

In the image below, you can see all of the individual parts that make up the Liberator. There are just two pieces of metal: The firing pin (which is simply a normal nail) and a 0.380-caliber round. The two spirals of plastic, believe it or not, are springs that are strong enough to pull back the hammer/firing pin assembly. The large white block is the chassis and barrel, and the piece that looks like an “F” is the trigger. With a nice touch of class, the blue stock appears to have a wood effect printed on it. Importantly, the barrel is not rifled, so shots are only accurate to a few yards.

The Liberator's parts: 16 parts in total, 15 of which are plastic

The Liberator’s parts: 16 parts in total, 15 of which are plastic

In testing, the gun is surprisingly rugged. After firing a single shot, there appears to be no damage to the barrel. In previous testing, with the 3D-printed barrel attached to non-3D parts, survived the firing of 10 rounds. Cody Wilson, the founder of Defense Distributed and creator of the Liberator, has tried firing a larger 5.7×28 rifle round with a 3D-printed barrel — but the barrel exploded. The ABS plastic used by Wilson’s Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer (bought second-hand for $8,000) is tough — but still nowhere near as tough as metal.

The FP-45 Liberator, produced by the Allies in World War 2 for resistance fighters in France and ChinaFor now, then, the Liberator remains a single-shot pistol that must be manually unloaded and reloaded — just like its namesake, the FP-45 Liberator, which was a single-shot weapon produced by the Allies during World War 2 and airdropped to resistance fighters in France and China. Despite a million units being produced, there’s no evidence that the FP-45 was ever used in combat — but, in theory, just the idea that there were a million guns floating around behind enemy lines was enough to reduce the morale of Axis troops. With a website that drips with Second Amendment, right-to-bear-arms hyperbole, it’s clear that Wilson hopes that his Liberator will have the same effect on the US government.

While the production of the Liberator is a technological breakthrough for 3D printing, the gun’s actual effect on the world will probably be minimal. Rather than blowing ten grand on a 3D printer and churning out single-shot pistols, it’s probably more effective to buy old guns or rifles for $100 a piece. In countries with tighter gun control, though, or for slipping past metal detectors, the Liberator might be a bit more useful. The scarier thought, I think, is that metal 3D printers are now starting to mature, and it won’t be too long until you can pick one up for a reasonable amount of money. (See: 3D printing with metal: The final frontier of additive manufacturing.) When anyone can churn out strong, precision-made metal parts at home, then the world will really change.

To download the 3D printing CAD files for the Liberator, head along to DefCad. Be sure to read the instructions carefully before printing and assembling the gun, as you don’t really want your hands to be cut to pieces by shards of exploding ABS plastic.