Home Built Firearms a Practical Option?

The news is full of stories about the sudden disappearance of semi-automatic rifles (or “assault weapons” as the firearms illiterate media call them). Gun shops and gun shows are empty of ARs and AKs of pretty much every variant and the online sellers are not accepting backorders. A local gun dealer friend has a few coming in from an order that he had placed some time ago which has been released by the manufacturer. He got a call from Oregon (we’re on the East Coast) from a potential buyer who is willing to pay 3 times the going price and will fly in personally to pick it up the day it arrives.

One alternative to purchasing an already built AR or AK is to build one yourself. If you have some moderate do it yourself skills, a drill press and either have, can get access to or can afford a cheap hydraulic press (about $180 from Harbor Freight) you can build an AK-47 or AK-74 (and several other variants) at home.

There are only a few basic things you’ll need to purchase: 1. A Receiver Kit. 2 An AK Parts Kit 3. A Barrel (possibly optional)

PARTS:

The Receiver is the key item. It’s the part of an AK in which the trigger group is mounted and is the part that ATF considers a “firearm”. It’s the part which contains the serial numbers assigned to it by ATF. The interesting thing about the law is that it’s perfectly legal to build your own receiver at home for your own use. As long as you don’t plan to sell or trade it it requires no serial numbers. Until the fabrication of an AK receiver is completed, it is NOT a firearm, it’s simply apiece of sheet metal. An 80% receiver kit is not a firearm. It’s a piece of unregulated sheet metal.

While building an AK receiver from scratch is not that technically difficult the easiest way is to buy an 80% completed AK receiver online. The 80% kits are an AK receiver which has not had the mounting and trigger pin holes drilled in it. It’s pretty much ready to drill and be assembled. Even though completed AKs are in short supply there is a wide range of receiver kits available. The normal price on them is in the $35-$65 range and they require no FFL or other permits to buy. A few states restrict them but not many.

The Parts Kit is the next item. A Parts Kit is basically a foreign built AK-47/74 which has been “demilled” or demilitarized. The receiver and the barrel has been cut into parts which cannot be reassembled. The rest of the components are intact, the trigger group, the gas tube, the front and rear trunnions (in which the barrel and the stock mount) and the sights.

There are a good number of Parts kits available in the internet as well. Since they are NOT firearms but firearms “parts” they require no permit either and can simply be purchased and shipped directly to you (except to a few states). Once you receive them you disassemble them and use the parts to build your new AK. The Parts Kits range from around $180 up through the $400 range depending on condition, origin and other factors. You can expect to pay between $200-$300 in most cases.

I listed the Barrel as optional though it’s not really an option to build an AK without a barrel. BUT… there are several companies which sell parts kits that already have a new barrel mounted in the front trunnion so you don’t have to buy one separately. If you buy a parts kit without a new barrel then you will have to buy your own barrel. They are just as widely available as the other components and are easily bout and shipped.

ASSEMBLY:

Assembly of an AK is not difficult if you have moderate shop skills but is a bit too long to explain here. The real key to it is the vast institutional knowledge available on the internet. There are sites devoted specifically to the subject. Do a search for AK Building and Ak Building Forums and you’ll find a lot of sites devoted to the subject. Most of them contain a wealth or articles and discussions on building your own AK. YouTube has a wwide range of videos on AK Building which show how various aspects of it are done.

You can Google for AK47 or AK-74 Parts or Parts Kits you want to see the range of parts available. Search for AK-47 or AK-74 Receiver Kits to see the number of sellers of 80% completed Receivers.

In a time where ARs and AKs have disappeared from the shelves there IS an option for those seeking to own a comparable weapon. When you consider that there’s a real possibility that the Federal government and some state governments may soon require Citizens to register their semi-automatic weapons, the option of having an AK 47/74 which has no serial number and was never bought as a “firearm” becomes quite an interesting alternative.