Making your own handgun is not illegal. From the BATFE site:

Quote:

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(A7) Does the GCA prohibit anyone from making a handgun, shotgun or rifle?



With certain exceptions a firearm may be made by a nonlicensee provided it is not for sale and the maker is not prohibited from possessing firearms.

However, a person is prohibited from making a semiautomatic assault weapon or assembling a nonsporting semiautomatic rifle or nonsporting shotgun from

imported parts. In addition, the making of an NFA firearm requires a tax payment and approval by ATF. An application to make a machinegun will not be

approved unless documentation is submitted showing that the firearm is being made for a federal or state agency. [18 U. S. C. 922( o), (r), (v), and 923, 27 CFR 178.39, 178.40, 178.41 and 179.105]

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http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/faq2.htm#a7



What Jumptrap said about cutting down a rifle barrel is true enough though. Be careful.

Lar45,
I for one applaud your efforts and dedication to the sport.
I would like to make a correction here though,Cutting a "rifle barrel" down to pistol lengths is in no way illegal. Now cutting down a rifle barrel and leaving it on the rifle action is quite illegal indeed. However a barrel is just a part. I will use a 45 caliber tube intended for a 1886 win. for my Encore in the future,currently the tube is over 24" and for the encore it will be 16" and chambered for the 458 Win Mag in pistol form. One thing that we TC shooters have been over and over again is debates such as these. Again,Only cutting a rifle barrel down below 16" and leaving it on the rifle action is illegal. For instance I cannot cut a 30-30 model 94 down to less than 16" and using said arm as a pistol is illegal,removing the barrel and using the tube for a Xp-100 tube or even using the tube for a TC full custom barrel is not. Hope this fire suit is rated.............45nut
Period

I didn't mean to stir up a bunch of whatever. I have checked into the BATF rules. It is legal to make as long as I don't intend to sell it while makeing it. Also as long as I could own the finished product legally. The barrel is just a part. The action or reciever is the gun, so you can't take a rifle action and build a pistol around it. If the barrel was the gun, then you couldn't mail order a barrel from Midway without doing any paperwork for it. My 5yo Son Erin has his own guns and shoots pretty well from the bench. He likes to shoot the 06 and 270 with lite cast loads. He's pretty good with a 22lr also. The gun is in parts and he can put most of it together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Maybe I should post some pics of him helping me in the reloading room next to the Dillon 550. He can read the powder scale and loves to put the bullets on while I put cases in and pull the handle. Sometimes he'll put a bullet on upside down just to see if I'm watching him.

Thanks for the quote from the BATF site. It is all there in black and white for the reading.

All I have left to do is make the hammer spring and strut, pin the breach block in place, weld the grip on and ream the barrel.

Thanks for the info. I wasn't trying to stir up anything either, but I didn't know all the rules myself and didn't want to see a friend inadvertently run afoul of the Feds.

http://home.earthlink.net/~bazillion/intro.html

Here is a site I found on springs, if you still need it. - Lew

How to make a spring By Gregg

Take your steel and put it in your lead pot to heat to same temp your lead. Take out and let cool slowly. Bend steel to the shape you want your spring. Heat to red hot and quinch. Now your steel is glass hard and will break just as easyly. Now here the part I have not done just read about. Put your glass hard steel in a pan or such and fill with oil . Heat oil till you can get it to burn . The burning old temp is suppose to temper the steel to be a spring and not be glass hard. I had a good gunsmith tell me this. I have made sole for a frizzen and that goes to the glasss hard then solder sole onto frizzen and that will temper the steel to make good sparks. Dixie Gun Works cat. tells how to make springs also