All About DIY Guns

No, a license is not required to make a firearm solely for personal use. However, a license is required to manufacture firearms for sale or distribution. The law prohibits a person from assembling a non–sporting semiautomatic rifle or shotgun from 10 or more imported parts, as well as firearms that cannot be detected by metal detectors or x–ray machines. In addition, the making of an NFA firearm requires a tax payment and advance approval by ATF.

Keep in mind that it’s important to check your local laws before embarking on this adventure. However, if you’re lucky enough to live in a free state, you’ll find there’s nothing more satisfying than building, shooting, and carrying a firearm you made yourself.

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With the proper tools, you can also make your very own 1911 pistol. Here are some instructions from Personal Defense World to tell you all about it:

Legalese

In American firearms law, it is the receiver or frame that is the gun. When factory-made, this component carries the serial number and must be transferred through a licensed gun dealer. The barrel, slide, internal components and so forth are just fluff and may be bought and sold freely through the mail. The arbitrary cutoff between raw material and finished frame has always been 80 percent.

A 1911 frame that is four-fifths completed is tough to quantify, but if the sear and hammer pin holes are not drilled, the barrel seat not cut and the frame rails have not been machined, then the otherwise incomplete component is uncontrolled. The holes are easy enough to drill with a jig that bolts to the side of the frame and guides the drill bits. It was the rail cuts and barrel seat that previously kept the homebuilt 1911 out of reach of anyone not blessed with a $50,000 milling machine.

Cutting METAL

The limitations of language preclude my adequately describing how cool the 1911 Phantom Jig is. This is a patent-pending device that affixes to the unfinished 1911 frame and guides a manually driven carbide cutter to cut the slide rails and barrel seat precisely. First you bolt the jig in place and use it to carefully drill the two requisite holes from the side. Even the most basic drill press makes this process straightforward. The jig keeps the included bits perfectly aligned, and it may be reused countless times.

Now secure the assembly in a standard shop vise. There is a sliding shuttle that holds the cutter and an adjustment knob that controls the depth. Take the handle and slide it along its track such that the cutter removes a sliver of material about half the thickness of aluminum foil. Turn the knob and lower the cutter by an increment before taking another pass. In a fairly brief period you’ll have the rails cut as precisely as though they were cut on a mill. The process is a bit tedious but is not difficult at all.

Next, reorient the Phantom Jig to the top of the frame and you can cut the barrel seat. The process is similar and the details are clearly delineated in the instructions. Be patient and meticulous and the results will amaze you.

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It is theoretically possible to cut stainless steel frames with this device, though we opted for aluminum. This softer material is easier to cut and makes for a more lightweight carry gun. The entire investment in time finishing out our aluminum 1911 frame was maybe an afternoon. My daughter and I undertook the project together and had a ball doing it.

Assembly Required

The intricacies of assembling this iconic pistol are well documented and explored in detail both online and in print. You’ll need a punch (or three), a small non-marring hammer and some basic tools to go along with a smidgeon of institutional knowledge. We used a set of building fixtures from Present Arms that kept everything going smoothly.

 The Present Arms fixtures are milled from a robust, non-marring polymer and are purpose designed to keep everything in place and provide that third hand you need to get through some of the sticky bits. The build can be undertaken without this device but it certainly makes the process easier.

The internal mechanism goes together fairly smoothly so long as you have some modicum of familiarity with it. The details are available on YouTube. You’ll need that drill press again to drill a 1/8-inch hole to retain the ejector, but this task is painless. Compressing the hammer spring into its housing is a chore but you can use your vise to hold it in place. We placed a small ball bearing over the top when compressing it to push the plunger low enough to get the cross-pin started. Wear safety glasses, lest this powerful spring slip its bonds.

Sights Setting

We opted for TruGlo’s patented TFX sights. TFX stands for “Tritium Fiber-Optic Xtreme,” and these reasonably priced aftermarket sights offer everything you could want in tactical gun sights. Fiber-optic inserts funnel light into the device under daylight conditions. Tritium inserts illuminate the fiber-optic tubes in the dark, offering a glowing sight picure 24/7. These steel sights are simply superb, and they are available for most any handgun whether you built it at home or bought it in a store.

This nifty homebuilt heater grouped phenomenally well right from the outset. The slide-to-frame fit feels like greased glass and the crisp single-action trigger is simply divine. I had to tweak the safety a smidge with my Dremel tool to loosen it up, but I left everything else as it came. Reliability was 100 percent with three different brands of ammunition and maintenance is awfully straightforward once you literally know every piece of the gun, inside and out.

The resulting pistol is remarkably light and accepts any standard accessory on its railed dustcover. As the slide/frame interface is stainless steel on aluminum, keep the gun lubed well with quality gun oil until it breaks in to prevent any galling of the rail surfaces. I was genuinely amazed at how well this homebuilt pistol looked and shot.

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Parting Pointers

It takes a little mechanical aptitude to pull off this project, but it really requires more patience than skill. So long as you don’t rush anything, the build is within reach of anyone even reasonably handy with tools. You do need a small drill press but only for about five minutes. Borrow time on somebody else’s or just buy a cheap one for yourself. You’ll use it for other stuff eventually.

 At the end of the day, it is incredibly satisfying to carry a gun for personal protection that I built with my own hands. Truth be known, anybody really serious about guns should build one of these just for the novelty of the thing; legally building a sterile firearm that has no markings or serial number adds mystique to any collection.

I have seen some cool stuff in my time. However, the Phantom Jig from 1911builders.com may just be the coolest gun idea I’ve ever seen. The end result is utterly professional and the extraordinary sense of personal satisfaction is tough to describe. The gun actually shoots as well as the high-end commercial 1911s in my personal collection. Additionally, the overall price, even with the Phantom Jig, is comparable to a mid-range commercial 1911 pistol. Build one yourself or get together with a few like-minded friends and share a jig.