It is now possible to print a working 3D made Hand Gun as proven by a recent video demonstrating such a weapon by a Texas based company, the gun fires just like a normal gun.
You are probably wondering what 3D printing actually means especially with regards to a firearm. 3D printing involves a laser sintering process which uses a high powered laser to fuse small particles of different periodic elements. These elements include plastic, metal and glass powders which are fused into a mass that has a desired three-dimensional shape.
The laser selectively fuses powdered materials by scanning cross-sections which are generated from a 3D digital description of a part on the surface of a powder bed. Once each cross-section has been scanned, the powder bed is lowered by one layer so that a new layer of material can be applied on top. This process is then repeated until the part is complete. Every part of the gun except for the springs are made with a direct metal laser sintering process, which create metal parts based on a 3D design by blasting powdered metal with a laser. The main body of the gun consists of 30 separate components made from stainless steel and an alloy called inconel in addition to carbon fibre and a nylon hand grip.
The 3D printed gun was created by a Texas based 3D-Printing services company Solid Concepts, they claim that the metal laser sintering process they used is by far one of the most accurate additive manufacturing processes available with the 3D printed parts having more detail.
There have been attempts to re-create a handgun using this method before but they have usually been dismissed due to the fact they aren't reliable to shoot and are potentially dangerous to attempt to fire. Quite worrying in a way then that Solid Concepts have not only re-created a 3D printed handgun but it actually works, during testing the gun Solid Concepts created managed to fire 50 rounds successfully.
The gun created by Solid Concepts is a re-production of the 1911 handgun, the successful production as well as the incredible functionality form such a re-production of the 1911 3D metal printed gun proves the viability of 3D Printing for commercial applications not just solely for things such as Hand guns.
You may be among the many who may find such a concept pretty scary being able to literally print guns, however as the firm states what they are doing is perfectly legal, not that you can rush out and start doing this yourself mind. It should also be noted at this point that Solid Concepts is a 3D Printing service provider and that it does have a Federal Firearms License.
As you can see from the following screenshots the 1911 is showed being fired first from a safe distance with the spent bullet being seen flying from the open chamber ion addition to the recoil of the gun.
The second image shows the gun being fired from the perspective of a human tester with the spent bullet seen to be whizzing towards the camera, with the bullet hitting its target as seen in the video demonstration.
This is in contrast to the previous 3D handguns that have been printed in plastic in its entirety except for a nail which acts as a firing pin, as well as a six-ounce piece of steel which allows the weapon to be detected by metal detectors. Yet one wonders where this is all going how hard would it be to field strip this weapon remove the metal pieces and safely pass through detectors, now that is frightening. The German police were also creating 3-D printed guns in order to detect their effectiveness to establish if they are a real threat, this was done before the success of the 1911 by Solid Concepts.
What s worse with the plastic models titled the liberator it can be instantly downloaded and anonymously printed by anyone who has access to 3-D printing technology. One of the drawbacks to this is that you would first need an expensive high end 3-D printer, which according to Solid Concepts costs more than a private college tuition, so at least your low entry criminals won't be able to mass produce this at least.
The 3-D printed 1911 has been said to be successful by its creators because the guns barrel is capable of seeing chamber pressures higher than 20,000 psi every time it is fired, quoting from Solid Concepts "it's a common misconception that 3-D printing isn't accurate or strong enough, and we're working to change people's perspectives" Well with this little revelation they certainly have our attention now.
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