Fun automation project (for a BB gun)

[yhtomit]

I just ran into this project after following a link to a different one that was listed by Make Magazine (makezine.com); it's someone's application of a door-lock mechanism from a car to the trigger of a BB gun. Not pretty, but pretty clever.

http://www.c-h-a-o-s.com/category/the-turret-project/

(Incidentally, any reason to think that such a mechanism would be inherently / per se / do-not-pass-go *illegal* under U.S. law on a conventional semiautomatic firearm, so long as the mechanism remained truly semiautomatic?)

I notice he also refers to such a trigger mechanism as belonging to a "century gun," a term I've never heard before -- can anyone enlighten? Googling "century gun" mostly ends up with lists of "14th century gun," "15th century gun," etc

timothy

 

[fletcher]

Interesting. I wouldn't think that it would be illegal to even have an automatic BB gun, since they're not firearms as far as federal law is concerned AFAIK. I know there's already one that exists (can find them on gunbroker once in a while).

 

[Andras]

I believe 'century gun' should be 'sentry gun' ala the movie Aliens

 

[22LongRifle]

I had one of those full auto BB guns that used the freon canisters for NAPA. Hell on the o-zone and neighborhood cats!

22lr

 

[yhtomit]

I believe 'century gun' should be 'sentry gun' ala the movie Aliens

Andras -- I bet you're right! Hadn't tried saying it aloud, but I think it was just a mis-heard description which the author of that project wrote as he heard it.

 

[pdowg881]

I made my own full auto bb. Old paintball parts and a bb gun barrel

 

[kungfuhippie]

Drozd Selective Fire Automatic BB Carbine
Impactguns.com sells them
http://www.impactguns.com/store/180215.html

 

[CypherNinja]

My major concern would be the fact that this is an electronic trigger mechanism we're talking about. On a BB/Paintball gun, it's fine. On a real gun, even if it is semi only, IT IS A MACHINEGUN! Period. End of story. The ATF wont care why you made it, they got themselves a case.


Now, per the picture on the linked blog, his setup was made to fit a BB gun that closes resembles a real handgun. This to me seems like serious trouble because if it fits a 'fake' gun, it'll probably fit a 'real' gun. Thus, if you make one of these things for a BB gun, and you also own a real gun, the ATF is probably going to scream 'constructive possession'.


EDIT: Posted a comment there to the same effect.

 

[yhtomit]

"My major concern would be the fact that this is an electronic trigger mechanism we're talking about. On a BB/Paintball gun, it's fine. On a real gun, even if it is semi only, IT IS A MACHINEGUN! Period. End of story. The ATF wont care why you made it, they got themselves a case."

CypherNinja: Can you cite any law to that effect?

I remember a site in Texas (which I saw on Slashdot something over a year ago -- might even have been the thing which led me to a link to THR in the first place) about a ranch in Texas with shooting-via-Web-browser. There, the controversy seemed to be about out-of-state hunting licenses, etc, and I didn't notice (which is not to say there wasn't any) complaints about it possibly being a machine gun, even though it was using a semi-auto gun, so I suppose you could make the case that a single press of the "trigger" (space bar, say) on the shooter's end of the computer connection could hypothetically have triggered more than one shot (I don't know how that system's mechanics worked specifically, but no matter HOW they were supposed to work, it would not be a difficult programming task to make multiple shots the work of a single keystroke. That's what macros are for, isn't it?

However, I'd be very interested if you could show that an electronic trigger mechanism makes it per se a machine gun, if a device like the one illustrated on the BB gun were to be attached to a firearm.

timothy