The OK Boomer is Unfinished and Unsafe
Will Freeman and The Gatalog Release Anyway?
This is my first post addressed directly to the public at large, but it is the culmination of an ongoing conversation between me and Freeman1337, the developer of the OK Boomer. Because the developer refuses to engage with the failures of his design and because he pretends he can release in spite of these failures, I will continue to blow the whistle on the OK Boomer.
The TLDR version:
The vast majority of OK Boomer testers failed to produce functioning guns without significant troubleshooting and assistance.
Testers who did manage to fire their guns usually experienced failures in operation.
One of the common failures, hammer follow / chainfire, could lead to injury or arrest.
Despite these significant issues, Freeman1337 has not produced a single revision of the design or documentation across the entire beta.
Freeman1337, knowing of these failures, has nevertheless announced the impending public release of his design.
How Did We Get Here?
To review, the OK Boomer was announced in 2022, and entered beta (first public, later private) in 2023. The most recent design revision was provided to beta testers at the start of the 2023 beta. I detail this history here.
I was an early beta tester of this design. I made three attempts at building this design - two were totally nonfunctional, the last one initially functioned but quickly broke after a few rounds. I brought my feedback to Freeman1337, and was ignored.
Failures were almost universal among OK Boomer beta testers. Perhaps because of this, testing participation fell off a cliff after the first two months, and for the last several months the beta has been effectively dead.
I am far from the only person to notice the beta’s death. The OK Boomer’s status as a “forever beta” is widely accepted and has become a guncad meme.
Opening the Boomer
Despite the failures of the current iteration I still don’t think the design is fatally flawed, and I did not want to see this project die at the hands of an absentee beta manager. In protest, I repackaged and released the design as the Open Boomer.
The Open Boomer consists of unaltered CAD files used in the forever beta, accompanied by warnings and provisos about the design’s unfinished, unsafe status.
Immediately after publishing the Open Boomer, I emailed Freeman1337 to inform him of what I had done.
I told nobody else, keeping it a secret between Freeman and myself.
I expected one of two reactions:
Freeman1337 would be motivated to reengage with his beta and fix the problems testers had identified, making publication of the Open Boomer unnecessary. My plan in this scenario was to unpublish the Open Boomer and assist with the OK Boomer’s revisions.
Freeman1337 would ignore me entirely, in which case I would, after a grace period, publicize the Open Boomer more widely as a community call to improve the design and testing process.
What I did not expect was for Freeman1337 to attempt to rush to publicly release his unfinished and unsafe design
Analyzing the OK Boomer Beta
I can justify my claims.
Here are the numbers from the OK Boomer beta: out of 119 participants, eighteen people report firing rounds through an OK Boomer. Of these, only two reported encountering NO problems in assembly or firing. In my writeup for the Open Boomer I estimated a "problem rate" of 75%, but it's actually closer to 90%.
Half of the users who encountered problems with their builds never resolved them. They either gave up, or started from scratch with a new frame or parts kit. The other half overcame their problems by figuring out how to fit and tune their specific build. They almost always did this on their own with no meaningful assistance from Freeman1337.
(Note that these numbers include only those testers who reported their build experiences. 16 additional beta participants posted some evidence of printing the frame and then never followed up. It is likely that many of these gave up when it came time for assembly, a washout rate of nearly 50%.)
Among builders, some problems occurred again and again. Assembly problems were ubiquitous - the vast majority of builders made mistakes due to either misunderstanding the documentation, or from being unable to successfully perform the fitment tasks the documentation calls for. Pinhole cracking and out-of-spec holes were common issues. Successful assembly is clearly very difficult with the current design and instructions.
For those who managed to complete assembly, the gun often failed in storage. Many testers found that their main recoil spring or mag catch blew out of the frame while it sat in their gun safe.
Most concerningly, nearly half of the testers who shot the gun report some form of hammer follow or chainfire incident. Outside of catastrophic failure, this is one of the worst problems a firearm can experience - failure to retain the hammer can lead to NDs, uncontrolled fire, injuries and arrests.
