Rise of 'ghost gun' kit makers seen in central Florida

“Interestingly enough I did find a supplier selling an 80% completed polymer receiver tonight, which I was not aware of previously. The link I provided previously was to a company which sells an inexpensive CNC milling machine which will do most of the work automatically after you bolt your receiver into it. They are suppose to be “

You don’t need a CNC Mill. You can purchase a bench top mill from a number of people (Harbor Freight and Little Machine Shop being two). These mills are all made in China by the same company (SEIG), and with tooling cost less than $1,000. Those folks selling 80% lowers also sell very good fixtures for about $200 that “guide” your milling cutter to properly finish the part. AR15 kits are available that contain everything you need minus the lower. When you are finished with your “personal firearm,” you are into it (minus the cost of the mill) about as much as if you purchased a finished gun.

The military has long known that guns are for, so to speak, killing at the retail level. Killing at the wholesale level requires explosives, incendiaries, etc.

Note that Achmed has learned this and has gone to making bombs. Boston is a case in point.

My point exactly. The article makes is seem as if criminals are going to be producing these weapons . . . .

At least six of these gun-kit makers are operating in Volusia County, which has worried law enforcement, who say the unregistered guns can make it easy for criminals to arm themselves with untraceable weapons. . .

Criminals will not bother with this process. They can get them easier through Eric Holder surplus sales.

P4L

You don’t need a CNC Mill. You can purchase a bench top mill from a number of people (Harbor Freight and Little Machine Shop being two).

I actually worked as a millwright in a family business for eight years before I went to work for a fire department. So I already have the skill set and tools available to finish an 80% receiver and get good results. I still would probably purchase a kit with jigs and instructions to save time and effort. So of course the “Ghost Gunner” CNC Mill is certainly not necessary to finish an 80% AR receiver but it is an amazing effort and was designed as much to tweak the noses of liberal politicians as it was to finish 80% AR Lowers. It comes from the same guy, Cody Wilson who designed the most well known 3-D printed gun, the Liberator 3D-printable pistol. They have actually already sold hundreds of “Ghost Gunner” CNC Mills and it is totally freaking out liberal politicians.

Is it worth the money? The CNC mill is a time saver and may help get more consistent results depending on your skill level. The coding and set up is the time consuming part that takes knowledge and skills that most people do not have if they were trying to do something like this completely on their own. The entire Ghost Gunner project is “open source” people outside of Defense Distributed have been assisting in the development of both the tooling, jigs and the coding.

Make a deposit on one of these if you want to assist Cody Wilson and Co. with his agenda and legal battles with the government. I personally would consider one of the primary objectives to be helping in an effort that is completely and effectively freaking out the media and the left and living in their heads. The gun controllers would be banning drill presses if they thought it would help keep "homemade" ARs out of our gun loving hands.

As word has gotten out and these things have been perfected the price has gone from $1000 to $1500 and I understand that they have a huge backlog of orders. I have no idea what the wait time is; I am sure that it is measured in multiple months or more. If their ongoing legal battles go bad you might even lose your $250 deposit... so it isn't an option for me. But what a conversation piece if you actually ended up with one!

No, that’s absolutely correct, and you can even sell such guns; the ATF freely admits this (though encouraging you to serialize your guns, supposedly to help establish ownership if they’re stolen). However, note the “personal use” caveat. You can’t make a hundred a year and sell them, because then it would be clear you’re manufacturing as a business and would, under current law, require a license. So this article, while on the edge of technical correctness, is a wildly misleading tempest in a teapot. Also note how they’ve dishonestly substituted “ghost guns” for “ghost gun kits” in several places, not to mention the very choice of the phrase “ghost gun” in the first place.

Furthermore, you cannot sell what you make for yourself.

Not true. So long as you're not making and selling them in quantities that would demonstrate you're really doing it as a business, it's perfectly legal (depending on your state laws) to sell one of these guns just as it would be any other gun you own and no longer want. The ATF does suggest you serialize guns you make, supposedly for establishing ownership should they be stolen.

Yeah, but the grain deformation doesn’t go that deep. If instead of filing or grinding, you used an end mill in a mill or drill press and went in 0.100 or so, I don’t believe that tech would work.

