And that kind of secrecy appeals to Americans who consider their relationship with their firearms a highly personal affair that the government should keep out of. Controversy swelled around ghost guns when John Zawahri, an emotionally disturbed year-old, used one to kill five people in Santa Monica in the summer of Even so, they haven't been outlawed; buying or selling a ghost gun is illegal, but making one remains kosher under US gun control laws. California state senator Kevin Deleon introduced a bill to ban ghost guns last year, following the Santa Monica mass shooting.
Governor Jerry Brown vetoed it a few months later. But as the shouting match over ghost guns gets louder, few of the shouters have actually tried to make one. Here's how it all went down. The drill press, jigs and vise I used in my first attempt to finish an 80 percent lower receiver. Remember when I said I know nothing about using power tools? Unsurprisingly, this portion of my gunsmithing experiment didn't go well.
Step one: Acquire a drill press, a massive stand-alone drill meant to cut the aluminum features out of my 80 percent-lower receiver. All that planning and spending, it turned out, couldn't compensate for my utter lack of even high-school-level shop skills.
Then there was the drilling itself—which, it would turn out, is not as easy as it looks on the Internet. I reviewed my lower-receiver drilling basics on YouTube one last time, put on latex gloves and eye protection, screwed the steel jigs around my slug of aluminum, tightened the clamps, and hit the chunky green power button.
As the drill bit chewed into the block, I felt a rush of excitement and tasted fine aluminum dust between my teeth. The bit threw off metal shavings and left behind a gleaming, polished crater. But my elation faded as I realized how badly I was mangling the trigger well.
No matter how hard I cinched it down, the vise shuddered constantly, moving the aluminum piece. The holes I was cutting veered off until they were practically diagonal.
When I switched to the end mill to clean up the spaces between the pits I'd created, I found they were mostly at different depths: The drill bit had somehow moved up and down, and I hadn't noticed.
The bottom of the cavity I'd made began to resemble the surface of the moon. Meanwhile, the massive machine protested loudly, shaking like a train about to derail. Throughout this ordeal, WIRED video producer Patrick Farrell, a former bike mechanic who probably could have offered helpful advice, watched me struggle from behind his camera with a restrained smirk.
The unwritten rule: I was in this alone. I kept at it for five and a half hours. Then the head of the drill press—the part that holds the bit, which I'd later learn is called the "chuck"—fell off. I screwed the chuck back in, and after a few more minutes of metal-on-metal violence, it dropped off again.
That's when I gave up. I had nothing to show for my labor but a sad metal block scarred by a maze of crooked channels. Well, that and a left hand bristling with tiny aluminum shards where my latex glove had split. It felt like the elevator was a time machine shortcutting about a century of technological progress. I plugged in the 3-D printer, followed a series of delightfully idiotproof instructions, and in minutes was test-printing a tiny white coffee table.
Soon I was ready to start making gun parts; no obscure YouTube instruction videos, calipers, jigs, or aluminum splinters required. It was one of dozens of gun parts available for download in the rogue BitTorrent repository's "physibles" section , a part of the site presciently created in to host controversial digital blueprints other sites wouldn't or couldn't.
In fact, the file I downloaded had been created by Defense Distributed in , but the group had pulled it from its own website after the State Department threatened to prosecute the group's staff for weapons-export-control violations. It took a few minutes to torrent the lower receiver file. I opened it in Makerbot's printing application, centered it on the app's digital representation of the machine's print bed, and clicked print.
As the workday ended and WIRED's office emptied, I found myself sitting alone in a darkening room, transfixed by the gun component slowly materializing before me. At one point, six hours into the nine-hour print job, the Replicator's print head overheated and took some time to cool down. That required pressing one more button on the machine. I didn't touch it again. The next morning I came back to the still-dark room and found a finished, eerily translucent lower receiver glowing inside the Replicator's LED-lit chamber.
As science-fictional as that process felt, the results were flawed. When I pried the finished lower receiver off the print bed, one side was covered in support material meant to prevent the hot plastic structures from collapsing before they solidified.
Snapping and scraping off that matrix of plastic was a long, messy process. I tried using a knife, cut my thumb, and bled all over one side of the rifle body.
And the same support materials also filled tiny holes in the piece, in some cases choking the delicate threads meant to accept metal screws. It's clearly possible, based on YouTube evidence, to 3-D-print AR lower receivers that are capable of firing hundreds of rounds. But mine wasn't so practical; I wouldn't know it until I visited a gunsmith two days later, but I'd eventually give up on assembling a gun out of that plastic-printed lower receiver long before it was anywhere close to a becoming a functional weapon.
But from my first moments using the Ghost Gunner, it was clear: This is a machine designed to make a gun. The main ones are forged, billet, and polymer. Forged and billet lower receivers are both made from aluminum, but the former requires intense pressure to be molded while the latter is shaped out of a block.
The decision on which material to choose for your lower receiver will depend on your preference and, of course, your budget. Make sure to consider all the pros and cons of each type of lower receiver before you pick and purchase one for your rifle. If you have friends or family who know their way around guns or are highly familiar with them, you can ask them for tips and recommendations as well.
Different states also have different laws regarding guns and firearms, so make it a point to check those before you buy anything. Also, take note of the safety guidelines when owning and storing a gun.
You can use the links below to jump to any portion of this guide. You can also find our best stripped upper receivers here , which also includes recommendations for stripped receiver sets. As we'll cover in more detail below, you're generally fine going with the cheapest lower possible, so long as it's made from T aluminum, not cast, and made by a reputable manufacturer.
We'll start off with some of our favorite affordable options from quality manufacturers, then cover some of the more unique options that come with a higher price tag. Prices accurate at time of publishing. Nothing fancy here, but Anderson generally has the cheapest lower receiver that is still high quality.
I've never had any issues with an Anderson lower, nor has anyone else from what I've seen. You can buy two or more Anderson lowers for the cost of some other options, so you may just want to stock up to save on trips to the FFL.
You and I both know you're inevitably going to build more ARs anyway. The Anderson AR Stripped Lower checks all of the boxes we're looking for, including being made from forged T6 aluminum.
It weighs 0. Palmetto State Armory is famous for making super high-quality AR parts and complete rifles at some of the lowest prices available. In fact, we chose them as the manufacturer of the best budget AR As always, they come through clutch with some super affordable forged T6 aluminum AR stripped lowers. You can check out all their stripped lower options here.
At a slightly higher cost, Aero Precision's Gen 2 stripped lower is another high-quality option that we've used in the past with no issues. Aero Precision has a good reputation for making a variety of quality AR parts, as well as some good complete rifles. It weighs less than the Anderson lower at 8. It also has a tension screw to help it mate better with your upper. While the above three lower receivers will likely satisfy the majority of you reading this, I know some of you are wondering how you can shave off some more weight.
This finely machined billet T6 aluminum lower saves weight with its v-shaped magwell and other cuts that don't sacrifice the structural integrity of the receiver. If I'm being honest, I don't think I'll be going with any AR lower receivers as unique as the following options any time soon.
I'm more of the type to buy a reasonably priced lower, then scratch the hell out of it because I'm too lazy to tape it up while installing parts. With that being said, the way these tend to sell, I know tons of people like them; so check them out to see if they're your style.
Your guns, your decisions! You can also rest assured that I did my due diligence to only include T6 aluminum receivers from highly reputable manufacturers. There's a lot to cover about AR lower receivers including legalities, materials, and manufacturing processes.
We'll do our best to answer all the questions you have below. Stripped Lowers - A stripped lower receiver is the serialized portion of an AR, making it the only part of the rifle that needs to be purchased through a licensed dealer FFL.
0コメント