The DefCad archive
Cody Wilson’s DefCad enterprise has become popular again in the news. Since some of the files are available today, there are a number of interesting aspects of the archive that warrant some brief discussion and research.
Practicalities
Let’s start by talking about the most immediate points first. To dispel rumors and excitement: you won’t even be able to shove the files for the AR-15 into a commercially available 3D printer and readily get a working gun.
The simplest way to print an object with a 3D printer is with an STL file. Many 3D printed objects found are shared in terms of STL files. The simplicity of the file format, which attempts to encode a triangulation of the original object (rather than trying to encapsulate the exact geometry) make it simple to use and easy to process. However, STL files are dimensionless, which makes it difficult to properly get the correct build scales. Many of the files in the DefCad archive do not use STL: while STL is somewhat of a lingua franca for object definitions, it is a format that seems inappropriate for complex part machining.
In fact, most of the DefCad archive files use the SolidWorks format (SLDPRT and SLDASM), which contain information about part assembly as well as part geometry. These files are included for most of the files currently available at DefCad, as well as for some projects, interchangeable formats like STEP and IGES. These formats are more suitable for precision work, and are far less frequently used in 3D printing.
Even though these formats are standardized, there is less free software available that can process and display information encoded in these files.
Authorship
Now that we have these files available, the more interesting question is to ask where did they come from? It’s worthwhile revisiting briefly what DefCad was back before the original State Department lawsuit was — revisiting archived snapshots, we can see that it was originally a place for the wider community to upload firearms-related 3D printing projects.
Because STEP and IGES formats are plain text, we can take a peek inside the metadata for some of the projects and make some inferences about the origins of some of these files.
Overall, apart from the Liberator (for obvious reasons), all the other available projects at DefCad are in “professional” file formats.
AR-10
The AR-10 schematics are interesting, inasmuch as it has a set of SolidWorks files, but however, the fileset seems like an amalgam of different projects. The reference to “LTS Zeus” for the lower receiver appears to refer to a particular project at GrabCad by user “gil”, who appears to have spent some time iteratively refining polymer lower receivers, such as in a prior project for a receiver nicknamed “Thor”.
The schematics also include references to parts for the Sig Sauer 516, an AR-15 variant (buffer back plate, buffer tube, disconnector, hammer hinge pin, safety, trigger hinge pin, and trigger).
The STEP file however appears to be complete, utilizing the Zeus lower. The metadata only has a timestamp of “2017–01–23T14:21:33".
AR-15
While the AR-15 project is completely in SolidWorks format, there is a STEP file for the 80% lower included in the DefCad archive. This file has more metadata:
/* name */
'C:\\Users\\John\\Desktop\\DD MASTER\\AR15 & M16 files\\DD Lowers\\STP
\\AR15-Metal.stp',
/* time_stamp */ '2014-08-29T22:41:54-05:00',
/* author */ ('John'),This appears to be related to the lowers that Ghost Gunner sell (also run by Defense Distributed). The AR-15 project itself has references to “DD COLT AR-15A3 COMPLETE” and itself includes a number of parts to the M4, which suggests that the majority of the AR-15 project have a provenance from Defense Distributed themselves.
Beretta 92FS/M9
The STEP metadata only has a timestamp of “2011–09–25T10:42:07+02:00”. The associated IGES file however has some additional strings: “C:\Users\Jazbec\Desktop\Beretta_iges.igs” “Rhinoceros ( Jan 18 2007 )”, and “Trout Lake IGES 012 Jan 18 2007”.
The latter two strings appear to be part of the IGES processing software used for this project. Additionally, the timestamp has a UTC+2 timezone associated with it, and the Defense Distributed AR-15 files have a UTC-5 timezone, and the AR-10 STEP files did not have any timezone data associated with it.