” ‘Furthermore, you cannot sell what you make for yourself.’ “

“Not true. So long as you’re not making and selling them in quantities ... ATF does suggest you serialize ... should they be stolen.”

Forum members are admonished to proceed cautiously.

The agency has long resisted a formal, quantifiable, legally binding definition of “engaging in the business” of selling guns. Despite many requests from the public, and legislators.

“Manufacturing” has been plagued by fuzzy definitions also. Of late, more than one federal official has attempted to lower the bar concerning what constitutes “manufacturing” a gun. Several wish to redefine the simplest and most elementary repairs as “manufacturing” - which would require a different (more costly, and more restrictive) license than the basic dealer license the agency now requires gunsmiths to hold.

Making and selling several might not be a problem; making and selling just one might be. Depends on the mood of the day.

“The way I understand it you can buy replacement subassemblies or individual parts to repair your gun but the lower receiver is considered to be the legal base of the gun hence the higher cost of lowers.”

BATFE requires that one part of any given firearm must be the serial-numbered part. Legally, this becomes “the gun” and sale is subject to Federal and local law. In most cases, the largest, most complex, difficult-to-make part is the frame or receiver and bears the serial number, model, caliber, manufacturer’s name and other information

Theoretically, no other part can be “the gun” and no Federal law restricts domestic sale of these other parts. There are commercial and practical constraints:

Not every manufacturer will sell every other part to a gun owner: concerns over liability and local restrictions limit availability of parts like cylinders, bolts, carriers, etc. All manufacturers restrict the sale of some parts to FFL holders, certified repair technicians, or other persons according to preference.

Practical and technical constraints involve aspects like installation and fitting. The average owner has neither the specialized tools nor the know-how to install barrels, adjust triggers, perform machining operations like chamber reaming, or understand the concepts involved in setting headspace. The fitting of revolver cylinders and adjustment of timing is another area requiring specialized experience and judgment.

Many parts cannot simply be dropped in, nor replaced in a one for-one swap.

In the case of AR-15-style arms, the lower receiver is the single largest, heaviest, most complex part. It must be manufactured to closer tolerances because every other part is attached to it, and the rest of the gun owes its functionality to the precision and accuracy of the lower receiver. So higher costs ought to come as no surprise. Administrative/regulatory aspects account for only a minor fraction of the cost.

“So how strong does an AR15 style lower receiver have to be. Couldn’t it be made of plastic or even wood, so long as the holes all line up?” [captain_dave, post 21]

“People have printed lowers out of plastic with 3D printers but they are for demonstration purposes and not considered strong or durable enough for actual use with standard cartridges.” [fireman15, post 25]

“... the most well known 3-D printed gun, the Liberator 3D-printable pistol....” [fireman15, post 65]

The notion that 3D printing will fully supplant more traditional materials and methods in gun manufacture is nonsensical.

Wood is unsuitable for lower receivers: not stiff enough, not stable enough in a dimensional sense.

Polymer suffers from the same limitations that rule out wood, but (in proper formulations only) has become viable thanks to innovative design, and incorporation of composite materials and stiffening inserts. Makers of successful polymer-frame arms guard their plastic formulation jealously; the prospective 3D-print home workshop gun builder is not going succeed by substituting bulk plastic pellets from Hobby Lobby.

Plain unalloyed aluminum is not used in gun parts manufacture - doesn’t wear very well. If one can obtain suitable alloy, it still isn’t a simple matter of proper accuracy and precision in machining. The major aluminum parts of AR-15-style arms are in part forged, not machined from blanks. And following forging and machining, they are selectively heat-treated.

3D printing cannot overcome any of these limitations. But there are greater constraints 3D printing will never overcome: working parts like barrels, bolts, firing pins, hammers, sears, triggers must be carburized (case-hardened) or heat-treated and tempered. Unhardened, untempered parts may work in theory, but at best will deliver only a few shots before wearing out of spec. And steel is the only metal strong enough to stand the pressures of militarily effective cartridges. Forum members valuing their own safety - and that of loved ones - are urged to avoid 3D-printed guns purporting to handle such.

