Where can I find original factory technical drawings of real firearms? (Not patents)

7 Sep, 2025 04:03 PM

Hello everyone,

I’m working on 3D modeling and historical engineering research. I’m especially interested in the original factory technical drawings / production drawings of firearms from the 19th and 20th centuries. By this I don’t mean patent drawings, but the actual engineering blueprints used in factories, with full dimensions.

So far, I’ve only been able to find patent archives online, but what I really need are the authentic engineering drawings coming from factory or military archives.

Could you recommend:

Any online archives or university libraries that provide such materials?
Any forums / communities where people have shared these kinds of drawings?
Especially sources (free or paid) used by those who research historical firearms?

If anyone in the GrabCAD community has worked on similar projects, I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences.

Thanks in advance!

Edgar Peñafiel

Sep 9, 2025

Hello

It's difficult; people aren't just going to give you work that easily costs thousands of dollars. The easiest thing you can do is reverse engineer existing weapons, but it takes some time to do and there are too many of them. What I do recommend as a starting point is the game. “World of Guns Gun Disassembly” allows you to extract the files with a scan of the game, but you'll have to polish the parts because they have low polygons for security reasons. If you want a hand, we could come to an agreement.

By the way, I speak Spanish and this is a translation.

Good luck.

Kadir Demir

Sep 9, 2025

Edgar Peñafiel HelloIt's difficult; people aren't just going to give you work that easily costs thousands of dollars. The easiest thing you can do is re...

Thank you for your suggestion. I’ll download the game and check it out.

Storm Eye

10 days ago

I have M249 factory blueprints(1700 pages) and CAD file.

If you need it, let me know

Guns

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Where can I find original factory technical drawings of real firearms? (Not patents)