Finishing an 80% lower at a "build party" now illegal in California?

I think CNC machining has changed the whole landscape. If the final 20% of the work is done on a lathe and a Bridgeport, even if the machine has a digital read-out someone has to set the piece in the vise, crank the table up or down to the correct location, turn a wheel to set the depth of cut ... and read the blueprint to figure out what needs to be cut and by how much. If you want to do two receivers, you go through all the steps twice. If you want to do ten receivers, you go through all the steps ten times.

With CNC, all that is taken care of by whoever writes the program. There is no real "setup" -- just mounting the piece in the appropriate orientation in the machine, and pushing the button. So perhaps it comes down to who writes the program. If the major time expenditure to finish an 80% receiver by CNC is writing the program, then if I write the program, maybe I am doing 20 percent of the work. If Joe's AR-15 Shop wrote the program and all I'm doing is pushing a button, I don't see how I can claim I'm doing much of anything.

csmsss said:
Have you ever seen one of these CNC mills? There's no way on earth you would be able to set it up on your own premises unless you already have the facilities a commercial shop would need.
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The newest CNC machine at Caspian Arms is larger than my single-car garage. Not exactly do-it-yourself grade equipment.
 
It would seem like you'd just need to learn to play their "game".

A group of guys get together, including the CNC programmer, and buy a bunch of 80% lowers. Each guy owns a percentage of every gun, including the programmer.

All the work is done and each person sells their ownership in all but one lower for 1 cent. The programmer, who may or may not actually want to own one, can sells his portion for a bit more.

How would that be illegal?
 
How would that be illegal?
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It may depend on the ownership of the CNC machine, and any revenue generated from its rental/use. In my drill press example, I didn't have anyone collecting rent on the Press.
 
him who? I would imagine if the guy who owned the CNC machine shared it with everyone free of charge, that would get you a lot closer to "playing their game"
 
It would seem like you'd just need to learn to play their "game".

A group of guys get together, including the CNC programmer, and buy a bunch of 80% lowers. Each guy owns a percentage of every gun, including the programmer.

All the work is done and each person sells their ownership in all but one lower for 1 cent. The programmer, who may or may not actually want to own one, can sells his portion for a bit more.

How would that be illegal?
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If they are manufacturing firearms with the intent of selling off their ownership of said firearms, I would think they would need an FFL07 to be legal.
 
Him the CNC owner.

Seems like if every guy owns part of the gun, there really can't be any issue that you're not doing work on your own gun.


If they are manufacturing firearms with the intent of selling off their ownership of said firearms,
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Could be... but...

It might be even simpler, it might be that only the one guy (programmer) needs to have ownership interest in each gun.

He can pay 1 cent toward each lower.

No need to "sell" his interest. He forever owns a 1 cent share of each gun.
 
No need to "sell" his interest. He forever owns a 1 cent share of each gun
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Is that allowed? In some states I've heard firearms are tied to FOID type cards, meaning a husband and wife can't even share a home defense gun.
 
I have no idea, Jim. I'm just throwing it out there. Absolutely no breaking the law, but there's no harm in bumping up against the law and seeing how far it bends. People do it all the time in all manner of endeavors. I'm not suggesting anything as an actual action, just wondering where the law is on it.

Most states don't have any type of FOID card for long guns and there is no registry of ownership. Even in NY, a single handgun can be on multiple permits, son and father, husband and wife, I've never seen any requirement that the people are related. There are no permits or permission for rifles at all, except the new assault rifle registry and I have no idea how that works. I don't think it will be around long anyway.

It's probably an entirely different legal challenge but I don't know how any level of government could justify prohibiting co-ownership of ANY item.
 
How would a trust solve anything? The law (or the regulation) is that it is legal for an individual to make (manufacture) his/her own firearm. The BATFE has graciously allowed this to be interpreted that, as long as the owner performs at least 20 percent of the work him/herself, it is still considered to be making your own firearm.

How is a trust (which is a legal entity that has no physical body) going to operate a lathe or a milling machine?

I'll be honest -- people who do stunts like these "build parties" and try to push the envelope on the law/regulation are not doing the rest of us any favors. It's only going to take a couple more cases like this before the BATFE just pulls the plug on "80 percent" receivers and rules that if you didn't make the entire gun yourself, from scratch out of a solid block of steel or alloy, you didn't make it yourself and it's not legal.

As a frustrated tinkerer who would love to do an 80 percent receiver one of these days, seeing people trying to game the system royally [irritates] me. They think they're being cute and smart, and all they're doing is undercutting those of us who are willing to do it the right (legal) way. They're going to ruin it for the rest of us, and I think that's truly sad.
 
I'm not a lawyer, but...

I don't know what BATFE has decreed. I am sure they haven't limited themselves from regulating it because they want to be nice. They haven't regulated it because the can't stretch the commerce clause to a gun that is never going to be bought, sold, or traded. That is it. They have restricted as far as they think they can without pushing it to where they have to worry about a court case that takes away some of their power.

I am quite sure BATFE doesn't really like NFA trusts either, but in the end they can't do anything about them.
 
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It's funny the feds cry "fowl" when consumer technology changes but don't seem to mind using it for themselves (drones & electronic surveillance & GPS tracking devices, etc.).
 
csmsss said:
Have you ever seen one of these CNC mills? There's no way on earth you would be able to set it up on your own premises unless you already have the facilities a commercial shop would need.
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Can you tell me what planet I'm on? The CNC mill in my garage (Bridgeport #1 with a CNC kit) has been there for about 10 years now. Seems like about every third garage around here has something like one of these Tormach's in it.

http://www.tormach.com/product_pcnc_770.html
 
Here's a CNC machine from a firearms factory -- Caspian Arms, to be precise. Just this one CNC machine is about the size of a spacious single car garage.

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Here's a bank of three of their older, "small" CNC machining centers:

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Every third garage has a $15000 CNC set-up in your neighborhood?
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It was not uncommon where I grew up for persons to have very extensive machining equipment set-ups, CNC was not around at the time but some did indeed, have mills, lathes, drill presses, benders and other common metal working tools. Of course set ups for wood were much more common than for metal. When my father-in-law built his garage he installed several 220V outlets so he could get more industrial type equipment for his shop.

Industrial machines are designed for through-put requiring larger back-up equipment and are often 5 or 6 axis as well as handling larger parts than the small home CNC might be expected to handle. Even then if you have the cash and a 220V outlet you can fit a pretty capable system in your garage. I have a colleague who rebuilds turbojet engines in his garage, rare yes, but those types of people exist. Just like people with fine engraved guns worth well over $15,000 each.
 
Lathes and drill presses are common equipment. CNC machines are not.

"Every 3rd garage" having CNC machines is a bit more than a stretch. I know of one single person who owns such things for personal use. He's a pharmacist who always wanted to be a machinist but his father made him go to pharmacy school. No way do such machines exist in remotely close to 1 in 3 garages, unless you find one and stop counting after the next two.
 
Why would you want to buy an 80% receiver when you can buy a completely machine receiver for $150.00-$200 ?

I charge over 100.00 an hour for my labor so I for sure wouldn't be saving any money and I assume other peoples time is valuable a well.

I suppose the only reason I can come up with is for the fun/hobby of it.

Thoughts?
 
Someone suggested that the person that finished the machining could retain 1% ownership of the firearm. I though when more that one owner existed the gun had be be part of a corporation or be put into a trust. The only exception I could think of where that wouldn't be true is for a married couple where all property is joint owned.

Where the lawyers? Please help if you will!
 
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