$25 3D Printed Plastic Gun Capable of Firing Nine Shots

Despite the criticisms that the world’s first fully 3D-printed firearm (plastic gun) is unrealistic and can only do a single shot, a gun enthusiast proved them wrong.

An engineer from Wisconsin using the name “Joe”, who refuses to reveal his real identity, tested a handgun carrying .380 caliber rounds wherein he successfully fired it nine times. The gun was printed on a $1,725 Lulzbot A0-101 consumer-grade 3D printer which is cheaper than the one Defense Distributed used.

The demonstration was posted in YouTube by his friend Michael Guslick, another engineer.

Joe’s demonstration will surely increase the controversy about 3D printed guns as this can prove that anyone can download and make his own weapon then print it like a regular Word document. The first 3D-printed gun was tested by Defense Distributed last month printed by an 8,000 secondhand Stratasys Dimension SST printer. However, it was only able to last a single shot.

On the other hand, Joe’s gun which he named “Lulz Liberator” was made of a $25 plastic and lasted nine shots. “People think this takes an $8,000 machine and that it blows up on the first shot. I want to dispel that,” says Joe. “This does work, and I want that to be known.”

Joe claimed that after nine shots, the gun’s components remained intact but they had to stop the test because it was already night. However, he couldn’t explain how the gun survived the explosions. He was using a generic Polylac PA-747 ABS plastic. Similar to Defense Distributed’s gun, the Lulz Liberator also uses a metal nail as firing pin, and has non-functional steel readable by the metal detector in compliance to the Undetectable Firearms Act. The rifling that Joe added to the barrel is designed to skirt the National Firearms Act, which standardize improvised weapons and those with smooth-bored barrels.