Despite the gun control advocates’ continued collective pants browning over the idea that they may have permanently lost the ability to control anyone’s access to firearms, more and more of Cody Wilson’s children are springing up across the world. Forbes has even devoted an article to some of the better examples. One of the main themes of the piece is that while the gun itself is indeed being printed as-is, more interesting developments are happening as people are improving on the Defense Distributed design and sharing them. One guy is even making a metal barrel insert to let the .38 gun shoot .22LR , something much more practical and less prone to splitting the barrel. And that’s just the start . . .
Travis Lerol, a 30-year-old former military software engineer in Glen Burnie, Maryland, printed his Liberator (shown at right) within days of its appearing online. Unlike the original printed gun, he says he’s altered his to have a rifled barrel, a move designed to avoid the National Firearms Act, which regulates improvised and altered weapons and has a provision covering “smooth-bored” pistols. He’s also built another version of the barrel for .22 ammunition that uses a metal insert for reinforcement, instead of the entirely-plastic barrel for .380 rounds used in Defense Distributed’s original. And he’s cast versions of the Liberator’s barrel in epoxy that take .380 and .45 ammunition, a design he argues will be more durable than the pure ABS plastic Defense Distributed tested.
“When the Liberator came out, I was pretty curious and also surprised that the barrel hadn’t exploded when they fired it,” says Lerol. “I want to progress it from the entry level it’s at now to something more advanced, and then put that information back up to share.”
When the Liberator was first introduced, the reaction from the mainstream media was that the gun (as is) was useless and dangerous. They claimed that it was irrelevant, that it didn’t really matter. They argued that since that iteration was flawed, 3D printed guns were thus proven to be impossible. That was the fairy tale they told to make themselves believe that control was still possible.
As always, the internet has proven the establishment wrong.
I’m sure we will see many improvements in this. I’m still waiting for the Tianamen square picture. The London to Paris train is already covered.
Def want to see this, or on the Great Wall.
Amazing article Nick.
Cannot wait to see this thing unlock its full potential.
You mean sneak past metal detectors and bring down an airplane right?
I wonder now if the Liberator project might have been a “false flag attack” on Americans rights……..think about it, if the TSA wants to start illegally searching everyone on all types of traveling, now they kinda have a reason.
Congratulations to the those that think this was a good idea. The TSA thanks you too.
Screw that. New technology doesn’t give the TSA more leeway to strip away personal rights. If they want to spin it that way, we’ll fight it any way we can.
tsa already does illegal searches
New tech dosent give them more leeway to violate rights…..But they’re violating rights everyday already, I don’t see anyone “fighting” them. I don’t know how to vote the TSA out of office either.
The TSA WILL address the Liberator…….you have to see that coming.
You mean NOT sneak past metal detectors and NOT bring down an airplane? The ammunition itself is still metal and still detectable, genius, both to X-ray and magnetic inspection. Secondly, Boeing and Airbus and a number of other aircraft manufacturers contend that bullet holes don’t have an appreciable effect on cabin pressure.
Oh, and the TSA has been illegally searching and detaining people for NO REASON AT ALL since their inception (not to mention that their very existence is an affront to the Constitution to begin with). So, they already DON’T need a reason illegally search you and this DOESN’T count as one, either.
It’s still a fantastic idea, and whether you think so or not is completely irrelevant.
” Secondly, Boeing and Airbus and a number of other aircraft manufacturers contend that bullet holes don’t have an appreciable effect on cabin pressure.”
Yes, there is that.
kinda disappointed with the lack of imagination going on here. You guys don’t think a person could get a few rounds onto a plane? A lot of metal objects clearly are brought onto planes. The cabin of a plane is not a metal free zone btw.
You contend that the only danger is if someone pierced the fuselage? Thats certainly not even the first scenario that I imagined here. Didn’t Boeing also say that 747s can’t just blow up in mid air over long island ?
Again, bad guys are not that bright usually, but determined bad guys can get pretty creative, probably more creative than the counterpoints you guys are using to defend the support for the liberator. Some terrorist is siting in a hookah bar right now just shaking his head at how dumb we are, how we just gave him an idea, to use our own tools against us.
Its very likely that the liberator is in fact NOT the first 3d printed/undetectable gun ever made……..just that the other guys were wise enough to keep the lion in the bag.
While bullet holes may not have “an appreciable effect on cabin pressure” they have been proven to have a very appreciable effect on blood pressure. They may not be able to shoot the plane down but they would definitely be able to kill the people and take the plane.
The point is that guns are a fact now, unstoppable by apparatchiks of any stripe. Their game is up, but they won’t be accepting that until we force them to.
This is a blow for Liberty; why can’t you allow yourself to accept the good news?
The “metal detectors” are only used when a person refuses the backscatter machines. And they’ve been proven to be useless: just need to line any coat or pocket with aluminum foil and place whatever you don’t want the scanners to see in it.
If they wanted people to actually be safe, they could arm the pilots like the Israeli’s do and then put in reinforced cockpit doors that can’t be shot through. Or even put in sleeping gas into the passenger compartment with the flick of a switch.
