California’s great gun grab: State’s sweeping gun control bills target firearms, ammo

The so called "build parties" are set up around the state, many of them are announced in the gunsmithing forum on Calguns.

It is not necessary to buy a mill and a jig. Typically the 80% blanks are purchased separately and then everyone meets up and the experienced guy kind of tutor the newbies. Until January 1st of next year, as long as you are not a prohibited person, it is 100% legal to build an AR-15 receiver for yourself. You do have to set the reference points and some other data like pocket depth yourself to meet BATFE requirements but as long as you are with some experienced guys they will show you. Some guys run an all day class for around $500 and when you are done you will have programmed a build and saved to a usb that can then be used on those maker space rental machines.

Without a tutor I do not think I could have done one from scratch but once the knowledge is obtained one can buy a mini-mill from Harbor Freight and a jig and get cracking. I think it would take a very long time to mill out on one of those small mills so if you can find a shop that will let you do it at a build party it goes pretty quickly, maybe 10-15 minutes. If you're in the SF Bay area there are some places in San Jose and Fremont that will help out.

Note well that it is cheaper to buy a finished receiver. A finished and anodized homebuilt will run around $215 to $250 when ready to go which is maybe 2x what you can walked out of a FFL with a stripped lower for but some things you just can't put a price on, like privacy.

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