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First, you need to make sure it is legal in your jurisdiction. US federal law allows building firearms for personal use without a license with the exception of firearms covered by the NFA. These would be mostly fully-automatic firearms, short barrel rifles and short barrel shotguns. Check with the ATF for details. Making NFA firearms and any firearms for the purpose of sale requires a federal license. State laws may have additional restrictions.

Manufacture of firearms from scratch requires proper tooling, machinist skills, at least a basic knowledge of metals, some woodworking ability, and good firearms knowledge. Metallic ammunition reloading experience is a major plus. Firearms work with extremely high gas pressure. We are talking tens of thousands of pounds per square inch. A mistake can result in a catastrophic failure and severe injury. In short, if you don't know precisely what you are doing you'll shoot your eye out, kid. Or, blow off a finger or two.

An additional thing to keep in mind is that if you are making a self-loading gun, certain kinds of mistakes in design and/or execution of your project can result in something that can be legally recognized as a machine gun. Aside from being unsafe, building a machine gun without a license and ATF approval can get you some very real jail time, even in the US.

A safer way to go would be to build one from ready made components. In US this is very popular with M1911 pistols and AR-15 family of rifles. They require hand tools and patience to put together. In the worst case scenario you will wind up with a poorly functioning gun, but not with one that blows up. Keep in mind that a bare receiver or pistol frame is considered a firearm in the eyes of US law and their sale has the same requirements and restrictions as a complete gun.

There are also kits for making muzzle-loading firearms to be used with black powder. They are generally simpler than a more modern gun and could be a good way to acquire skills for more complex builds.

The actual building process is far beyond the scope of this website.

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12y ago

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