There are so many possibilities, if they really wanted to keep us safe that could have been done BUT weren’t. Wonder why that is??
Sleeping gas? You mean anesthesia, which requires a carefully controlled dosage that is different for each person. This isn’t hollywood. Set it to non-lethal levels and some people will still be awake. Increase the dosage enough to knock everyone out and a lot of people will die from overdoses. Being killed by a hijacker is one thing, but being intentionally killed by the pilot is another. I’d expect to see a LOT of lawsuits if it was ever used.
“If they modified it to fit a quad-copter it would be a homemade weaponized drone” now that’s one hell of a idea I’m sure it will get there eventually.
Good news… Thingiverse has printable quad copters!!…
Now I just need a 3d printer and figure out how to modify the liberator to a belt fed full auto .22lr. With the right motors and blades I’m willing to bet it could carry a 500 round box.
Well I have a 3D printer… I also have the model for a 10/22 receiver… Attach a motor operated cam that interacts with the trigger… Voila. Lightweight, full auto drone 😉 … Isn’t technology great?
Technology is wonderful. I have some 525 round boxes of .22lr and a gas powered rc car to shoot at if the copter can catch it.
They still make .22LR?!? I’m shocked. From the looks of all the shelves at the LGS’s, I figured it had been discontinued.
I’m just lucky my dad was paranoid before being paranoid of .gov became cool. But I’d find a very tiny box of cci .22lr in a gun store last week.
When the Liberator was first introduced, the reaction from the mainstream media was that the gun (as is) was useless and dangerous.
The same could have been said of 14th Century hand cannons, but by the 15th Century there were matchlocks, and by the 16th Century wheellocks and snaphances. I suspect the timeline for the advancement of printed firearms will be somewhat quicker….
Are folks forgetting what the original purpose was to the WWII Liberator? Cody’s design has already reached perfection.
It was perfect in that it proved a point. That doesn’t mean we should stop trying to improve it.
I can’t wait for a new division in IDPA.
+1 Perhaps a BUG stage?
I can read the stage description now, “It is the year 2525 and guns have been outlawed. Using your 3D Printed Liberator pop one of the Judges and take his Lawgiver, hack it and fight your wait to freedom.”
Hmm. Something smells like freedom.
As you’ve discovered, the “your comment failed to publish” message is often lies. When you see it, refresh first to see if it actually worked.
Where can I download the magazine files? I don’t care about the actual gun.
Plug ‘defcad’ into a certain Swedish search engine and get all the plans.
32ACP rather than 380ACP I believe.
I see that they’ve made one in black, AKA the assault Liberator
I’m waiting for the shoulder thingy that goes up before making one.
Good thing he didn’t design the Liberator to take 30 round high capacity magazine clips. Those are ammunition, and after they’re shot they’ll be all used up!
They only work that way in Colorado probably the new laws the Democrats passes…
Weapons ban….. Necessity is the mother of invention…. Who else saw this coming? Variation models that will start coming out soon will be cool. Add to this graphene becoming easier to make in the lab we should see some neat stuff coming out of amature labs/work shops.
LOL, make a simple bang stick, with a 20 to 12 gage shell as it looks like a stick, a walking stick or a crutch, and when fired onto target by contact, said contact effectively suppresses the discharge noise, used one when diving and practiced once to see how it handled when fired.
Or put on on the end of an arrow/crossbow bolt like the idea from Rac-em-Bac with their .357 magnum bolt/arrowhead attachment http://www.racembac.com/news-updates/.
Then just take their weapons.
I’m more than a little surprised to learn that not only is that an actual product, but that it’s (apparently) legal and hasn’t been regulated out of existence yet.
Safe bet it’s somehow illegal here in CA…
It’s magic, the genie is out.. There is no stopping this now. It won’t win a war, but it is changing history.
This gun will turn out to be one of the cult guns of the century. And we thought that we couldn’t run out of mods on an AR15. People are going to get pretty inventive with this one.
the anti’s are pulling out whats left of there hair….priceless….that horse is so far out of the barn the barn can’t be seen anymore
“That was the fairy tale they told to make themselves believe that control was still possible.
It is still possible as long as one class of human beings ruthlessly arrogates power to itself and the majority of a population accepts that. Authoritarian control isn’t primarily a function of technology, it is a product of the human propensity to accept tyranny meekly and with a shrug of the shoulders. From the Declaration of Independence – “and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed”
Making a gun is one thing. That has always been possible in modern societies with even rudimentary technology and expertise. But few people will make use of the opportunity if it entails risk of large fines, incarceration, injury or death at the hands of The Overlords. The Sheeple will always be cowardly, fearful and mindlessly obedient and it doesn’t matter what kind of technology they have access to.
+1
+1 more
I am really starting to want one of these just for collectible coolness.
Agreed, especially in the .22LR version.
2nd on the .22 version. eating my heart out until I can find a printer to rent for a few hours.
It is just SOOOO difficult to stuff the genie back into the bottle once it escapes.
It never works. People have tried it over and over and over again. Attempts to stifle technology in order to make sure to maintain pre-existing social norms has failed. Every time.
