http://money.msn.com:80/investing/post--company-uses-3-d-printing-to-make-steel-handgun
By Geoffrey Ingersoll, Business Insider
Aside from the Duke's classic Colt six-shooter, no pistol has such a place in
American history as the 1911 .45-caliber handgun.
Now the folks at Solid Concepts have successfully produced one of these
handguns (pictured), all steel and all 3-D-printed.
Fabricating 3-D weapons has come a long way in a short period.
Just within the past year, a Texas company called Defense Distributed made
headlines for creating 3-D-printed weapons. But it had problems producing
pieces that could stand the heat and pressure.
From the Solid Concepts press release:
It is composed of 33 17-4 Stainless Steel and Inconel 625 components, and
decked with a Selective Laser Sintered (SLS) carbon-fiber filled nylon hand
grip. The successful production and functionality of the 1911 3D Printed
metal gun proves the viability of 3D Printing for commercial applications.
Already, special operations teams out in the middle of who-knows-where have
support from "expeditionary labs" that draw and print custom pieces of gear,
based entirely on the military operator's specifications.
President Barack Obama has also promised $200 million for a 3-D printing
initiative in the Defense Department.
Certainly, the fabrication of stainless-steel pieces is a revolution of
sorts, and planners in the military are probably watching closely for what
happens next.
As for .45-caliber pistols, Solid Concepts maintains that the pieces are not
machined but entirely "grown" in 3-D printers.
From the press release:
Laser sintering is one of the most accurate manufacturing processes
available, and more than accurate enough to build the 3-D Metal Printed
interchangeable and interfacing parts within our 1911 series gun. The gun
proves laser sintering can meet tight tolerances.
3-D Metal Printing has less porosity issues than an investment cast part and
better complexities than a machined part. The barrel sees chamber pressure
above 20,000 psi every time the gun is fired.
"We're proving this is possible. The technology is at a place now where we
can manufacture a gun with 3-D printing," said Kent Firestone, Solid
Concepts' vice president of additive manufacturing. "As far as we know, we're
the only 3-D printing service provider with a federal firearms license. Now
if a qualifying customer needs a unique gun part in five days, we can
deliver."
Mentioning the license is no mistake. Certainly the idea of 3-D printing of
small arms has caused a bit of a stir in the weapons-control community. Cody
Wilson, the owner of Defense Distributed, ran into this problem, but at the
time of his troubles -- last summer and late last year -- he did not yet hold
a federal firearms license.
Certainly the implications of this new technology -- both for domestic and
federal use, as well as for military and humanitarian use -- are nothing
short of staggering.