3D Printing AR-15 Lower Receiver on Desktop 3D Printer

I 3D print a full AR-15 lower receiver from Defense Distributed on an Ultimaker 3D Printer using PLA material. I demonstrate it's not as simple as just clicking a button and making a gun however the principal is sound. I also give comparisons to a real S&W AR-15 that I own.

** NOTICE **
The original video was removed by YouTube due to a technicality that I fixed so I had to re-upload it. The video was originally recorded on 4-28-2014 so that is why the logo's and branding are old. This however was a 'VERY' popular video so I wanted to make sure it was re-uploaded for people that enjoyed watching it.

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Closed Caption:

hey what's under Gaza fans Jerry here
AKA Barclays now the most requested
thing that I get out of everything I 3d
printers 3d printed gun
three friends again with your 3d printed
gun mp3 pretty good
all right well I thought the media beat
this one to death guys quite frankly but
you know what we're going to go ahead
and print an ar-15 lower just to see if
all this talk about 3d printing a gun is
a real possibility because I guess we'll
never know unless we try
don't worry it's empty
well guys this video has been a long
time coming you guys have been asking me
to print a gun since i got my first 3d
printer and I kept saying no no no but
today I'm saying yes
so this guy right here is my mp 15 by
Smith & Wesson it's a 223 caliber ar-15
rifle not assault rifle everybody loves
throwing the term assault rifle out
there no this is a sports rifles
semi-automatic it looks threatening as
hell
realistically issues these anybody
little bullets that you know granted
they can punch holes through steel at
200 yards and their deadly accurate but
seriously you don't want a rifle that's
not accurate
so since all the talk on the internet
and in the media seems to be around the
ar-15 or twice
I figured that it would be fitting for
us to print the lower receiver
because all the media could talk about
was how you can 3d print this guns
no bullshit you cannot 3d print this gun
you can print the least significant part
of this gun do you need this
yeah pretty much do you need this part
oh yeah
do you need a barrel yeah i'm gonna say
pride barrels probably most important
hell I could shoot the two three and we
just hit it with a hammer if I had a
barrel but the lower
it's important but it's not that
important but since I've done mocking
the media now anyways the model that
we're going to be printing is from
defense distributed you remember those
guys they were the ones that kind of got
in the media's I for being able to print
things such as The Liberator pistol
which was the all plastic pistol you
could sneak onto airplanes and stuff
that just so happened to have metal
parts inside of it
because it wasn't all plastic but
anyways you do have to admit it you can
print a lower receiver that's actually a
big step in that direction because then
what's stopping you from prison and
upper receiver
well I'll tell you plastic isn't durable
enough to be the upper receiver
it just isn't it can't stand up to the
heat at least the 3d printed plastic and
well
talk is cheap let's take one of my 3d
printers we're going to take the
Ultimaker v2 that's my strongest three
printer and we're going to go ahead and
print out an ar-15 lower we're going to
use the defense distributed model that
has been featured in all the videos
where the guy Prince it takes out and
actually shoot so i'm not going to do
that trust me after this you're not
gonna want to do it either but it's
still a cool exercise and it's still
something cool to try so let's get to it
ok guys so the first thing we're gonna
do is we're going to open up curl which
is my software slicer that I used for
taking the 3d model and turning it into
several layers if you haven't seen by
the 3d printing videos
fundamentally the way these 3d printer
works at least the desktop versions they
basically print a layer at a time so a
slicer
I said she takes a three dimensional
item like this and cut into several
thousand layers that when laid on top of
each other and fuse together for the 3d
object now for for this object i'm not
going to printed incredibly high
resolution because this thing can take
up to 36 hours to print so we're going
to go ahead and just print it at the
standard . to layer height and we're
going to do a hundred percent in phil
and basically what that's going to do is
produce a printout that is one hundred
percent solid plastic
now i am going to use support material
because there's tons of overhangs you
can see in all these little areas that
we're going to want some scaffolding
material in place to hold that up
all right well let's get this over to
the 3d printer and fired up
yeah
by travelpod member
alright guys here's my first attempt at
printing the ar-15 lower and you can see
I already removed a ton of the support
material but you can see the support
material got so stubborn i literally
can't remove it from the model
now if i took a dremel to this for hours
and hours and hours i'd be able to clean
all these holes up and clean all this
material out and this would be a
completely usable model you can see in
here where didn't need any support
material is very very clean everything
is very smooth like it should be
so this would be a good example of a
usable they are lower
if you took the time to clean it up but
to be honest I don't have hours and
hours and hours and hours to refine this
so instead we're going to try printing
one without support material and see if
