We’ve covered the quest to 3D print firearms, or parts of firearms, in many articles here at 3Dprinter.net. One of the more famous — or one might say infamous — maker is the group called Defense Distributed, whose mission is to help distribute 3D design files for people to freely produce working firearms on their own 3D printers.

They recently set out to test HaveBlue’s reinforced AR-15 lower receiver, available for download over at Thingiverse. We introduced HaveBlue to our readers back in July in the article, Gunsmith makes a rifle with a 3D printer. (Okay, we exaggerated a little, he only printed the lower receiver for an AR-15; oops, we did it again with this article.) Anyway, Defense Distributed took an AR-15 with a 3D printed lower out for a spin last Saturday, and here are the results.

Here’s part of the post-mortem from the Wiki Weapon blog, where they review the event:

The first string of fire was just one round, which was fired without incident. The weapon fired, extracted/ejected/returned to battery, and the fire control properly rested, meaning the geometry of the axis pin holes is accurate. After examining the receiver for damage and finding none, the magazine was loaded with ten more rounds. On the second string of fire, the receiver seemed to fail on the fifth round – but may have actually failed earlier.

If you are interested in this subject, the whole review on the blog is quite fascinating.

As a side note, if you want to see how TV has already picked up on this topic, read our blog post from last week on CSI and the 3D printed gun killer.