Shotgun Slugs Created on 3D Printers

Guns and ammo

Everyone knows about 3-D printed guns. Now a hobbyist from Tennessee has created 3-D printed shotgun slugs. Then he sent them to his friend, who took the slugs and blasted away.

In a video posted to internet this week, Jeff Heeszel, a 48-year-old industrial technician from Visalia, California, is seen firing three 3-D printed slugs from a Mossberg 590 shotgun. The first two slugs both hit their targets at a range of about 25 to 30 feet. The first slug penetrated a dart board. "It went right through that," Heeszel tells Danger Room. And then carried on to penetrate through a water jug. The second slug blasted through a 2×12 piece of pine wood, and then bored a hole in a wire reel. A third slug with a three-pointed front was then fired at much closer range at a mannequin's head, but just knocked it over.

Heeszel was surprised at the first two. "I didn't think it would go through the first piece of wood at all, much less hit anything," he says. But he also called them more of a novelty than a practical bullet. "I thought the thing was kinda lame, but I realize there's a lot of novelty with the 3-D printed gun, and I thought it was kind of timely. But overall I think they're kind of crappy little rounds," he adds.