In the wake of the release of videos showing the Liberator in action, New York, California and Washington D.C. moved to ban 3D-printed guns but that hasn’t stopped people from developing cheaper and better performing weaponry.
Defense Distributed’s Liberator was printed using an $8,000 secondhand Stratasys Dimension SST. At the time of writing, a used 2004 Stratasys Dimension SST is being sold on eBay for $9,999.
The Lulz Liberator, on the other hand, was printed on a $1,725 Lulzbot AO-101 3D printer by a Wisconsin engineer calling himself “Joe,” who asked Andy Greenberg of Forbes not to reveal his name.
Joe successfully fired the Lulz Liberator nine times using .380 caliber rounds and a string for safety purposes, vastly beating out the durability of the Defense Distributed Liberator.
While the original Liberator was generally only fired once per printed barrel in testing, Joe’s model successfully fired eight rounds on one barrel before a new barrel was swapped out for the ninth round.
“The only reason we stopped firing is because the sun went down,” Joe said.
Aside from the improved durability, the Lulz Liberator is a significant step forward because it was printed over only 48 hours with just $25 of plastic on a desktop 3D printer available for consumer use.
“People think this takes an $8,000 machine and that it blows up on the first shot. I want to dispel that,” Joe said. “This does work, and I want that to be known.”
Joe used generic Polylac PA-747 ABS plastic, the same type used in most consumer 3D printers, for the gun. He maintains that the plastic he used is actually stronger than the more costly ABS plastic used in the Stratasys printer employed by Defense Distributed.
However, Joe’s design also has more metal hardware than the original Liberator. For instance, Joe used hardware store screws to hold the hammer in the body instead of the printed plastic pins used in the original design.
The Lulz Liberator, like the original, uses a metal nail for a firing pin and according to Greenberg “includes a chunk of non-functional steel designed to make it detectable with a metal detector so that it complies with the Undetectable Firearms Act.”
Furthermore, Joe added rifling to the barrel in order to avoid falling under the National Firearms Act, which regulates weapons with smooth-bore barrels among other improvised weapons.
The rifling may also be a first in firearms manufacturing.
“I may be the first person in the history of mankind to fire a bullet through a plastic rifled barrel. It’s an interesting feeling,” Joe said. “I feel like Samuel Colt.”
Joe’s model still presented problems, according to Joe and Michael Guslick, a Wisonconsin engineer known for printing one of the first working lower receivers for an AR-15.
They said that during their testing the weapon misfired several times. Some screws and its firing pin had to be replaced during the test firing as well.
The ammunition cartridges also expanded enough that they needed to be pounded out with a hammer, according to the engineers.
“Other than that, it’s pretty much confirming that yes, Defense Distributed is correct that this functions,” Guslick said. “And it’s possible to make one on a much lower cost printer.”
Since the Liberator’s blueprints were put online this month, this much progress is indeed impressive, bugs included.
“It’s not yet clear if or when Joe or Guslick plans to release their modified blueprint for the Liberator online,” according to Greenberg.
If they do, they might get the same kind of treatment from the State Department enjoyed by Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson, a man who calls himself a crypto-anarchist and market anarchist.
“I’m trying to do the same thing Cody wants to do,” Joe said. “I’m not an anarchist, but I don’t like the idea that the government is telling us ‘You can’t have that.’ I agree with Cody’s idea that this is a perfect fusion of the first and second amendments.”
It will be fascinating to see if Joe puts the plans online and how the State Department reacts to that decision.
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