80% AR-15 Lower Receiver V.S. Airsoft Lower Receiver – Is there a legal difference?
Posted by Admin (Mike) in Guns, tags: 15, 1968, act, airsoft, AR, ar-15, AR15, ATF, code, control, converted, firearm, GCA, gun, law, m16, m4, replica, seizure, taiwan, U.S., U.S.C.
I was thinking some more about that recent ATF airsoft seizure and came up with the following…
For your information, per provisions of the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968, 18 U.S.C. Chapter 44, an unlicensed individual may make a “firearm” as defined in the GCA for his own personal use, but not for sale or distribution.
The GCA, 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(3), defines the term “firearm” to include the following:
… (A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may be readily converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive: (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or silencer; or (D) any destructive device. Such term does not include an antique firearm.
Source – ATF.gov
Another paragraph of interest…
Individuals manufacturing sporting-type firearms for their own use need not hold Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs). However, we suggest that the manufacturer at least identify the firearm with a serial number as a safeguard in the event that the firearm is lost or stolen. Also, the firearm should be identified as required in 27 CFR 478.92 if it is sold or otherwise lawfully transferred in the future.
Source – ATF.gov
So… According to the ATF’s citations of the Gun Control Act and U.S. Code, you can make your own firearm and you do not need a FFL.
The ATF does not specify what material you have to use, and it does not put any restriction on making a firearm out of an object that previously had another use. Hell, if you wanted to make a firearm out of a toaster, from what I understand you definitely could.
By that rationale, if you buy an airsoft gun that “Needs Machining” to complete its transformation to fit an AR-15 lower parts kit, is it not only considered a firearm once you complete it?
If you cannot drop a lower parts kit in those airsoft receivers without any machining then I think that is a VERY good argument that they are not firearms, and should never have been confiscated.
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I recall once reading in a forum something about manufacturing your own weapon. The advice given by the “expert” on this particular forum and subject was that if you were manufacturing your own firearm you had to do all of the work yourself. It went so far as to say that if you need a piece of metal bent in a particular way, a gunsmith should show or explain to you how to do it but not do it himself. I believe it said that a responsible gunsmith wouldn’t do the work for you anyway, because he would know that it meant he had participated in the manufacture of a weapon that would then not be manufactured by one individual.
I’ll try to look for some references for that thought, but it seems like, based on what I read, legally manufacturing your own firearm without a license requires far more than putting parts together or simply machining an existing part. It has to be essentially from scratch. From materials or parts not resembling a firearm in any way. So, while toaster-to-gun may very well be legal, I don’t think a toy gun-to-gun would ever fly with the ATF.
Actually… no.
There is no law against building your own. Only law that exists against building a firearm,, is building a machinegun. And in some weird governmental way… a machinegun is a machinegun, not a firearm.
on board here yet?
You can take and buy a parts kit AK, assuming that owning such a normal firearm is allowed to you by the local gods… er… officials, and bend your own receiver. Or, buy a receiver, just a receiver, because in ATF land, that metal flat that can accept all the parts and has a serial number is a firearm, not the sum of the parts.
Bottom line, you can roll your own, as long as you dont do it in certain ways.
What Mike is gettign at is an 80% receiver. Its the beginnings of a receiver, but only has about 80% of the work done, so it is not yet serialed and finished, and cannot be readily made into a working rifle or pistol.
There is a difference between “manufacturing” your own weapon, and assembling one from parts. When you’re manufacturing your own weapon, you do so by yourself, with parts that were not manufactured, machined, or necessarily intended to be used as or in a firearm. So, you can do so without ever having to register anything or without anything having a serial number on it, or record of being manufactured. What you’re talking about with an 80% receiver is a firearm component. Firearms components are covered under 27 C.F.R. §447.21 – U.S. Munitions Import List, and §447.22 – Forgings, Castings, and Machined Bodies. As such, importers of these items are required to be registered, per §447.31, with the federal government.
