Well, I’ll be. Not that long ago, people were going bugnuts because someone had printed a crappy single-shot all-plastic zip gun. Looked ugly, wasn’t reliable, couldn’t hit a damned thing with it, yet the hoplophobes in the media and politics wet themselves in panic. So how are they going to handle THIS:
World’s First 3D Printed Metal Gun
The gun is a classic 1911, a model that is at once timeless and public domain. It functions beautifully: Our resident gun expert has fired 50 successful rounds and hit a few bull’s eyes at over 30 yards. The gun is composed of 30+ 3D Printed components with 17-4 Stainless Steel and Inconel 625 materials.
This is fairly staggering, and far sooner than I expected. Importantly:
It’s rifled and the rifling was built directly into the part – or as we like to say, “grown” into the part – using 3D Printing. This gun has NOT BEEN MACHINED. We used hand tools for some post processing (our finishers are wonderful), but we did not machine this gun.
There is, however, a downside:
The industrial printer we used costs more than my college tuition (and I went to a private university)
So… no home-printed 3D gun for *you,* ‘ceptin’ that yer some kinda bajillionaire.
At least… not yet.
And according to a later posting, there’s some more bad news:
Should we decide to sell the gun, the cost of the 1911 would be in the five-figures.
Yikes. Ten grand is a *bit* much for a 1911.
A metal printed gun requires commercial equipment that costs anywhere from $400,000 to $1,000,000+.
Drat.
Now, something a little funny seems to be going on with the action, when the feller fires three rounds in sequence:
[youtube u7ZYKMBDm4M]
Their stated purpose in creating this pistol was to demonstrate the strength and practicality of 3D laser sintered metal components. This could, of course, have been accomplished with any of a number of different non-firearm projects… but by printing up a gun, they’ve gotten themselves some press. Had they made some other sort of widget, nobody would be talking about them. So… success!
Today it’s a million dollar machine. In ten years? Maybe ten grand, who knows… still too much for most of us, but well within the means of a proper gunsmithing business.