3d gun ar-15 defense distributed plan CAD files
courtesy IvanTheTroll and Twitter
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When Cody Wilson, late of Defense Distributed, began selling CAD plans to build an AR-15 rifle, he was lauded for daring to get around a judge’s order that enjoined him from distributing his files for free. For people in states that prevented electronic transmission of those files, he sent USB drives by snail mail.

But there was a problem. The files Defense Distributed was distributing — at least those for the AR-15 — had some bugs.

Some dedicated DefCad fans identified the problems with the CAD files and communicated them to Wilson.

They found problems with the upper.

And the magazine.

There were problems with the bolt, too. One of those fans who posts at Twitter under the name @IvanTheTroll12 (who says he’s an engineer), tells us that there were design problems with just about every part of the AR-15 design that Defense Distributed was sending out.

So, with Wilson’s blessing, they set to work fixing them. It took them months of work to arrive at a finished product. As IvanTheTroll12 tells TTAG, this is what they came up with:

It is a to-spec collection of 3d CAD files that detail every single part in an AR15A3 style rifle.  Down to the pin and spring.  It includes several CAD formats to allow the widest possible audience to look at the model.

It also includes the original M16A1/2 Technical data package – a PDF file of all the original Colt blueprints used to make the M16’s back in the day.  This was obtained via FOIA from the Army.

To date, no AR-15 assembly is anywhere near this nice. People have suggested these parts were always on Grabcad, but when you have them assemble the parts, the errors show up clear as day.  Parts just made wrong.

Not any more. Defense Distributed looked at their work and liked it. So much so that they planned to use them instead.

And then Wilson encountered…personal legal difficulties. IvanTheTroll12 and his partner then began to work with Defense Distributed’s new leadership to get the new and improved files out. And then the state of New Jersey targeted Defense Distributed. DefDist sued the state and that’s all still playing out in the courts.

New Jersey’s Attorney General, Gurbir Grewal, also went after codeisfreespeech.com and they’ve since stopped making their 3D files available as well while the suit is pending.

In the mean time IvanTheTroll and his partner had a perfectly good set of precise CAD plans for every part of an AR-15 rifle. And on February 23 — yes, 223 — they released them.

Will Twitter take the tweets down? Who knows. Just in case, you can access the files here.

3d gun ar-15 defense distributed plan CAD files
courtesy IvanTheTroll and Twitter

We asked IvanTheTroll if he’s concerned that New Jersey litigious and hoplophobic Attorney General will go after him next. He told us . . .

Since there is no precedent for my actions, I don’t know if I am in violation of NJ law or not. Since I’m not in NJ, their AG can get the big middle finger and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. If they come after me, an individual, for sharing information that was FOIA’ed from the Army IN NEW JERSEY (the 2d files for the M16 were signed over from the AARDEC in NJ), that’s cool. I dare them.

Perhaps the best way to sum it up is: I am not in NJ, and am not subject to the purview of a blatantly unconstitutional law in NJ. If I was in NJ and did this, I would be breaking the law.

There you go. Download the files as you like. Do it because you want to build an AR. Do it because you want to support free speech. Or just do it because you know it will tick off petty statists like Gurbir Grewal who continue to think they can keep their finger in the hole in the electronic dike.

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45 COMMENTS

  2. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Thanks for the link. I have no idea what to do with it at this point, but I can figure that out later.

    • Your youngs kids will probably be able purchase a metal printing 3D printer for cheaper than their phone by the time they go to college.

      • Yeah sure, located in the forward crew lounge just down the passageway from Cpt Kirks quarters.

        I’ve been hearing this “anytime story for 30 years. (See also new batteries will revolutionize electric/coal powered cars).

        • Energy pack technology has been advancing. NIMH was commercialized in late 80’s. Lithium-ion in early 90’s, and LiPo by mid 90’s. Portable electronics, tools, and cars are all more capable than if they were still relying on NiCad or lead-acid batteries. A Tesla wouldn’t get the range and performance if it was hauling around banks of deep cycle batteries. A couple decades ago, electric cars were glorified golf carts suitable for 25 miles at 25 MPH, instead of hybrids and pure electrics doing highway speeds for hundreds of miles. Battery chemistry research continues, as does the management and charging, which uses computerized algorithms to monitor and charge safely. Now that an electric car functionality is a viable option for most people, the new problem is making them affordable and being able to supply enough electricity if everyone had one.

        • The laser sintered metal 3d printers are on the rise, but they are still expensive and require inert gas. As it stands though, they are very precise. The company to build the first viable unit also printed fully functioning 1911s that only required heat treating and coatings. The only parts they didn’t print were the springs.

  8. After the first American Revolution was started because of tea, who could have predicted the second would be started because of H(tea)ML.
    I’ll go do push-ups now…

  10. The theory of criminal liability is that the files are “available” for download in New Jersey, and therefore are being published and distributed there in violation of the statute. there is precedent for imposing personal jurisdiction over parties whose only contact with a state (for jurisdictional purposes) is electronic, e.g. wire fraud and the like. Similar rules have been used in Europe to clamp down on speech deemed unacceptable, with attempts to hold the internet service providers liable. But this of course results in the actions of a single state imposing a world-wide ban, since the poster of the materials cannot control where it is distributed. Only countries can do that through their control over internet service availability in their country. (E.G. China, Iran, etc.) The cases have been pending long enough for a jurisdictional challenge to have been filed, so maybe that issue is conceded, with the larger claim being that the law is an attack on first amendment freedoms. Which it is. I seem to recall a case where the feds went after an individual for publishing a book on how to build a nuclear bomb. He eventually got the charges dismissed when he demonstrated that he had obtained all the necessary information from publicly available sources. If it is not illegal to post plans for The Bomb, how can it be illegal to post publicly available information about building a rifle?

    A larger issue is that the “ban ” states are trying to ban the production of ALL homemade firearms. California laws requiring that a builder obtain a state-issued serial number prior to beginning an 80% build is the first step in such plans. A similar push, recently reported, was of the California Dept of Justice seizing AR style pistols based on their manufacture without complying with the firearms safety testing requirements of the state for pistols (including the microstamping law), despite the fact that home-built pistols have never before been subjected to such laws. Under federal rules, building for your own use is not “manufacturing.”

    • I’m definitely not a lawyer, but as I understand it, laws that apply to a person in one state interacting with a person in another state (such as wire fraud, check fraud, or mail fraud) all come from the federal government.

      I would think that would apply here…if this wasn’t such a blatant and obvious violation of the first amendment.

      • (Forgot to check the box to enable the editing cookie.)

        Also, there is precedent that publishing the source code to something that might be illegal to use (DVD decryption software in this case) is protected by the first amendment.

        • Those particular statutes yes, but there is often dual jurisdiction. But you are right about the First, which is the basis that DD has been fighting these cases from the git go when it was the feds.

    • — California laws requiring that a builder obtain a state-issued serial number prior to beginning an 80% build is the first step in such plans. —

      Which means, if it passes, someone will be offering 79% blanks.

  18. It’s already established law that plans for guns, bombs, and booby traps are legal.
    The anarchist cookbook was the subject of legal challenge and the courts Determined that these plans and blueprints are free speech.

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