80% lower?
- Thread starter Unhinged
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notsorichguy
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- The city that rhymes with fun
^x2 on the jig!!
Registration took 9 months for me tho....
I did mine late 2012, it was July 2013 before I had a cert.... At the time a decent lower was $200+, I got my 80% out of the US including the jig and tooling for $175 shipped. Before I received the certificate for my completed lower you could buy a decent mil-sec lower for less $$.
My thoughts; Yeah, cool project. Learned some stuff, but I wouldn't ever do it again.
Cheers!
polskadude
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- London Ontario
Good Milspec Lowers can be found for $99 these days (Aero). Its really hard to compete as far as cost goes.
I could be wrong, but from my understanding you cannot sell the lower ever since you don't have a firearms manufacturers license. So its yours forever.
As far as being able to say you made it, it depends how much that's worth to you personally. Its definitely a challenge if you don't have any experience with machining, or have a access to a mill. Using a quality drill press should work. I know someone who tried to use their Mastercraft drill press to finish a lower. It didn't work out so well and he ended up throwing out the chunk of aluminum and buying a finished lower. Many people try one, and never want to do it again. Some enjoy it and make several. Its one of those things you don't know until you try.
As far as registering, it shouldn't take long at all, just show it to a verifier and they'll submit the forms. Although with the new AR15 lower bulletin, that might have changed, do you feel lucky?
I've thought about it, but after seeing my buddy struggle, I decided I don't need a costly headache since I also don't have access to a mill.
If you do decide to try it, start a thread in the gunsmith section and show your progress for others to learn.
I could be wrong, but from my understanding you cannot sell the lower ever since you don't have a firearms manufacturers license. So its yours forever.
As far as being able to say you made it, it depends how much that's worth to you personally. Its definitely a challenge if you don't have any experience with machining, or have a access to a mill. Using a quality drill press should work. I know someone who tried to use their Mastercraft drill press to finish a lower. It didn't work out so well and he ended up throwing out the chunk of aluminum and buying a finished lower. Many people try one, and never want to do it again. Some enjoy it and make several. Its one of those things you don't know until you try.
As far as registering, it shouldn't take long at all, just show it to a verifier and they'll submit the forms. Although with the new AR15 lower bulletin, that might have changed, do you feel lucky?
I've thought about it, but after seeing my buddy struggle, I decided I don't need a costly headache since I also don't have access to a mill.
If you do decide to try it, start a thread in the gunsmith section and show your progress for others to learn.
This is not exactly correct.
1) You can transfer a homemade lower to another person.
2) You can transfer it in exchange for money.
3) You cannot transfer/exchange it for profit.
Now, how you balance 2 and 3...... *shrugs* good luck getting an answer on that.
The coles notes is that:
If you make a homemade lower, and 3 years from now get bored of it and sell it/transfer to someone, the CFO/RCMP doesn't really care.
If you make 6 lowers in one year, and then transfer them all to other people, you can expect to be asked some very pointed questions about your activities.
Mine were made from solid blocks of aluminum, not 80%.
In so far as registering them:
Mine were verified over the phone with the CFC, and I had to send pictures to the RCMP-SFSS (the same ones outlined in the latest RCMP-SFSS memo) . The criteria for the FCG pocket was the same as is stated in the latest memo released. That was, IIRC, ~8 years ago? So the criteria has been that way for at least that long.
One lower took less than a week to be approved, and the other took 2.5 weeks to be approved (the latter was registered with an upper whereas the former was receiver-only, which may explain the difference in time).
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