If you look around the internet, you can find pretty much anything. That includes the instructions you need to build a self-loading, semi-automatic pistol completely from scratch, with nothing more than some metal, a few basic tools, and a few dozen hours. That, and a bucketful of effort; this is no quick-start guide for criminals.
Clinton Westwood, longtime reader of Popular Mechanics and now amateur gunsmith, found a set of these plans himself, and went about trying to follow them. The finished product the plans showcase is a horrifying mess of a contraption that looks like it might go out and commit murders in an alleyway of its own accord, but the finished product Westwood was able to produce—dubbed the Krikit—is one fine piece of workmanship. You can see the two above and I'll let you guess which is which.
Through the process of following the plans, Westwood made a few departures and improvements, while documenting them all in a series of high-quality photos. He also cut together this YouTube video, which lets you follow the entire process from start to finish.
You may be asking yourself if this is legal, and the answer is yes. Entirely. A plethora of increasingly capable 3D-printed guns have brought the question into the spotlight over the past couple of years, but that actually has nothing to do with DIYing an otherwise legal firearm in general; it has to do with with manufacturing a firearm that is relatively undetectable.
As the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives plainly states on its website, 'An individual may generally make a firearm for personal use.' The trouble is just if that firearm doesn't show up in a security x-ray, or doesn't look particularly like a gun when it does.
Pistol Machining Project Plans Template
Westwood's build is a great illustration of how, if you have some plans to work from and generally know your way around basic tools, it's not that hard to make yourself a pistol. It's also a great illustration on how it is far from easy, a task befitting a craftsman more than a criminal. And when it comes to craft, it looks like Westwood's got things figured out.
Clinton Westwood
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