Springs are the toughest limitation of all: they can be fashioned of only a limited number of materials, and they must be tempered after forming. No 3D printing process will ever create a spring.

Gunmakers are not blind to the advantages of built-up parts (of which 3D printing is only the most recent iteration), but they have labored for generations to improve the techniques needed (sintering and MIM are two); many gun owners have had problems with parts made thus, and are not at all willing to agree that they are suitable replacements for more traditional methods.

Even if theoretically perfect, suitably precise parts of adequate temper and hardness could be fashioned by some hitherto-undiscovered variation of 3D printing or other buildup technique, they cannot be just slapped together to become a functioning gun. Hand fitting and adjustment are always required: safe and functional tolerance ranges are simply too small.

The self-absorbed revolutionaries who are so convinced digital changes everything need to stick to what they know.

The self-absorbed revolutionaries who are so convinced digital changes everything need to stick to what they know.

Of course you are correct in your observations about firearm production using digital production methods. A knowledgeable and skilled person can easily produce a firearm more durable, safer, more effective, and more quickly using hand tools and off the shelf materials from any hardware store.

But I am not so sure that you not missing the point of what those who are involved in this effort are really trying to accomplish. The point for the most point is not to produce cheaper and superior firearms. The point is to freak out and demoralize those who hope to restrict law abiding citizens access to firearms. I think that the point is to say fine you might be able to make it impossible to purchase a firearm but we will just use our ingenuity to help those who need or want a means of self defense to get one anyway.

“...I think that the point is to say fine you might be able to make it impossible to purchase a firearm but we will just use our ingenuity...”

fireman15’s suppositions are in error.

First, I seek to diminish the arrogance of the fools fomenting the digital “revolution.” They may indeed succeed in changing everything, but it’s pretty obvious their understanding of any aspect of reality happening at any distance from their coding desk is weak.

Second, I wish to admonish forum members concerning the functionality of firearms constructed by 3D printing methods. No such device should be considered safe. The difference between “won’t function” and “explodes on pulling trigger” is much, much smaller than most of you think: a sheet of paper is thicker.

Those of us with any experience in the trade have been aware for generations that no attempt to restrict gun ownership will succeed to the degree anti-gun people think it will. We pro-gun types have been trying to inject a dose of reality into the consciousness of these true believers for decades, yet their hope springs eternal; what makes anyone think that a bunch of computer programmers will make them give up?

I cannot overemphasize the warning I gave earlier: if you want to fire one of these devices, proceed with caution.

All of us must keep in mind the current legal climate: we are living in times when the staunchest pro-gun parent will turn on a gun manufacturer, if their kid gets hurt, even when no rational observer would judge the manufacturer guilty of negligence.

fireman15’s suppositions are in error.

Schurmann, I am not sure that I have made any "suppositions" that are in error although I do appreciate your flowery use of the English language.

I am assuming that you own numerous firearms, just as I do. I assume that you have been using these firearms for decades just as I have been. I assume that you are a longtime member of the NRA and are a longtime member of a gun club just as I am. I assume that you clean and maintain your rifles, pistols, and shotguns just as I do. I assume that you reload your own cartridges, cast your own bullets and have the ability and equipment to do this for any of the firearms that you own just as I do. I assume that you have basic testing equipment such as hardness tester to use with your cast bullets and a firearms chronograph so that you can test and modify cartridge recipes as I do.

I am sorry that I have offended your sensibilities in some way. I assume also that we have no meaningful disagreement about firearms design, use or maintenance and that our experience and knowledge is similar. I have seen even well designed, well tested, and reliable firearms malfunction and cause injuries. To be very clear, you won't find me risking life and limb shooting a gun that wasn't designed by someone who understands ballistics. Ballistics like my greatest passion, flying can be an unforgiving area of human endeavor.

One of our good friends was killed last year when the breach of the canon they were firing inside of a WWII Tank Destroyer malfunctioned. But people have been killed by much smaller firearms that have malfunctioned. When I reload cartridges for one of my favorite vintage pistols, I use a recipe that call for less than 2 grains of smokeless powder, which is less than an eighth of a gram. Yet it will propel a 90 grain projectile at nearly 800 feet per second which is more than enough to be lethal to both man and beast.

