THE 3D PRINTER IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD
In gun-crazed America, artisanal DIY ammunition meets maker technology
Standing inside his cluttered garage workshop, Michael Crumling, a 29-year-old gunsmith, proudly showed off an impressive collection of lead bullets he has meticulously crafted from scratch. Across the US, millions of weapons aficionados like Crumling reload their own ammunition and cast their own bullets — time-consuming hobbies that have been a part of firearms culture for generations.
But Crumling has also created something else in his garage that distinguishes him from his peers, a potential solution to a problem that has long vexed creators of 3D printed guns: a bullet that won’t ruin the plastic firearms.
And yet Crumling says he has no plans to sell or mass produce the designer round, even though it represents the next step in making printable guns more reliable, and the next front in an ongoing regulatory fight over home-made weaponry.
“I don’t see the point,” he said recently, explaining that despite the allure of 3D guns and ammunition, people who want to build their own firearms can do much better with off-the-shelf parts from their local hardware stores — or eBay, which he turned to when constructing a submachine gun with metal he filed and bent himself.
Amid a national debate over tighter access to guns, and legislative efforts to regulate the unfettered sale of bullets and shells, interest in this pastime has been bolstered by a lively online DIY community that trades in how-to YouTube videos and engages in passionate web forum discussions about best practices and likely legal challenges.
As fervid as DIY gunsmiths are, an equally passionate online community has emerged around home-made ammunition. About 5 million out of roughly 43 million hunters and sport shooters in the United States make their own bullets and shells, according to reloading companies.
These DIY hobbyists consist primarily of two groups. Reloaders who take spent shell casings that are left behind after a weapon, usually a semi-automatic, is fired, and make them usable again by carefully refilling them with gunpowder and coupling that with a new primer and a bullet. And home casters who make bullets from scratch, typically by melting lead they buy online or get from junkyards, auto body shops or gun ranges.
Enthusiasts cite this pursuit as a way to customise ammunition for heightened accuracy or lethality and as a practical skill should bullets be banned or one day be in short supply.
“It gives me time to think,” said Gavin Gear, who runs a popular blog and YouTube channel called Ultimate Reloader, which offers instructional videos and reviews of reloading equipment. He described the process as a relaxing ritual, “not unlike a blacksmith making a knife or a samurai sword”.
But mostly, it comes down to saving money: Many people who cast bullets at home cited the price of ammunition, which, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, has steadily climbed over the past several decades and hit its highest price this year.
David Reiss, who has been casting his own bullets for more than 10 years, said that a box of 50 factory-made cartridges for a .38 special costs about US$15 (450 baht), whereas he can reload the same number for roughly $4 in materials.
Some types of ammunition, such as .44 Magnum cartridges, can cost more than 50 cents per round. Typical target shooters might use more than 150 rounds at each range visit, while competitive shooters can use over 1,000 rounds every week.
BARRIERS, REAL AND PERCEIVED
Most bullets are made of lead, and obtaining this metal isn’t always easy.
There are car tyres that have internal lead weights meant to stabilise the vehicles, and bullet casters customarily turned to their local mechanics to get cheap or free lead. But this source began drying up after 2009 when, because of pollution concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency and a coalition of automakers, tyre manufacturers and retailers began a campaign to phase out the use of the metal for wheel weights.
According to the EPA, every year more than 500 tonnes of lead end up in the woods or waterways near roads when the weights fall off vehicles after they hit potholes or are involved in collisions. At least nine states have banned lead wheel weights.
Reiss, who also oversees membership for a bullet casters association, said that most of his members find lead online or by collecting fired bullets at gun ranges. Some scrap yards still sell lead for about 75 cents for 500g.
Gunpowder is much easier to obtain. It sells for about $25 for 500g, is readily available online or at sporting goods stores, and most types require no license, particularly for quantities smaller than 25kg.
Among avid shooters, a guiding principle is to avoid using guns made, bullets cast or cartridges reloaded by someone else. Faulty handiwork can cause serious injury or ruin a gun if a shoddy bullet jams or if a weapon is defective. Still, despite this stigma, dozens of boutique producers have popped up in the wake of an ammunition shortage that started about 10 years ago, selling these “remanufactured” cartridges, as they are called.
Douglas Haig, an aerospace engineer from Mesa, Arizona, ran one such business until he was charged with manufacturing the armour-piercing tracer ammunition that one of his customers, Stephen Paddock, used to gun down hundreds of people last year at a Las Vegas country music festival. As with gun enthusiasts more generally, there is a strain of anxiety that runs through the community of DIY bullet makers and kit-gun aficionados. In online forums, they worry about the threat of big government intrusions, regulatory barriers, market shortages or price hikes that might limit their access to essential supplies like lead or gunpowder.
A GENERATIONAL DIVIDE OPENS
There are subtle cultural and demographic differences within the community of homemade weaponry and ammunition. More retro than futurist, more low-tech than high-tech, casters and reloaders tend to be older and often retirees.
The average member in the Cast Bullet Association is a 55-year-old man, typically mathematically inclined tinkerers from professions where they used their hands, such as dentists, mechanics or surgeons, Reiss said. The members enjoy the engineering know-how and alchemy experimentation involved in a hobby that requires millimetre exactitude, tireless patience, and constant trial and error.
In contrast, those interested in creating printable guns are often younger and more internet savvy.
Both parts of the community, though, share a staunch scepticism of the government and an ideological individualism that have long been hallmarks of the broader American gun ethos. Not unlike many supporters of President Donald Trump, many in this group think of themselves as social disrupters, questioning the relationship between citizens and their states. In their view, guns are not just a constitutionally protected right, but also a socio-historical symbol whose very purpose is to level the playing field.
In the past, law enforcement agencies have tamped down alarm from gun control advocates about emerging 3D technology by citing the home-made weapons’ lack of durability.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, for instance, released a video in 2013 showing one such gun, called the Liberator and made of a weaker type of plastic, exploding during its test firing. But these reassurances have come less frequently as the stability of the guns have improved and inventions like Crumling’s have become more available.
In fact, if 3D printed guns continue to advance and developers indeed solve the ammunition problem, Crumling said, the market may eventually move toward fully disposable weapons.
Not unlike the pepper spray that people buy and keep in their glove boxes or purses, printed weapons could be thrown away after a single use or several uses, he predicted.
“In this scenario,” Crumling said, “I could see the ammunition becoming the restricted item as opposed to the gun.”
Among avid shooters, a guiding principle is to avoid using guns made, bullets cast or cartridges reloaded by someone else