The median number of rounds fired among testers is 125. Half of the shooters did not fire more than 100 rounds. Only two people report making it through more than 500. When Freeman1337 reports a frame with 2,000 rounds on it, he is cherrypicking the most extreme outlier.
We have almost no significant data about this design’s long-term performance, and the results for short-term performance are very bad.
No Revisions, No Problems
Despite the problems reported above, not a single revision was made during the beta test.
When problems were reported, Freeman1337 often dismissed or mocked his testers, insisting that their problems were due to them failing to “read the documentation”.
Freeman1337’s attitude throughout the entire beta was that his design was perfect and that any problems the testers encountered must have been due to other factors, such as user error or out of spec parts kits.
And in a sense he could be right! 1911s are not easy builds, usually requiring tedious hand-fitting. The drilling, reaming and melting techniques called for in prepping the Open Boomer frame are also very precise and easy to screw up.
Even if it were the case that the frame design is perfect, this doesn’t matter if nobody can assemble your perfect frame. The entire purpose of a beta test is to determine whether guncad/the public can build your design. This involves questions like:
Does the documentation adequately instruct you as to how to build the design?
Does the frame work with the variety of parts kits available?
Is it reasonable to expect your average gun builder to possess the tools and skills to complete the build?
With a 90% problem rate, the answer to these questions is a resounding "No". The correct response to this is to improve the documentation, to create tools and jigs to help with frame prep, fitment and testing, and to modify the design to make it easier to work with (or to pivot if this proves technically impossible).
Freeman1337’s response is to explain away the problems, or to ignore them entirely.
It is possible to build a safe, functioning OK Boomer. But the beta results tell me that, with the current design and documentation, this is incredibly unlikely. If only 1 out of 10 members of a (theoretically) higher-skill testing pool can do it without significant troubleshooting, we should expect a much lower success rate from the general public.
What Happens Next
There is no honest way for Freeman1337 to release the current design without massive warnings, of the sort I included with the Open Boomer. At this time he has publicly announced the a commitment to do the opposite.
Freeman1337’s response to my whistleblowing is to attempt a coverup. The same day I sent my first email to him, he rushed to Reddit, misrepresented the design’s functionality and its round count, and announced an impending release.
To make sure this is clear: there was zero discussion of release in the Rocketchat beta before I published the Open Boomer. Freeman1337’s public actions are entirely a reaction to my publication.
In order to save face or his reputation, Freeman1337 is knowingly releasing an unsafe gun design that has failed beta testing.
Despite projecting confidence in public, in private Freeman1337 is scrambling to create his release package. Here’s his plan for documentation changes:
There are still no mentions of the legitimate safety issue with hammer follow / chainfire.
His third point might address one of the commonly encountered problems (mag catch blowing out), but his plan is apparently to make the fix and documentation changes without submitting them to testers at all. So why are we even doing this beta?
A beta test is supposed to conclude after a final release package has been compiled and thoroughly tested on its own. What we’re getting here is lipstick on a pig, and we haven’t even tested the lipstick.
So what’s going to happen after release? Any of the following:
Almost everyone who attempts this build will fail to produce working guns on their first attempts, and will require significant troubleshooting or help.
Some people will experience hammer follow / chainfire issues.
If enough people build this design, someone will get hurt.
Freeman1337 or The Gatalog will become known for knowingly releasing a bad design in order to save face.
An Appeal to Freeman1337
I’ll conclude by addressing you directly, Dr. Freeman. Yes, I’m talking to you.
You don’t have to do this. Rushing your incomplete design to release will not preserve your reputation - it will destroy it.
Take my advice and return to the drawing board. Consider opening up your beta to new blood and new ideas. Adjust your attitude and stop dismissing the problems people find. These problems are not unfixable, but they’ll never be fixed if you refuse to acknowledge them.
I understand that your feelings are hurt from being called out. But guncad doesn’t work without real feedback. This whistleblowing is your sign. Don’t resist it. Nobody will think less of you.
Do what is right, Dr. Freeman. Serve mankind.