Ruger 10/22
Having a 22LR rifle was interesting to see in the DefCad archive. There are a number of STEP files alongside the normal SolidWorks files. The project files also include one IGES file that describes the 22LR ammunition itself with the only metadata clue a potential username of “Bandvov”, which traces back to another GrabCad project.
However, this user did not design the rest of the rifle: the STEP files included in the project have metadata referring to a full name of “Bob Clark” (as well as timestamps from “2011–10–06T13:13:24”, “2011–10–10T15:43:26”, and “2012–02–05T17:23:26”). The Bob Clark name refers to another set of GrabCad projects centered around the 10/22, for example, one project includes designs for a weldable 10/22 receiver.
VZ-58
The VZ-58 (similar but different to the AK-47) project has one STEP file. Metadata only has a timestamp of “2016–11–28T23:07:36”, and file layout is again different to the other projects.
Legalities
Even though as noted a number of projects found in GrabCad appear to have made it into the DefCad archive, this has not deterred breathless commentary about how a new era of violence spurred from undetectable weaponry will wash upon suburban streets. Technical knowledge of firearms exists today and such Chicken Little scenarios espoused by some political actors have not manifested.
Even though Defense Distributed v. United States Department of State ended up being settled, there is a strong legal case that banning technical designs has adverse First Amendment implications. Unfortunately, some US states have already tried to use legal means to try and chill that speech; Pennsylvania’s attempt to do this verging on the nonsensical:
The Defendants will presumably claim that they are merely distributing “computer code,” as if they are an internet library or bookseller. They are not. They are selling actual working guns, plastic and undetectable, distributing them to whomever downloads and 3D-prints them.
It is unlikely that attempting to use the sledgehammer of law and Congress to ban sharing such designs would survive judicial challenge. Manufacturing firearms for oneself is already a legal endeavor. What legal measures Congress might use to attack the sharing of technical firearms information is currently unknown. At the time of writing Sen. Chuck Schumer’s proposed bill to “[stop] these websites” such as DefCad could not be found. It may be the case that future legislation would be directed at the 3D printers themselves. Alternatively, there may be social efforts pressuring hosting providers to change their acceptable usage policies.
Overall, this technology was inevitable once 3D printing technology matured. Other than a truly frontal assault at the Constitution, the genie is indeed out of the bottle.
The Lasnik injunction
Indeed, various state governments attempted to seek an injunction against the State Department and Defense Distributed, which Washington district court judge Robert Lasnik granted.
However, Lasnik makes the rather bizarre claim that Defense Distributed’s First Amendment rights were “abridged, but […] not been abrogated”, noting that files “cannot be uploaded to the internet” but paradoxically “can be emailed”.
Of course, anyone could hardly see this as anything but a challenge which Wilson seems to have accepted with gusto: as of 2018–08–28, DefCad is now selling USB drives with the plans, which ostensibly avoids “uploading to the internet” and indeed the files would be “otherwise published within the United States”.
More interestingly, there may indeed be a Commerce Clause argument to be further made with respect to DefCad’s new model — unfortunately Commerce Clause law tends to be rather creatively interpreted and thus such an argument may be difficult to reason about.
Conclusions
It appears that the original motivating factor for generating a site like DefCad has evolved from merely a site for “misfit objects” to a site that focuses on distributing community-generated designs that have a stronger technical basis.
However, there is a need for distributing proven designs more widely. Wilson had himself expressed such a desire in his recent Wired interview:
The US military maintains records of thousands of the specs for thousands of firearms in technical manuals, stored on reels and reels of microfiche cassettes. But only federally approved libraries can access them. By building a library, complete with an actual microfiche viewer in one corner, Wilson is angling to access the US military’s entire public archive of gun data, which he eventually hopes to digitize and include on Defcad.com, too.
Given the discussion of Defense Distributed’s acquisition of an optical comparator (ibid.) perhaps only the AR-15 related designs appear to have been “blessed” in such a regard. One can only eagerly await the ability to peruse more designs of a proven, historical nature. Knowledge does yearn to be free.
