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Your definition of “building” a rifle

When I first joined snipers hide, clowns sticking their remmy 700 barreled action into a Bell & Carlson stock was classified as a build. Buying Badger rings and bottom metal put it over the top. Putting your own scope on and you were close to being certified.
I consider a build the first time a new action(or new to you) is mated to a barrel and put in a new stock. After that it is a rebarrel or parts swap.
Can't get too technical on the term build, heck, you'd need to harvest your own timber, have your own sawmill just to build a house, then comes windows, some things are not feasible.
Edit: I don't care much for the term Custom when used in homemade AR parts guns.
 
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Luckily we're not an industry that uses the term "from scratch." Because THAT annoys me as being over-used. If you cook from scratch, it better not use a can. I argue that building furniture from scratch should have no store-bought dimensioned lumber inside it when done, and prefer if you start with trees. Though, you can pay someone else to cut the tree down, sure.
 
When you "build" an AR, just make sure to put every single worthless part that can possibly be bolted on, glued, on or taped on. Then when it has all kinds of things to make it super heavy and catch on every single piece of brush or article of clothing, you can say that you "built it"

Sticking a different barrel or fore end, or trigger in, is not a build in my opinion.
 
I consider my Bighorn "carefully put together", but definitely not a "build" because it didn't require the type of work that gunsmiths do to get you a notch higher on the quality ladder. It turned out very well as far as a hunting rifle that's more accurate than I am and within my budget.
 
i like @KMart 's thought regarding the industrial revolution. and since the computer revolution, a million kids have 'built' their machines without growing wafers in their back yard fab. anddd. computer manufacturers have 'built' a bazillion machines without investing anything in raw silicon.

FAIT: fab, assembly, integration, test. fab what you can with the capital investment you are willing and capable of making. outsource the rest

you likely would have to alter, add to the functionality, or refine the usefulness of a part (rifle blank, for example) to imo have built it.
 
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How I build a rifle:

1) Ride horseback to Minnesota, dig up rocks and ride back home.
2) Get back on the horse and ride to West Virginia, dig more rocks and again ride back home.
3) Separate iron from the Minnesota rocks.
4) Separate coal from the West Virginia rocks.
5) Using the coal I stoke a fire in my smelter (took a while to build that thing).
6) Smelt the iron and add other minerals to create steel. I won't go into where I get those minerals at this juncture.
7) A few other things happen and Presto! A rifle.

I dunno how the rest of you wimps do it.

** next week: How to build a rifle stock. Stay tuned.
 
When I build a house I don't fabricate the windows, I don't fabricate the pipes for plumbing, I don't fabricate the ducting for heating or cooling, etc, etc. But I do "build" a house out of many different fabricated parts. So . . .

When I "build" a gun, I do so out of various fabricated parts and in doing so, my build can be quite different from anyone else's build.
 
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I would say a guy that puts a stock on a factory gun and an aftermarket trigger in it doesn't constitute building it. I'd say the same guy that buys a barrel, has it chambered, threaded and crowned and puts it into an action and new stock with new trigger has built that gun. That too me would constitute a built gun. That's just me tho. I'm no gun builder but I can assemble the hell out of some parts.
 
with all these modular parts systems and garages fully equipped with vices and big hand tool assortments, we may need to revisit what actually building a rifle is. Assembling an AR from a parts kit is not building it- not even if you have to dremel a part to fit. Neither is putting a pre-fit barrel on an action and slapping it into a stock straight from amazon. Just sayin.


Gun Smith, Black Smith...what's the difference???:D
 
When I was a bit younger I wanted a garage. Not to park my car in but a man cave. I did not have any plans and I had never built anything like it in the past. I did know that 2x6 studs could be on 24 in centers and not much of anything else.

I settled on 16X28 ft building. I went to Home Depot with my list and they filled it and delivered it for me.I bought two pneumatic nail guns, one for the studs and one for the roofing. I also bought two garage doors. One for the front and one for the back. This did wonders for ventilation in the summer. Working every day, it took me a month to finish. I made every cut and drove all the nail. I was determined to do this myself.

I did not want to use trusses for the roof, as I want to have a steep slope so I would have room for storage in the upper level.

I was forced to get a little help when raising the walls. I called my grandsons and they came down and stood the walls while I nailed them down. I also got some help in putting up the roof. I could not hold the center beams while trying to nail down the cross beams and the 4X8 sheets of plywood were beyond me.

I tell this story and dare anyone to tell me I did not build this outbuilding from scratch. Nice place to sit, relax, drink a beer and contemplate my navel.
 

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