Earlier this month Defense Distributed won victory regarding the legal right to distribute files - and was subsequently cock-blocked by a federal judge on behalf of anti-rights organizations. Although DD doesn't actually have files on their website, you can still definitely download receiver files off GrabCad and any number of other websites - and it's been that way for several years.
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Anonymous Marine building guns 'n shit. |
Marine at a milling machine. |
The Marines swore it was useful, though - Take a nitrogen pumping system that cost $800, for example. The handle was made from a cheap plastic that would seldom break, however the company that makes these systems would not sell the handle seperately, so the shop would print a replacement handle for next to nothing. Having to machine it from metal on the milling machines would have been a waste of time and resources, but once you reverse engineer it in CAD you don't have to waste valuable man-hours on it again - just print it and go on a smoke break or do something productive while you wait. Having the capability to replicate and produce the handle saved the battalion $800. Mostly 'small' cost savings that would save money over a long period of time and pay for the actual printer cost after several prints. The printer being used was a Lulzbot 6, approximately $2000 - $2500.

The corporal in charge of this program was pretty cool. All he talked about was guns and gun accessories. Prototypes, parts, unserialized receivers - anything but a rifled barrel could be built on the CNC and manual milling machines there. They had a massive 4 foot cubed 3D Printer that stood about 7x7 feet total in it's own trailer. He used the machineshop after working hours to produce all sorts of naughty stuff. We had a good talk about guns, militias, survivalism, weapons caches, and how great Trump was. I should have married him.
Thirty minutes learning in CAD and a few personal prototypes of my own and I created my first thing. A bottom plate for a Browning 1919 dress-up kit that I am designing for a belt-fed AR15, which I talked briefly about here. I could have just imported it from my own already existing files, but I wanted to learn the fancy software that they were using, so I rebuilt it from scratch. Oh and this thing doubles as a tablet holder, so if anyone asks what it is - it's a tablet holder. Yep. A tablet holder.
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The purple thing is the item in question. |
It took several tries with the print. The first time the machine spazzed out midway because the air condition unit kicked on and cooled the machine directly under a vent, causing the plastic to cool in the nozzle and clog up. I had another fuckup when we left the printer on overnight and the spool tangled up and jammed.
The third time was the charm. It took about one and a half hours for this bottom plate. The in-fill was at 50%, which means that most of the inside was just hollow with 50% supporting material. I looked at it and thought "hey, neat," and ended up adding it to the already growing pile of 3d printed stuff they had accumulating on the table. I actually didn't design the rivet holes in it and I couldn't drill through it because there would be air pockets inside between the support material.
But it seemed pretty solid for a proof-of-concept. Just enough rigidity to hold together side plates and assemble a non-firing prototype. It would probably get destroyed with light use and man-handling - a static display model basically. With stronger polymer and 100% in-fill, this could be a functioning component.
The class was pretty much everything I had thought it would be and more. I am convinced that I now need a 3d printer. Below is an experimental bolt action gun that uses an AR15 bolt and extension that caught my attention. The carrier is custom made to allow hand-cycling using the bolt and locking lugs of the extension, operating like a traditional bolt action. I saved the pictures and I am unsure who actually created this, but the discussion was on a thread at TheFirearmsBlog here which seems to have been deleted for some reason.
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Bolt action parts. |
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Bolt-action based on the AR15 |
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3d printed VZ-61 Skorpion receiver. |
- VZ-61 Skorpion - Photos here and live-fire video here.
- VZ-61 with buffer adapter
- VZ-61 Bohemian - Reinforced without buffer adapter
- VZ-61 Bohemian - Reinforced with buffer adapter
- VZ-61 AR15 grip adapter
- Reinforced buffer tower - I wrote about how these could be used here.
- Double Stack 1911 frame - I would not fire this as it is, but it's inconspicuous. It would be interesting to fit it with a single shot .308 barrel assembly.
- Hybrid 22 pistol - This uses a Marlin 795 magazine, a Ruger bolt, and Browning buckmark barrel. A true Frankenstein of a gun.
- C96 Mauser Frame - and also one in a six-round magazine capacity. Seems to be in a non-standard format the STL's are not scaled properly. I'll have to look more into these.
- Thingiverse - Free stuff that you can download and print right now. Not necessarily gun stuff, but pretty useful.
- Yeggi - A database that links to other 3d printed website.
- My Mini Factory - Haven't used it, but I hear good stuff about this.
- PrintedFirearm.com - Exactly what it says on the box.
- GrabCad - Another good source of stuff. Lots of gun-related stuff.