it comes out any better
well guys that you have to say I'm
shocked it actually came how a lot
better if you look here
uh the underside is rough right here
where there was a really really harsh
overhang you can see some stringing on
the material but overall it's not bad
this would all be really easy to clean
up and if i wanted to i could even use
like a plastic polymer or something like
that
fill it in and sand it and would be fine
but all the holes you can see are very
very clean inside and out they're all
very very round everything is where it's
supposed to be so i would have to say
this is representative of a very
successful print
now you can tweak with the settings and
use different types of material this
material just so happens to be straight
pla nothing super fancy you could print
this an ABS also in the AVS would be a
little bit more flexible and durable but
honestly the PLA is a good option
so as a part of this video i'm not going
to install the gun parts into this
because honestly they're not going to
fit without a lot of modification which
lends to my point you really can't just
3d print a lower and just build a gun
out of it i mean there there is a lot of
craftsmanship that has to go into using
this now one thing that the media seems
to always talk about is how anybody can
just take a desktop 3d printer and print
one of these
well I just get it right so anybody
could well here's the problem guys I'm
gonna show you here i have a standard
223 magazine for an ar-15 right there's
nothing special about its standard
I'm gonna take it on and try to put it
in there
yeah yeah well you can see I mean
everything lines up why isn't the
magazine just going in there
oh god it's in there always think I
magazine back so it doesn't slide in
there you can see it's got material all
over it from the magazine
it doesn't slide in there well let me
tell you something about 3d printing abs
shrinks a huge amount when you print it
p la shrinks a little bit of an amount
that's why i think it's a good material
for this because it probably shrinks
less than any other material that I've
used and you can still see that the
tolerances are so tight on a firearm the
it just doesn't fit
I would have to sand and sand and grind
and grind and sand and then these all
these little holes and stuff they're not
going to line up absolutely flawless
either which is going to cause binding
inside the gun now guys all be honest
you can adjust the scaling of this to
add slightly a little bit more scale to
it when you print it you can play around
with the size and dimensions to combat
the shrinkage and eventually you should
get two apart that meets the tolerances
where this would probably snap right in
and everything with a line that would
take a lot of trial and error now in the
videos that you've seen your defense
distributed of printed these and use
them they're using industrial 3d
printers that use like polymer and like
powder and liquid and stuff to bind
together they're they're not printing
and extruded high temperature plastic
because that's the so they don't have to
combat that shrinkage issue now the
printers they're using
I mean you prob I used one now for like
you know 10,000 20,000 dollars but the
really big industrial printers knew I
mean they're like a hundred thousand
dollars for a really good one like an
object and the average person just
doesn't really have access to that or
the money for even if they did why not
go by a CNC machine for like five
thousand dollars that could just move
these out of blocks of aluminum
so you can see with my air 15 right here
put it up there on the death that goes
right in there
fits flawlessly not a lot of play comes
out so I would expect it to just go
right into here - I mean it looks like
everything lines up but it's just that
shrinkage is just enough to cause you
issues
now you're let's take a closer look at
this compared to the actual ar-15 lower
receiver that's on my Smith
lesson alright so there's my smith &
wesson t23 we got our printed receiver
and line that up right on there
get in line right up with the pin hole
in the back side and you can see it
actually looks to be a really really
good fit
you can see the seam lines up on the
back side perfectly and comes up so like
i said if i took a file and I took
sandpaper to this and i worked on it for
a couple of hours i could probably
transfer all the parts over
I can take it out and I probably be able
to shoot it and I might get like two or
three shots off before it finally breaks
now again depending on the material use
if you can get the ABS shrinkage under
control and print it out and abs
it would probably be durable and you get
more shots but honestly you're not going
to get enough shots off to make it even
worth your while
and plus you don't have the upper you
don't have the barrel all you basically
done you don't have the trigger parts
and all the metal pieces that you need
in here
so realistically all you can do is print
that I mean it's it's honestly not much
better than saying i can print a plastic
handle for it but you do have to admit
it makes a pretty cool decorative piece
you know it's pretty good conversation
starter they're like oh man hey that's
pretty cool two wolves and they're 15
lower it trust me people have already
commented on it with it just sitting on
my desk in my other videos only bear
so this was a fun little experiment I
got to admit the fact that it was able
to print an ar-15 lower with no support
material and all i had to contend with
was a little string that I could repair
I i have to say i'm actually pretty
