other hand, has people who teach this stuff at workshops and so forth, so they may have a better grasp on those problems. That's my take on it.

[salm]

Do you have a link to these expert opinions? I am interested in this and if i google 3d printer guns i just get a bunch of links to the liberator and to the metal gun from the op. A forum thread where 3d printer experts discuss this would be interesting.

[Formless]

No forum threads-- well, there is one but its the place I originally posted that article and you were in it, so its nothing you haven't already read. But, among other resources there is this article about the larger scale non-implications of 3d printing. Embedded in there with all the industry talk you have problems the hobbyist needs to know as well (eg. you have a much easier time making small parts than big ones; its a slow process, which is an important consideration for a would be gun maker. etc.).

Here is an opinion piece (yes, that links back to the above). And he isn't a downer on it-- he mentions for instance that printing electronics and biomaterial is a really exciting direction (and I concur!)--, but still deals with issues like volume and the sheer cost of material. I can't imagine that the process involved in making that steel dust is cheaper than simply making a block of steel and then cutting it down with a lathe. Also business considerations.

And speaking of business, here is another one from Make: How Many People Will Own 3D Printers?

That help? At the very least I hope its some interesting reading material to digest.

Edit: oh, and because the subject of downloading blueprints came up, I found this in about ten minutes (I don't use google anymore, and since then ironically my search engine fu has dramatically improved. Wonder why... ):

MYTH #1: DOWNLOAD 3D DATA

This is one of the most commonly used analogies whenever the 3D printing revolution is talked about and for the most part, it’s a nonsense.

Most manufacturers would rather give you their first born child rather than post the 3D geometry of their products online. Spares and servicing are a revenue stream and they’re not going to disrupt that.

[salm]

Well, yeah, I´m sure 3D printers will either never or at least not in the near future be relevant for mass production.

The opinon piece I mainly agree with. Usability, cost and realiabilty are very important aspects and need to be tackled before 3D printers get to be as widely used as normal printers for example. I´m optimistic, though, that at least some issues will be tackled in the near future.
His argument that 3D printers could be seen either mainly as entertainment boxes or mainly as tools is interesting, too. Pretty hard to predcit.

On blueprint downloading:
The first born child analogy is quite adequat. We probably won´t get blueprints from the manufacturers.
This means that 3D printing won´t be useful for some things. It can still be useful for other things.

There are websites out there where you can download or buy 3D models. Anybody can build these models open an account there and sell the models for whatever price they want to. The business running the website checks the quality of the models and aproves them. They could get a "3D printer ready" aproval or something like that. At the moment the 3D models there are not very useful for 3D printing because they are not set up in the correct way. However, if there´s a market for 3D printer ready models people will build these models and try to sell them. This happend a couple of years ago with video game ready 3D models which also require certain specifications.
Now, I think it´s unlikely that you will ever find spare parts for each and every kitchen appliance you´ve ever owned but there´s a real posibility that other objects would sell. At least there all ready are successful business models available that could easily adopt marketing blueprints. And there is a significant amount of independant professional 3D modellers who create the stuff sold there. The infrastructure already exists.
If it grows sooner or later companies like Amazon will get interested in markeing blueprints.

To me it looks like the biggest problem is not so much the lacking CAD knowlege or the unavailability of high quality blueprints but the lack of the printers flexibility with materials. A machine that can process multiple materials at the same time at low cost would be the ideal of course (plastic and metal being the most important ones). That will take a while.
I´m also no fan of the currently for private use available extruder type 3D printers. Laser or electron beam sinterers give way cooler results.
The technology simply isn´t good and cheap enough yet.