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Selling homemade non-regulated parts
- Thread starter parallax222
- Start date
back in mid 2000s I was trying for a FFL and was trying to get a home based FFL. until the town wanted a traffic impact study for my non business zoned business.
Tried just getting the ammo sales permit also. So many little road blocks I had to give up.
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Nashua only licenses certain occupations. Some people said that any and all businesses have to register thru the state but others are saying that you only need to if you start an LLC. Trying to find more info. I think I can sell small parts out of my house without a business license as far as my town is concerned.
one-eyed Jack
Manufacturer
Stop asking us and start talking to the town. Jack.
The ATF is going to make sure your property is zoned for your activity.
Not all towns require a license for a home business. My experiences are a bit dated but with my home FFL in MA (this was before they required a storefront), the town only required a busness license if it was a d.b.a. and not just your name and you didn't have some type of corp I was an s corp, so no town license. Did have the state stuff though.
More relavant might be my NH FFL. Town had no requirements, state didn't care either (this may have changed). So all I had was my FFL. that was back in 1997.
More relavant might be my NH FFL. Town had no requirements, state didn't care either (this may have changed). So all I had was my FFL. that was back in 1997.
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Thanks for all the replies. I'm now working with an attorney and in the prelim stages of setting up an LLC and attaining an FFL
one-eyed Jack
Manufacturer
Are you able to tell us just what you want to make/sell? Jack.
jayhitek
NES Member
Is LLC still $500/yr
warwickben
bubba Kalashnikov
if you want a ffl for your home shop todo r&d. like you have no plan to sell any thing other then designs do they care about zoning?
Buck F
NES Member
Product liability... What if a barrel blows up or some part you produce causes/contributes to a malfunction that causes injury? Or what if something you produce ruins someone’s expensive build? Or it ends up rendering something non-compliant for some reason and the buyer blames you for his becoming a PP? Not trying to sell you liability insurance, I don’t have any carriers that would even provide it for this type of manufacturing, but there’s no end to the things that can bite you in the ass w manufactured products. You don’t even have to have done anything wrong to get thrown under the bus by an injured/dissatisfied customer.
Your place of business has to be properly zoned for your planned activity. It doesn't matter what it is. If your town allows a business that does R&D to operate out of your address, then you're good to go.
warwickben
bubba Kalashnikov
not to sound rude, but most of those things you can easily protect your self, or they wouldn't be a issue in the first place.
selling parts is much different then say a gun due to the diy aspect. even barrels its up to the end user to know about head space , proper way to install etc.
parts ruin a expensive build
if the part doesn't fit or needs to be fitted its on the person doing that. if you make a break booster and they put it on a gun that doesn't need one and it beats it self apart that's on them.
if a person buys a part from you that's not illegal to sell and they use it in a way that makes it illegal that's on them. why you are able to buy full auto trigger groups legally. its also depends on your wording. if you make your own pistol brace and offer it for sale claiming its legally a pitol brace
Buck F
NES Member
Not going to argue with a word you said, other than people can and will sue you for any of the reasons I mentioned whether perceived or real and whether there's legal merit or not. Just saying that anything you manufacture/sell to others inherently carries some element of Products Liability with it.
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my plan also includes setting up an LLC and getting good insurance. It doesnt completely resolve the issue of liability but it will go a long way to protect me from most things.
Grips, sights, maybe triggers, springs ... I dont see a big problem.
Anything that the bullet/cartridge will touch, I would want to protect myself with a corporation. Dont under estimate what a huge POS a lot of people are, even gun owners, when they get hurt due to their own stupidity.
Let me give you an example, my ex wife had a business, the day after the opening day (not even 24 hours after being open to the public) a person called and threatened to come after us because she said a car hit her car in our parking lot. My ex wife flipped out on her, told her we had cameras, blah blah blah ... scared the sh*t out of that person and nothing happened (it's a good thing because we didnt have cameras).
So, there you go. Protect yourself with a corp.
My advice: find a small part that a lot of people want but it is stupid expensive or there are very few options. For example, maybe a spring that is easy to copy and they cost $15 right now. You could have it made for very cheap and sell it for $5. Most internals on a gun are VERY EASY to reproduce on CAD and price out what it would cost to product in the U.S.A. If you cant use CAD, send the part to someone and have them do the CAD rendering, shouldn't cost you more than $100.
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There have been a ton of new things appear, but it is hard to get people using it when the old, simple designs work and most of the new ones are not solving problems.
A lot of the new stuff is too expensive, or too complicated. Who will support it when they stop producing it after 3K units?
eh I dont know , everytime I see a "new" design it looks like just about every JMB design out there..... I dont think theres a lot of new stuff really in the relm of the brass case, smokeless powder, projectile by explosion guns.....
Im always falling back on my old pos rifles.....?
OK, I think manufacturing is covered. How about the sale of non-serialized parts? Could you have a store that sells "EVERYTHING BUT" the registered part? This would include all accessories, sights, optics, grips, barrels, etc. What about AR "uppers"? Are they able to be sold without any FFL license? I could imagine a store doing this, and maybe pull a license to sell ammunition. I bet it would do well. Not everybody likes to go online.
I'd like to see someone take some older designs, and update them. How about a better H&R breaktop? How about those awesome old bolt rifles from Higgins, but with modern sights? Etc.?
Would love to see someone pull the NEF single shots out of mothballs. Those were solid guns, though a bit rough. Maybe do a little nicer version, for another $40 to make them nicer?
SO many places to improve on what is being offered, many would be just a refinement on past ideas. No shame in that.
With a limited budget, and a high entry level cost due to manufacturing, refinements are the way to go.
For example MVA or KELLEY sights. They take old designs and make them better or everyone manufacturing replacement parts such as triggers, longer firing pins for competiton shooting ...
Manufacturing smaller parts is fairly inexpensive and marketing them is also easier.
Every internal gun part could be CNC on a desktop CNC machine.
I was looking at short stroke kits for lever actions, I dont know why the factory doesnt ship every lever action with a short stroke, but whatever, the cost of the kits I found was around $300, for 3 fairly small pieces of metal. Take that, copy it, maybe improve it and sell it cheaper.
Probably legal, but you are going to have a lot of eyes on you, and pretty easy for them to jam you up. Imagine you personally own a couple lowers, and they happen to be in the same room with the stuff you sell. ATF walks in as says you're selling them. Sure, they will have trouble proving it, but at what cost to you is your defence? The easy answer is be super careful and keep everything clearly separate, but accidents happen. It'll come down to what you consider acceptable risk.
Here is a good example of a small part you can probably have manufactured for around $10.
I dont know what the market is for those, but $42 is absurd.
www.northeastshooters.com
I dont know what the market is for those, but $42 is absurd.
Any Sig folks on here?
Well, I finally lost the spring guide rod on my p938. Man that is frustrating. I am usually pretty good at keeping an eye on it and screwing back in place. But I have been practicing more with the gun since the apocalypse has come. It's gone. This is my everyday carry so I am a bit...
www.northeastshooters.com
