Homemade pistol legality

[darkwing]

Can you make a handgun from the ground up legally. If so can use a cut down rifle barrel . Boredoom is a bad thing around guns. You either trade off a good one or sporterize the wrong one. Thanks.

 

[presspuller]

I am not the BATF but I am certain you can make anything for yourself(that is legal for you to own now). I am also fairly certain that you can sell it if you get a serial # for it which is not that hard to do I am told.
Again I am not the BATF and you should not take my advice for anything.

 

[Bezoar]

depends on what you want to make, full automatic or select fire, thats a no no with federal hotel time for violaters.

However if you use an existing reciever like say from a 90 dollar single shot 22 rifle you got at Kmart in 1979, you need to get ATF aproval as the reciever is liscened as a rifle already.
Talk to the atf and get them to give aproval based on the exact idea you want to do. Just because you MAY follow a do it yourself book that contains instructions to make a LEGAL handgun, differ in anyway and you can be federal hotel material in a hurry.

 

[12Bravo20]

a rifle receiver cannot be turned into a pistol without jumping through all the hoops for making a NFA weapon. Once a rifle always a rifle is how the ATF will look at it. Your best bet is to call them. To make a pistol out of a rifle is what the AFT considers a short barrel rifle and you have to pay the $200 tax and get pre-approval from them to make it.

 

[jmorris]

The BATFE will send you “the book” it contains all of the laws that you don’t want to break just give your local office a call (it's free). I’m not sure what kind of pistol you are looking to build but you might try a search on 80% frames/receivers.

12bravo20 has a good point and the reason I register AR receivers as pistols. A pistol can go rifle but not the other way around. Just don’t mix pistol upper with butt stock lower without the tax stamp.

 

[BigBlock]

The original poster asked about a rifle barrel, not a receiver. And the answer is yes, you can use a cut down peice of barrel from anything.

 

[darkwing]

Thank you all.
I googled gunsmith forum and found a lot of really good sites on legally building guns. 1st rule no rifle or shotgun frame, 2nd do not build it for resale. Different states have laws on zip guns. Another grey area there. But THR is allways a good place to start the research.

 

[BigBlock]

"Manufacturing a firearm" requires federal licensing UNLESS you're using an existing, legal receiver.

That's only if you intend on selling the gun. If you're not selling it you can build anything you could otherwise buy, without any kind of license...just like black powder.

 

[Treo]

I worked W/ a guy in a machine shop ( that shall remain namless) who made a .357 revolver just to see if he could. He was one of those machining gods that could do damn near anything W/ a HAAS VF -3.