You haven't said anything that I disagree with except that I think that you may be mistaken about the motives of Cody Wilson, founder/director of Defense Distributed, a non-profit organization that develops and publishes open source gun designs. “For him, the central point is not about guns. It’s about how technology renders many debates, as a practical matter, virtually obsolete. If you can make a gun in your home, at the press of a button, then all the talk about background checks, waiting periods, or a gun registry becomes pointless.” This argument has nothing to do with whether a practical or safe firearm can currently be produced with a 3-D Printer.

To be clear again... you will not find me shooting cartridges from a plastic firearm made with parts produced by a 3-D printer. I also have no intention of purchasing one of Cody Wilson's specialty CNC Mills for finishing an 80% lower kit when I could do a better job myself in an hour or two with just a drill press, some jigs, a cross slide vice, some bits, end mills, and a few hand tools. But I am supportive of Wilson's effort because it gets in the heads of people like Obama and Hillary and makes them crazy and that is good enough for me.

The conversation on this thread was more about finishing 80% AR lower receivers. I am sorry if I made comments that you found offensive in some way. I am having a meeting early tomorrow morning with a guy who has completed several 80% receivers. Do you have any questions that you would like me to ask him for you?

I clicked on your name and read back through some of your posts to try and get a feel for where you are coming from. I mean this very sincerely and not in a negative way, I found your posts to be highly entertaining, especially your recent diatribe about fighter pilots. My wife and I have several career Air Force veterans in the family going back to WWII. We are frequent volunteers at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. We have a home on a small airport with our small airplanes. We set up living history displays at museums, schools and events both on and off of military bases.

I think that I have gone on too long already, just suffice it to say that we know exactly where you are coming from on this. We are both certain that you have the foundation of a good stand-up routine, although it might go over the heads of the uninitiated in your audience.

“...But people have been killed by much smaller firearms that have malfunctioned. ...” (fireman15, post 74)

“... I think that you may be mistaken about the motives of Cody Wilson, founder/director of Defense Distributed, a non-profit organization that develops and publishes open source gun designs. “For him, the central point is not about guns. ...” (fireman15, post 74)

“... We are frequent volunteers at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. We have a home on a small airport with our small airplanes. We set up living history displays at museums, schools and events both on and off of military bases. ...” (fireman15, post 75)

Now it’s my turn to apologize, for lack of timely response.

I live in a rural area, so remote that no mobile device can connect with a signal tower, we cannot receive local TV nor FM radio, and AM radio reception is weak and problematic. So internet connectivity is spotty.

Let me thank fireman15 for his courtesy. Rare on free republic.

And to go further, the entire forum ought to shower him & spouse in praise, for their efforts in museum volunteering and living-history displays. Few Americans suspect why historical understanding might be important; more troublingly, large chunks of the populace believe they’ve attained that understanding, but haven’t really. Unscrambling the perceptions of the latter group demands patience, insight, and perseverance that few can summon.

I will not bore the forum with too many details from my personal and professional background. I have indeed done all the things fireman15 lists in first four paragraphs of his post 74, but I realize readers have naught but my unsupported word. The short version: I was infected with a passionate interest in firearms and weaponry before I could read; chief among my motivations for pursuing a military career was to deepen my understanding and prolong my contact with weaponry.

After 29 years of that, I spent a decade and a half working for a major gun parts supplier, in retail gun sales, gun repair, and parts manufacture, mostly for vintage historical firearms.

The conclusion I came away with is that the American public does not know as much as it thinks it does, about firearms. The “new class” of gun owners who have been frightened into gun buying by the rumbles from the current administration knows even less.

Owning superficial experience thanks to shopping in auto parts stores and performing simple auto repair tasks, great numbers of these folks assume a gun can be assembled from a random collection of parts, by an amateur. They assume in error.

My sensibilities, and whatever fireman15 does or doesn’t guess about them, do not matter, compared to the responsibility all knowledgeable gun owners must deal with, to dispel the ignorance of the neophytes and the heedless, to improve safety.