Earliest example I can think of is when the Pope tried to ban crossbows in 1193. I guess the problem was that while slings and bows took years of training to master any moron with 4 hours of training could effectively defeat a knight on horseback (top-tier Knight, in comparison, was a martial artist raised from birth and armed with the most expensive weapons and horses available at the time. It was outrageous to think that a drunkard with a crossbow could take one out with a pull of a trigger. )
The only time this worked in the past was towards the end of the feudal era of Japan, which they effectively rid their country of Firearms, ostensibly to preserve the Samurai way of life and such things. For a while they started adopting guns as the technology came in from mainland Asia, but after a while they were effectively expelled from the country. I think it’s about the only time this sort of thing actually was effective in a large scale. In the long run it ended up backfiring in a massive way because during the era of global empires they were hundred years behind everybody else in terms of military capabilities.
And preserving “the samurai way of life” really meant keeping the peasants in a state of servitude to the ruling classes. Firearms, even the old muzzleloaders, could be used effectively (just like crossbows) with a very short training curve, and they helped equalize the disparity between the aristocracy’s trained warriors and the commoners. Which explains why the self-anointed elites in America hate civilian firearms ownership.
Internet reading on disarmament in Japan and elsewhere: “A World Without Guns” By Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant, and Joanne Eisen of the Independence Institute (December 5, 2001) found at http://old.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel120501.shtml
On of the nice things about the Samurai era, unlike the sort of thing we currently live in, is if a Samurai punked on you then you were legally allowed to fight back. If you defeated and killed a Samurai you might have his pissed off friends to deal with, but the government wouldn’t get involved. So the Samurai really had to be real bad-asses if they wanted to strut their stuff because it was just a matter of time before they may run into that lucky peasant or skilled bandit.
For a while in the USA it was legal to fight back against officials that were breaking the law.
Unfortunately now if you were subject to a unlawful search and or unlawful arrest (legally kidnapping) and you tried to fight back, no matter how obviously corrupt the policemen was behaving, then you would be lucky to survive the response you will receive from the government.
natermer, I think you need to read this. The samurai could attack anyone of lower cultural status who *disrespected* the samurai in any way, and it was considered justified self defense for the samurai.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiri_sute_gomen
Kiri-sute gomen[1] (斬捨御免 or 切捨御免?, literally, “authorization to cut and leave” (the body of the victim)) is an old Japanese expression dating back to the feudal era right to strike (right of samurai to kill commoners for perceived affronts). Samurai had the right to strike with sword at anyone of a lower class who compromised their honour. This applied to higher-ranked samurai, who could strike down lower-ranked samurai.
Because the right was defined as a part of self defense, the strike had to follow immediately after the offense, meaning that the striker could not attack someone for a past grievance. Also, due to the right being self-defense, it was not permissible to deliver further coup de grâce. Moreover, the samurai who exercised the right had to prove the correctness of his action in court by producing a witness. Punishment for the incorrect exercise of this right was severe. An offender could be beheaded without being allowed to commit seppuku and have his house abolished, meaning that one of his sons could not succeed the title. Due to the seriousness of the punishment, many committed seppuku to pre-empt the verdict. A samurai visiting a different feudal province had to be extremely careful, especially if it was in Edo, the seat of the Shogun. Wrongful executions of commoners from different feudal provinces were seen as an offense against a feudal state. It was thus advisable for samurai visiting different provinces to be accompanied by a servant, so as to provide witness.
Because of somewhat arbitrary nature of this right, anyone who was at the receiving end had the right to defend themselves by wakizashi (short sword). This situation was most common in the case of a higher samurai exercising the right against a lower ranked samurai as samurai would always carry wakizashi. In one well known incident, a commoner bumped into a samurai. The samurai pointed out the disrespect but the commoner refused to apologise. Feeling merciful, the samurai offered the commoner his wakizashi so he had a chance to defend himself. Instead, the commoner decided to run away with his wakizashi, causing further dishonour. The incident resulted in the samurai being disowned from the clan. He later regained his honour by seeking out the commoner and killing the whole family.
The expression is still sometimes used in modern day as “I apologise in advance for this one” for the subtle humour in offering what amounts to an unsympathetic apology.
An instance of Kiri sute gomen is described in the story of the Hōgyū Jizō statue. A boy, whose father was killed by Kiri sute gomen, made 100 stone statues in later life, in Kumamoto.
Haven’t downloaded the files yet, but I may do so when I get home. Before then, can anyone tell me how this thing loads? Some type of breechlock? Do you have to take the barrel out, insert the cartridge, then reassemble?
As already mentioned in these pages, California State Senator Yee (sponsor of the currently pending AW ban that would require all rifles to have fixed ten round (or less) magazines) is already proposing that 3-D printers be registered and their users licensed, and that Liberators and their ilk be banned.
progress marches on, bwahahahahahahaha 🙂
I’m holding off on buying a 3D printer until DefDist publishes printable RPGs.
How about printing up a mini Hellfire for your RC helo?
DefDist Liberator Pistol
Begging for safe download link for DefDist Liberator Pistol
Anyone please?