Home made dart gun. Is it legal?

[Boogershooter]

First let me say my son is amazingly talented. He's been building his own rubber band guns since he was 8. He will be 13 in a couple of weeks. My middle son got a new nerf shotgun that the darts load into a plastic housing that looks alot like a shotgun shell. Load them into the lever action shotgun and it ejects the empties when you cycle the gun. Pretty cool until my eldest son says daddy come watch this. He had ground down the plastic casing until he could get the brass from a 12 gauge shell over the plastic. He thin took some stainless sheeting and fitted the inside of it and soldered them together. Them loaded this with a 209 primer. Darnedest thing I ever seen and yes it shoots great. I know this isn't safe for my kids to be playing with but is this illegal in anyway? So far he's only shot foam darts and the 209 melts the ends of them. Just curious if him putting a primer in it makes it a firearm in anyway?

 

[Boogershooter]

There is no so called receiver on this gun and I chose not to reveal the means of primer ignition so no one else can try this. The shell he made is now locked in my safe and the toy itstore self if perfectly fine and back to being used for what it was designed for.

 

[kilimanjaro]

Just don't sell it without a serial number, otherwise I think you're OK...

Maybe it's a firearm now, maybe it isn't, but you're allowed to make your own firearm.

We kids used to do stuff with gunpowder that would turn your hair white.

 

[NJgunowner]

It probably varies state by state. In New Jersey, they'd probably hit both of you with a felony

 

[Boogershooter]

Louisiana is pretty relaxed. I have built lots of cannons over the years.

 

[kilimanjaro]

You might get concerned if he starts enjoying molecular physics in school, and talking about Davy Crockett and cannons.

 

[Boogershooter]

He's alot smarter than ol dad but I refuse to let him know that. He rebuilt his tater gun into a golf ball gun. He's got it shooting out to 400 yards with the wind at his back. He figured out to wrap canned biscuits around the golf ball for a better fit. Gets a extra 50 yards with the biscuit wadding.

 

[g.willikers]

In some jurisdictions, it might be considered a Zip Gun, whatever that implies.

 

[nemesiss45]

that is likely to be considered a zip gun anywhere there is a zipgun law on the books... but the spirit of the zip gun law is to stop people from making improvised deadly weapons. if you don't get hassled about your spud gun, I doubt anyone will care about a primer powered nerf shooter.

 

[johnwilliamson062]

As I understand it, federal law requires all firearms to have a requisite metal content. This was required at some point in the past because of fears of plastic guns that could go through metal detectors. In home manufactured 3D printed firearms a metal insert is embedded to meet this requirement. Without such metal content it would, as I understand it, qualify as an illegal firearm.
I have very limited knowledge of this aspect of firearms as I have never worked on a home-made design or modification to which this was an issue. Mostly in relation to reading what others posted in other forums concerning their projects.
Federal authorities got pretty uptight about some plastic guns that would fire one round, but were prone to failure after or during one round, so I don't think that design is exempt simply because it would likely blow up if loaded with a standard load 12ga.
Also, as a general simplistic reduction of federal law, you can legally build any firearm you could walk into a gun store and buy. Your son can not legally purchase any firearm from an FFL because of his age. I suspect that, as a legal technicality, he also can't build firearms. Not likely to be enforced, especially if not publicized on internet forums. There are videos on you tube in which those under 18 discuss and show 12 ga designs and I have not heard of any prosecutions, but I would personally steer clear of making any public statement he built it unsupervised.

I would personally go with "he had this idea and we built together in the future." For obvious safety reasons I would also make it clear he wasn't allowed to do such projects without direct supervision in the future.

None of those issues are things I have researched in depth.

 

[Boogershooter]

Thanks John. He definitely won't be trying to modify any nerd guns in the future. My wife has ordered two golf ball cannons to occupy his interest. She also made him tear down his pvc tater gun. Life is too short to worry about breaking any laws.