shocked with that I didn't think that
all these little holes and everything
we're going to come out as clean and as
good as they are
I so so that was a pretty cool shot but
at the same time
what happened still was what I thought
would happen and that is between the
shrinkage of the printer some of the
tolerance issues that you have to deal
with because of that shrinkage
it's not practical for you just printed
out and i hope i illustrated that the
only part that you can really printout
them i use that loosely you can print
out some of the other plastic pieces on
the gun but the only functional put
piece of the gun that you can print is
the lower which just holds the trigger
mechanics I mean it's not really the
most important part of the gun no
granted the ATF classifies this as the
gun this is like what the part that has
the serial number on it but
realistically a barrel
I can take a barrel I can stick a ball
in the barrel and I can smack
damn thing with a hammer with like a
little nick on it fire that prime rib in
a boom off my ball it goes
how am I gonna fire around with that I'm
not and for all you guys that are saying
oh why didn't you swap it over and go
test-fire I'm gonna be honest with you
all the ranges that I go to our indoor
ranges and if the Rangemaster saw me
pull out a navy blue ar-15 he's gonna
tackle me
I mean I'm gonna have zip ties on my
hands and shit don't tase me bro don't
tase me and if I had this one on my gun
he would question my intelligence
so we're not going to test-fire it and
plus there's plenty of videos if you
want to go search youtube of people
taking these things out and get a couple
shots at him before they break but take
a closer look when you see those and see
if they're actually using desktop 3d
printers because you can see the lines
from a desktop 3d printer if it looks
like it's completely smooth part and
everything on it looks like perfect and
polished
chances are that was a very expensive
printer and if you want to pay Shapeways
you know a thousand dollars to go
pretend here 15 little fire six shots
sorry air 15 lower not the whole god I'm
trying to try to reiterate that that you
can't do a whole gun and then the other
pistol which i'll probably printed some
point to is the Liberator now granted
the Liberator since all the pieces are
printed on the same printer
even though there's a little bit of
shrinkage in there the parts are still
going to fit together perfectly they
should anyone but you still need a metal
firing pin in the gun four to shoot
and it only shoots 22 caliber and the
barrel wears out really really quick so
even though that's closer to 3d printing
a real gun
it's it's not really practical and to be
honest people have been making guns for
everything go search on youtube you can
go by ten dollars worth of plumbing pipe
from your group of your hardware store
disclaimer I'm not responsible for
anything that you guys do this is for
informational purposes only
president said that earlier in the video
but anyways you can go buy a couple
pieces of pipe put them together
screw cap on it and fires 12-gauge
shotgun shells 12 gauge is a lot of
energy
you see this guy right here yeah I was
probably about five six times as much
gunpowder in a shotgun shell i mean it's
it's a lot so if you can spend ten
dollars with the pipe screwed together
and all you need for tools as a drill
that cost you like you know twenty bucks
at Home Depot
I'm not even sure why people are even
interested in 3d printed guns the only
thing I can think of is that they're
worried that they can slip the radar
they can slip through scanning and stuff
at the airport but at the same time with
the
backscatter machines and stuff like that
you can't speak a deck of playing cards
through the damn airport anymore
so guys I hope you thought it was cool
that I was able to print an ar-15 lower
I actually thought it was cool and in
case you haven't figured it out yet i am
a complete gonna nag advocate I love
guns
I have many guns I have many ammo I love
going to shoot it
I keep all my stuff safely locked up in
a gun vault because i do have a child
and I never ever want him to get his
hands on this without me showing him how
to safely operate it when he's older and
I certainly don't condone people going
out in 3d printing these damn things and
building guns out of the shooting them
to make youtube videos because you know
granted the lower you're probably gonna
be alright the worst is probably gonna
happen is the back is going to snap off
the damn thing but honestly it could
explode you could get a piece of
shrapnel or something stuck in your arm
and if you try to 3d print an upper
you're crazy I haven't seen anybody 3d
printed up yet if you put it up for you
shoot nothing blows up oh yeah i do you
kiss your ass good-bye
so guys this has been a fun video for me
to shoot especially seeing what the
printer could actually produce here and
i hope this gives you guys a little bit
of satisfaction that they finally
printed a gun or at least an important
piece of one
so now we can put that to rest for a
while to move on to bigger better things
and now I'm not printing a longer a
dildo
yeah those are the two second most
requested items
well guys it's been a lot of fun I do
love playing with my guns and by playing
I mean safely operating them
so you guys have a wonderful evening I'm
going to go out on my lawn and shoot
into the air until the police show up
that was a joke
I really hope you enjoyed this video if
you did please like a favor and
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yeah
yeah