A Year in Review; Ghost Gun Roundup 2022

2022 has been another productive year for guncad. With more people participating in the community than ever before releases have become more complex and groups have become more prolific in an effort to meet the demands of an insatiable ‘market’.

To celebrate the new year we’ll briefly go over some of the best releases, events, equipment, and betas that have come out of the 3D2A scene this year.

AWCY?

To begin we’ll start by taking a look at some of the releases from the art collective AWCY?

AWCY? has been busy this year and has released a multitude of varying designs, everything from full power battle rifles, pump action launching devices, 9mm PDWs, functional drum magazines, pump action rifles, rimfire plinkers, as well as a whole host of additional arms and accessories not featured here.

Gatalog

The Gatalog (formerly known as Deterrence Dispensed or colloquially as DD2) is best known for releasing the FGC-9 and the FGC-9 MkII. This year they made a fair number of releases, from their own take on the CETME build, to a lever action rifle, several printable handgun frames, a monolithic AR lower, the Biden’s Bane political project; a DIY AR15 upper receiver, as well as several additional projects not covered here.

INMC

INMC or “In Minecraft” is a lesser known group that got their start as an offshoot of fosscad. Relatively recently they’ve come onto the guncad scene with their own releases, in addition to supplying parts for other open source projects. They released the PROOF airgun, an unregulated, fully automatic air rifle that fires lethal ball bearing ammunition. The aim of the project being to completely DIY or otherwise easily acquire the weapon and its ammunition while being marginally combat effective, and complying with oppressive weapons laws. Additionally they introduced a 3D printed sighting system compatible with picatinny rails.

Black Lotus Coalition

Black Lotus Coalition is one of the rising stars in the guncad scene, they knocked it out of the park this year with the release of the controversial yet highly successful harlot, as well as several other designs including 34mm signaling devices, 84mm signaling devices, additional single shot handguns, as well as additional projects not covered here.

Notable Events

There were several notable events this year in the world of ghost guns.

The second annual Gun Makers Match occurred in March and the third Annual Bear Arms and Bitcoin conference occurred in April, both perhaps unsurprisingly in Florida. Both of these events were either significantly or solely dedicated to ghost guns.

Gun Buybacks:

This year Gun Buybacks were attended by individuals turning in 3D printed guns. While gun buybacks have been historically exploited by people turning in homemade weapons like pipe shotguns, and even some 3D printed weapons as well, the practice of extracting tax money from moronic jurisdictions really came into stride this year with several high profile cases happening very close together, as well as record amounts of prize money being won. The harlot, the cabfare and the liberator were all incredibly popular single shot guns individuals turned in, as well as in some cases generic stripped Glock and AR lowers. By far the biggest win of the year was a ziploc baggie full of 60 3D printed autosears being taken in exchange for 21,000$ worth of prepaid credit cards.

80% Receiver Ban:

In the latter half of this year the ATF attempted to redefine what constituted a firearm in an attempt to destroy the 80% receiver market. This has had limited success with the ruling being partially injuncted, however it is a significant enough legal mess that it has spooked some retailers off. It has also inspired a new wave of resistance and a response in the types of projects being developed.

Individuals

Despite the popularity of dev teams composed of many designers, some individuals chose to go at it on their own or in small partnerships to produce and release their work.

Below we feature the NLYAUG project from Because2A and Caska, utilizing a 3D printed receiver and converted AR15 barrel to complete the Steyr AUG parts kits currently on the market. This project is currently in public beta testing.

Additionally well known names like Derwood and Mussy completed some interesting projects this year. Derwood released the anticipated Magnetic “Delayed Recoil” King Cobra 9. Mussy completed the MP22, a DIY 22 LR mp5 lookalike.

Suck Boy Tony rounds off this list with his plasma pump. A completely DIY rifle that uses handmade electrically primed black powder ammunition in an attempt to entirely cut off any channels of regulation.

Defense Distributed

Any discussion of ghost guns is not complete without mentioning the company that really kicked everything off, Defense Distributed. This year the company rolled out new upgrades to its desktop milling machine, the Ghost Gunner 3. These updates included new firmware to cut steel, DD supplied code to cut optics pockets in Glock slides, as well a new variant of the Ghost Gunner known as the GG3-S that features improved body rigidity.

In addition to the machine upgrades DD also released their first gun project in quite a while, the AR-00, an AR-15 lower milled from aluminum bar stock on the GG3. This project was released preemptively in response to the ban on 80% firearms that eventually came late this year.

Conclusion

2022 was a year that saw an increase in conventional gun control throughout the country, however it also saw the continuance of the meteoric rise in popularity of ghost guns and the institutions that facilitate them. Despite the fact that the powers that be brought down the most might we’ve seen them wield to date in an attempt to get the genie back in the bottle, it is far too late for them. I look forward to seeing the amazing feats that will be accomplished by the community in the coming year.