3D-printed 30-round AR magazine brings us ever closer to a fully 3D-printed gun

Share This article

If you’re a fan of a science fiction or perhaps a post-apocalyptic future where roving gangs overthrow traditional government because it’s so easy to get weapons, you might be following the progress of the first fully 3D printed gun. An entire, working gun hasn’t been printed just yet, but now that a 30-round AR magazine has been successfully 3D printed, manufacturers are making significant progress.

The first 3D-printed gun was created by AR15.com forum member Have Blue. It was a pistol, and consisted of a 3D-printed receiver, with a fully metal upper area, such as the barrel. The receiver is actually what legally constitutes a firearm, so in the eyes of the law, that’s a “real” gun. After Have Blue’s gun made the rounds, another company, Defense Distributed (Def Dist), began 3D-printing gun parts. The team has already 3D-printed the receiver of an AR-15 assault rifle, and subsequently tested it to failure. As we previously noted, the rifle only survived for six shots, but that’s pretty impressive for a 3D-printed gun made of plastic.

Interestingly (and somewhat frighteningly), DefDist’s goal is to create what it calls a Wiki Weapon — a fully downloadable and printable gun — stating that people have the right to bear arms.
Now, DefDist has created a 3D-printed 30-round AR magazine. The magazine was printed out on an Ob jet Connex26 using transparent Vero Clear printing material in order to show the magazine’s round count and feeding action. Def Dist noted that the final printed product wasn’t perfect, as “practically every component” had to be shaved at least once. The test wasn’t a completely smooth success, but the team managed one trial that shot about five rounds before failure — not so bad for a first run.

The biggest problem seemed to be feeding the gun, so to make that go over more smoothly, the team added graphite to the inside of the magazine’s body, modified the mag catch slot, and sanded the unit once again. The final result was a 3D-printed magazine that survived for 50 rounds, and remained intact afterward. Def Dist says that though the magazine was beginning to warp from the heat, it could easily last beyond 100 rounds.
  

Reports suggest prices for traditional magazines are up five times from their standard price, so perhaps a cheap, somewhat disposable 3D-printed alternative could provide some kind of solution, or at least satiate the need of gun owners.
There have been some bumps in the road on the way to the first fully 3D-printed gun. Printers were making strides, but one of the most prominent companies, Maker Bot, pulled the blueprints for all 3D-printed gun parts from its site in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting. Not quite a death knell for the 3D printing of guns, as Def Dist has just shown, but losing such a prominent company and its available plans will slow down progress a little bit, as well as add a stigma that could scare off some printing enthusiasts.
So far, people have 3D-printed the receiver, and now the magazine. We still haven’t heard any word about a 3D-printed gun stock (we’ve reached out to Def Dist regarding this), though we imagine it wouldn’t be too difficult to print one of those once recoil pressure is accounted for. The biggest challenge would most likely be the barrel, as that’s the piece that bullets actually hit, but the rate Def Dist is progressing, we might see a 3D-printed gun barrel sooner than we think.