The 2013 headline referred to Defense Distributed’s Liberator, a mostly plastic handgun whose design was expected to be released online about two weeks after an April announcement. Cody Wilson fired it on 6 May 2013. It was not literally all plastic: the design included metal components, and the episode helped turn downloadable firearm files into a public safety and policy controversy.
What did “available to download in two weeks” mean?
An April 2013 post described a planned all-plastic handgun that was roughly two weeks away from being printed, tested and released online. The project became known as the Liberator. Ars Technica reported that Defense Distributed intended to publish the design on its website after testing its reliability and durability (Ars Technica, April 2013).
The promised release was part of a larger shift: firearm design files could be distributed as downloadable CAD files, rather than only through conventional manufacturing and sales. The Victoria and Albert Museum records that Wilson fired the Liberator on 6 May 2013, describing it as the world’s first 3D-printed handgun (Victoria and Albert Museum).
Was the Liberator really all plastic?
No. “All-plastic” was a shorthand for a handgun whose main body and most components were printed in plastic, not a literal description of every part. The V&A says the Liberator consisted of fifteen ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) plastic parts, printed individually on a Stratasys Dimension SST industrial printer. Ars Technica reported two metal elements: a nail used as the firing pin and a six-ounce steel slug included to meet metal-detector requirements under the Undetectable Firearms Act.
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When was it fired, and how widely were the drawings downloaded?
Wilson fired the Liberator on 6 May 2013 at a private shooting range in Austin, Texas, with BBC3 present, according to the V&A. The museum’s 2024 account of the 2013 release reports 100,000 drawing downloads in the first two days. That figure refers to reported downloads of the drawings during that initial period; it does not establish how many people built or fired a gun.
Why did the release matter?
The Liberator joined a working proof of concept to online distribution of firearm CAD files. That raised questions that ordinary descriptions of a 3D printer’s capabilities could not settle: how digital designs might circulate, what safety and access concerns they create, and how existing laws apply to files as well as physical weapons. The V&A and Ars Technica document the 2013 episode; they do not establish present-day file availability or the law in any particular jurisdiction.
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The sources describe the Liberator’s materials and initial release, but do not provide a like-for-like technical comparison with later 3D-printed firearms on repeat-fire operation, printer requirements or commercial manufacturing. Those comparisons should not be inferred from the “all-plastic” label.
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