Via SayUncle, is look as if Brownells is looking to cash in on the built-it-yourself market
. There’s even an option for building your own from a partially completed lower. I consider it your patriotic duty as a concerned American to learn how to build your own lowers. If the new administration has designs on outlawing certain semi-automatic rifles, or outlawing private sales, we owe it to future generations to create as many off-paper guns as possible.
It is lawful to build your own rifle for your own use, you just can’t build it for commercial gain (i.e. you can’t build it sell it, that requires an FFL). So make yourself an AR, AK or two. You’ll learn something, and create something you can pass on to the kids.
Would it be possible for you to post the machine drawings for them? Are they even possible to build without a CNC machine? I’ll try to build anything at least once. I have a bunch of hammers. ;)
If Midway would ever get the lower parts kit to me I’d be glad to. It really looks as though an AR tool and maybe a set of punches is all you really need (so long as you can manage to get the barrel shroud (the shoulder thing that goes up) on and off. Once I get the AR tool, I’m looking to start swapping barrels and upper receivers around on some of mine. Kind of like Mr. Potato Head.
It might also be interesting to go to gun shows and swap new stripped lowers with folks (for, um, “no good reason”).
Don’t you still need a FFL to transfer a stripped lower from the manufacturer?
Wouldn’t that still be “on paper”?
It would be. In order for it to be off paper, you have to buy a partially completed lower, which is just a hunk of aluminum according to the ATF, and can be traded, bought, sold and shipped as such. You then buy a jig to complete the lower. It typically does not require sophisticated tools.
Keep in mind, though, that once you complete it, it is a firearm according to the ATF, so you have to treat it as such to remain legal. You also can’t make them for the purpose of selling them. To be in the business of manufacturing firearms, you need an FFL. ATF interprets not being in the business as making a firearm for your personal use. That probably doesn’t mean you can never sell it, but you shouldn’t be making anything you don’t intend to use for yourself.
Plus, I would also note, that a lot of dealers don’t want to deal with a gun that isn’t serial numbered. You can put your own serial number on it, though.
The next “assault weapons” ban to come in the near future will likely be more of an actual semi-automatic rifle and shotgun ban, along with all the detachable box magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds. That means even glorified toys like the Ruger 10/22 and other semi-automatic .22 rifles.
As for the novice gunsmith building AR or AK type rifles in the basement, it can indeed be done without any sort of expensive CNC machinery. Having a metal lathe helps, but there are quite a few types of mill work that can be done with the very same drill presses that many people already own, the ones they probably bought at Lowe’s or Home Depot just for home improvement projects like building decks or sheds or whatever.
There is a relatively wide array of teaching material all about home gunsmithing and gun building out there for those who research it. This is what makes the internet so nice in my opinion.
‘Would it be possible for you to post the machine drawings for them? ‘
Try here: http://www.cncguns.com/
Awesome, thanks!
If Brownell’s ever got lower part kits in stock, if DelTon ever shipped me my upper, and if my secondary source ever got barrels in stock, I would most definitely get right on building my little B.O.M.B.E.R.
As it is, the parts shortage is something of a bitch.
That, and those little fiddly springs scare the crap out of my klutzy fingers.