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Comment by Blackthorn | Hacker News Reader

I'm only slightly ashamed to admit I bought a modern Mauser replica action to build a clone of the k98 used by Riza in Fullmetal Alchemist.

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Dude, that rocks! The gun-building community is going crazy these days. There's some very cool sci-fi guns being printed: https://twitter.com/p80ralph/status/1473091500225572866/phot...

Be very careful with those. It's *very* easy to end up on the wrong side of the ATF. I.e. on that one you posted, he's calling it a pistol, but it appears to have a stock to me.

I believe that makes it a rifle in ATF terms. Rifles have to have a 16" barrel, or they're short-barreled rifles that require a whole bunch of extra paperwork and some taxes. The class is called NFA Items, and includes fully automatic weapons. I.e. making that thing is the same as home-manufacturing a machine gun to the law.

I'm going to hope for his sake that he's got the appropriate FFL licenses to allow him to make such things. It seems like they're really into the space, so it wouldn't surprise me. I don't think those licenses are crazy hard to get, but I could be wrong.

Not the referenced folk, but I have the licenses. They are not extremely difficult to get, but you need to be running a real firearms business, not just for yourself as a hobby or collection. ATF has cracked down on people using the licenses as a cheap way to avoid tax stamps and paperwork.

The back of the "stock" looks pretty highly sloped. I think it's a fin type stabilizer.

You don't need an FFL to make NFA items. You just need to have the tax stamp before you start if you don't have an FFL SOT.

I actually didn't know that, I thought manufacturing was gated behind FFL licenses.

That's good to know, I appreciate the correction!

At least they don't give us grief, even in my anti-gun state, over making a bolt action rifle like K98. I'd love to make a few more modern pieces but ugh.

It's a brace. I'm well aware of the dangers, and anyone who wants to build should learn the rules.

The licenses are a massive pain to get. End the NFA.

You don't need an FFL to manufacture, even NFA, but all that aside...f the ATF! Unelected bureaucrats who write laws are a curse upon us all.

"Braces," like the sig pcb are workarounds to these arbitrary rules and evidence of that fact.

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