I’m not interested in Cody Wilson’s motives, if the results involve uninformed and otherwise innocent parties coming to grief, firing guns they assumed were safe, but were not. I haven’t met Cody Wilson, but I have met many “digital pioneers.” Their knowledge of software and printing and much else is great, but not one knew the most basic thing about firearms.

Last of all, I am sure fellow forum members will wish to join me in offering belated condolences, for the demise of fireman15’s friend. It ought to reinforce caution, concerning the nature and magnitude of the forces we create, in pulling the trigger, yanking the lanyard, or touching the “ignite” key. “They don’t make them like they used to” is false. And shooters take less heed of this truth: no one knows what that gun - any gun - went through, in the decades from the day it left the factory, to its moment of truth.

Acknowledging the existence of such irreducible uncertainty, we ought to shoot with prudence, safety, and caution.

Thank you for the very kind explanation. I appreciate your perspective more than you know. I started out hang gliding, moved into ultralight flying, then to experimental and classic airplanes and then on to general aviation aircraft. Along the way there were several people we met who made mistakes and got themselves and others hurt or killed and caused regulators and legislators to want to further restrict the activities of the rest of us.

We have dozens of mostly vintage firearms. I have never had a dangerous malfunction, but I do not trust any gun not to blow up in my face. I am very systematic and have redundant checks with every cartridge I reload that has enough case capacity to inadvertently double charge. I don’t trust myself a great deal more than I trust a 75 or 100 year old gun.

Your warnings to those who might trust a gun made from unsatisfactory materials and designed by someone who is not a gunsmith or knowledgeable of ballistics are good reminders to everyone here. That goes also for components like homemade lower receivers which might or might not be up to the task depending on the skill and knowledge of the person who made the part.

I know that there have been failures of re-welded receivers made up from “de-militarized” pieces that have caused injuries in the past. That is kind of the 1950s and 1960s equivalent to these 80% receiver kits available today. I have a Golden State Arms BM59 chambered to .308 that has a WWII surplus Garand receiver that was “remanufactured” from an original that was cut in half. It has never given me any difficulties but I keep a very close eye on that receiver. As should anyone with a homemade lower used in a AR type of rifle.

” ... I know that there have been failures of re-welded receivers made up from “de-militarized” pieces that have caused injuries in the past. That is kind of the 1950s and 1960s equivalent to these 80% receiver kits available today. I have a Golden State Arms BM59 chambered to .308 that has a WWII surplus Garand receiver that was “remanufactured” from an original that was cut in half. It has never given me any difficulties but I keep a very close eye on that receiver. ... “

If the news weren’t already bad enough, I fear I’m going to convey more. fireman15 won’t like it much.

Please don’t fire ammunition labeled “308 Winchester” in any Garand-type rifle marked “7.62 NATO,” nor in any rifle marked “7.62 NATO.” They aren’t the same.

Rewelded US M1 Garand receivers are not “equivalent” to modern-day AR-15 style lower receivers manufactured to 80 percent completion and finished up by the consumer.

Every test performed on rewelded receivers has found that dimensions and metal hardness levels do not meet US DoD MIL STD for the weapon systems in question. The technical understanding, skill, experience level, and savvy of those doing the “remanufacture” are irrelevant: the chief constraint lies in the metallurgy of the steel alloys originally used in receiver manufacture.

Once forged, tempered and finished, those steels resisted wear and deformation quite well, but when rewelded, could not be returned to original strength and hardness specifications. Safety criteria are thus in doubt; it does not matter how carefully, how closely the rewelded receivers are machined. None among those measured have been found to meet DoD dimensional standards.

Many users assume that if the headspace is within limits, all is safe. This is a misconception also.

Generally speaking, there is a small window of variation inside of which headspace can be considered safe; for the US 30-06 cartridge, it’s about the thickness of a sheet of copier paper. Too small, and the rifle (especially an autoloader like the US M1 Garand) runs the risk of premature ignition - before the bolt is fully locked. Too large, and the cartridge case cannot stretch enough to seal in the gases without rupturing. Catastrophic failure and serious injury or death can happen.

The headspace of any rifle can be easily and quickly checked with precision-manufactured gauges, sold by Brownells and other toolmakers. They are labeled GO and NO GO; if the bolt - suitably prepped - closes on the GO gauge, headspace is long enough. If it closes on the NO GO gauge, headspace is too long.

