Watch: How to Stay Out of Jail When Building a Rifle

Alex “AK” Kincaid is a lawyer who does gun videos. In this one, she talks about the legalities of building AR-style rifles at home for your own use.

Her three main rules are as follows:

Build For Your Own Personal Use
Know What You’re Buying
Know What You’re Building

To expand on that:

Build For Your Own Personal Use

Building for others can be hairy, and might get you into a big bowl of badness. So only build guns for yourself.

Know What You’re Buying

Be sure all the stuff you’re buying can legally be assembled in your home state. (If not, I suggest you move.)

Know What You’re Building

Figure out whether you are building a standard rifle, a pistol, or a short-barreled rifle (SBR), and stick with it from the time you first begin building on your lower.

Of course, she goes into much greater detail. And since she’s qualified and I’m not, I’ll let her do the talking.

Please tell us about your builds in the comments below.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.