Wasn’t the whole point of this story originally that they were importing “firearms” without the required licenses? So… you can’t import firearm receivers without being licensed to do so. You can build your own from scratch without a license and you can assemble one from parts without a license, but I think what the law is saying is that those firearm components can not be manufactured and sold by someone without a license. And I think the point about someone helping you is that if you don’t do all of the manufacturing work yourself then someone else is also a manufacturer, therefore it’s not being done by one individual for their own use, and so requires registration.
My understanding that an 80% receiver had all the legalities of a block of wood. 81% (however that is determined) and it could be considered as such.
That was my understanding as well. I don’t know how they determine what exactly is only 80% but a 80% or less frame of anything isn’t a gun it’s a piece of metal.
Also I was told that you only need to apply for a manufacturing license if you made more than 20 guns a year. I don’t know why 20 but that’s the number. Also I was told you only have to put a serial number and get a tax stamp on it if you want to sell it.
I’m not a lawyer though so I wouldn’t really listen to me.
My understanding was always that there is no set number you can build, but that it is all about intent.
If you intend to build it for yourself/ your own personal use then you are fine regardless of how many you build. If you intend to build it for sale then you have trouble (even if it’s just a single firearm)
The point here, is that an 80% receiver needs minor work to accept trigger parts in order to make it a legal-in-the-eyes-of-the-ATF receiver. And that doing said work, assuming you’re legal to own a firearm in the first place, is legal to do.
In which case, taking an airsoft receiver and MODIFYING it to accept firearm trigger parts (and presumably uppers, etc.) is, or should be, a legally identical action. Meaning that, if it’s legal for you to own the finished firearm, then doing the mod to the airsoft receiver should be legal.
It sounds like it WOULD be legal if either the airsoft “receiver” was only 80% complete or if the receiver were a legal firearm receiver (and imported as such). It seems that neither of those is true though. In looking for info about 80% complete receivers I found this website selling them:
http://www.tacticalinc.com/ar15-lower-receiver-forging-p-1108.html
As you can see, it appears to be nothing more than a very rough forging of a lower receiver with NO machining done to it. It seems that there may not be a precise definition of what an 80% receiver is, but the ATF has ruled that machine work such as drilling holes would “designate its purpose” and push it past the 80% threshold. Obviously this airsoft gun is going to have had more work done to it than that to make it usable even as a toy. So it doesn’t appear to qualify as an 80% receiver, and it hasn’t been properly imported as a firearm component.
An %80 receiver is much more finished than the one you linked to.
http://www.vbd.com/noc/shop/products_detail.asp?CategoryID=29&ProductID=122
Much of the finishing is already done.
It seems that the problem is not of the 80% blah.
I researched because the report said that the batfe goon said it can be transformed into a machinegun.
http://www.airsplat.com/Manuals/GR-WE-M4-GBB-4.jpg
on that page you can see it has the milled hole at the 12′o clock of the safe, in an AR lower, if you mill that little hole, you are making a machinegun, because that’s where the sear retent pin goes (or something like that), even if the parts still don’t fit, that hole alone makes it a machinegun.
The only thing I can see that could defend the WE M4 CQB, is that the stock threading on the lower is not compatible with a stock threading of an actual AR stock, If there’s no stock tube, no action spring can be put, and there won’t be a buffer to be returned, hence, it WONT cycle on it’s own, making it a bolt action 80% lower.
On the WE M4, the little ‘hole’ you see over the safety is not a hole. It’s an exterior mark on the lower, but not hole is drilled there. This is no closer to a machine-gun than a real AR lower is, in that you could drill either one, but neither has an existing hole.
As a former posted had questioned, ‘Don’t you have to build the whole gun from scratch?’ No. You can buy the upper, bolt carrier, and all other parts you need fully machined and completed via regular sale. You can buy the parts kit. The only part that needs any work to be completed is the receiver itself. Also, that receiver does not have to be completely built from scratch. It only requires that it be less than %80 complete. You can buy a nearly finished AR15 receiver, with the locking pin holes and interior machining already done, and all you have to do is thread the rear for the stock tube. It’s a small percentage of the work. So, no, you do not have to build the whole thing from scratch.
Anyone who would use a lower receiver from an airsoft gun to modify for use as a real firearm is a moron. Those are made from cheap pot metal and I personally wouldnt even trust one to withstand firing 1 round.