A related problem arises with the use of an extra-long gauge called the FIELD gauge. This one is a slight amount larger than the NO GO gauge and was developed by the War Dept (pre DoD) for emergency use. US Army Ordnance procedure was to check rifles using the GO and NO GO gauges; any rifle failing inspection was tagged for adjustment and proper repair. That was OK for routine (non-combat) activities, but if the rifles were being inspected in field circumstances and might be urgently required in action, it was found they could still function, though with some higher risk level, deemed acceptable.

The catch: those risk levels stayed inside acceptable limits only if MIL STD ammunition was being fired, and the rifle passed every other gauge check. The rifles failing NO GO but passing FIELD headspace checks were tagged and removed from service at the earliest safe opportunity.

Rifles failing the FIELD check were removed from service on the spot.

US shooters, penny-pinchers that they are, very often assume they are in safe territory firing any loads they please in their FIELD-passing rifle. This is not the case; no civilian factory loads match military ammunition dimensions exactly. The metallurgy of primers, cases, bullets are different (different hardness means different coefficients of friction and different primer sensitivity, hence different pressures), and loads today are often much higher in velocity. If different propellants are used, chamber pressure results will be different even at the same velocities.

Reloads introduce another variable with even poorer control. Rifles passing the FIELD check but failing the NO GO check were to be fired only with new MIL STD cartridges; reloads were never considered.

Many shooters assume that if their M1’s headspace safely passes the GO check, they are OK. But there is more to safe operation.

The Garand design does not have a firing pin return spring. To reduce the chances of the firing pin slamming forward, igniting the primer before the hammer was released, or before the bolt was fully locked, a cam surface (safety cam) was machined into the receiver bridge, behind and below the bolt retraction space. This cam checked forward movement of the firing pin until the bolt turned into its locked position.

Bolts, firing pins, and receivers stretch and wear. If the M1’s safety cam in its receiver bridge is worn or battered beyond limits, the firing pin can hit the primer and set it off. True of BM-59, M14, or M1 Carbine type rifles as well.

In routine use, military ordnance personnel checked all these functions and dimensions when rifles were turned in for maintenance, and corrected any that did not meet standards, or removed the rifle from service and sent it to higher echelons for further repair.

The primary risk today for users of rewelded Garand-type receivers is that the receiver bridge is behind the reweld location, while the bolt’s locking lug seats are ahead of it. Thus, a rewelded rifle can have a new barrel perfectly installed to minimum dimensions, the headspace can gauge to a safe size, and an unworn safety cam; but the safety cam can be out of position because of the reweld, thus beyond specification. Safety, dimension, and functional checks performed by the average repair technician will not detect the problem.

I apologize to the forum for wordiness, but the risks to shooter safety are too great to avoid describing the situation.

I have performed the unhappy task of telling a number of owners of several very nice-looking US M1 Garand rifles that their headspace was beyond safe limits, that their receivers had been rewelded, that their firing pin safety cams were worn beyond safe limits, or that their hardware was otherwise risky. The expressions of disappointment that clouded their features on hearing such words made for a very disagreeable experience. But to me, as a minor toiler in the industry, it was worth any amount of abuse, crossness, and bad language in my ears, to avoid injury to shooters.

Same goes for freepers who shoot these rifles, though I haven’t met any personally.

All shooters and owners of Garand-type rifles (especially the BM-59-style conversions and other such configurations never subjected to determination of safe dimensions and acceptable wear tolerance) are thus urged to get their rifles checked for headspace, firing pin protrusion, safety cam action, and a number of other critical safety aspect. This includes M1 Carbines. The youngest of these receivers is over 60 years old, and all of them have been out of the control of DoD for decades, during which few records of use, wear, maintenance, or storage have been kept. Despite Americans’ belief that “they don’t make em like they used to,” these rifles cannot last forever.

Users interested in safe operation and repair should consult the technical manuals written by Jerry Kuhnhausen (sold by Brownells, last I checked), or a trustworthy provider of parts and repair services like Fulton Armory. Such work can be costly, but isn’t terribly high, compared to coping with a catastrophic failure, or injuries, or death.