DIY ammo in a 3D-tech world

IAN URBINA

Time-consuming hobby has been part of firearms culture for generations

NEW YORK TIMES

WRIGHTSVILLE, Pennsylvania

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 country, 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 homemade 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 homemade 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 customize 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.”

But mostly, it comes down to saving money: Many people who cast bullets at home cited the price of ammunition, which, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has steadily climbed over the past several decades and hit its highest price this year.

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 millimeter 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 skepticism of the government and an ideological individualism that have long been hallmarks of the broader American gun ethos.

In the past, law enforcement agencies have tamped down alarm from gun control advocates about emerging 3D technology by citing the homemade 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 pepper spray, 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.”