AIRSOFT Conversion to firearm

First just let me say. I believe in the Second Amendment right to bear arms responsibly. And firmly believe that ownership of a specific weapons should be controlled, but that is another issue. And I know someone will bring it up ! But that's not what this thread is about. Here is a good laugh for you. I am an airsoft enthusiast so frend gave me an article he got off the Internet entitled[ Federal agents size toy called them and machine guns.] It was found on [ World Net Daily ]. It is an article an airsoft rifle that was converted to a firearm. The ATF and other federal agencies want now to designated airsoft as machine guns.

A. ATF agent is quoted as saying. [An airsoft M4 can be converted to full automatic fire just like the real M4] due to the upper and lower receiver having some of the same characteristics. And the article points out, that someone had done it. The article also points out the weapon did not work. I'm surprised the guy is alive. And that he got it to work at all. A firearms expert did point out that it is possible to convert and airsoft and fired live ammunition, and fire in semi and full automatic. But that the costs would be greater than the real gun. And subject to exploding in your hand.

But here's the very fun part for me. And I both share and police. US Coast Guard ATF and FBI and other federal agencies and some military units. Use air soft guns for training for the simple reason you can do live fire training exercises without risk of serious injury. It is my friend says me the link to the article I will update this threat. So my question to you the floor is. Are you dumb enough!? An Airsoft M60 or any other Airsoft rifle, live ammunition

[edit on 20-3-2010 by draco61]

Think of it as evolution in action.
"Hey you! Out of the gene pool! Now!"

ATF Agents are notoriously dumb as parking lot gravel. The Branch Davidians kicked their lame asses. Too bad they (Branch Davidians)didn't kill all the ATF Agents there. They certainly deserved it.

Just so ya know, Airsoft rifles and machineguns fire soft BB sort of projectiles that are not lethal. They are even biodegradable. You can't put a 5.56mm or 7.62mm cartridge in one and expect it to work, that is ridiculous.

This could be a typical case of a federal law enforcement officer abusing his/her authority too. That is a common occurance.

Go ahead and try to convert an Airsoft gun to fire live ammo. I'll watch............................from a distance..............................with 911 on speed dial..........................and a first aid kit. Just name me beneficiary in your life insurance.

Converting a high end airsoft to fire real ammunition would not be that hard. The frames are already metal. Just the insides would have to be fabricated. Any machinist could do it but it would take some serious time with all the trial and error. And the cost would be 10 times that of just buying a real one outright.

Airsoft is a blast to play. I just bought my son a nice rifle.

www.aftermathairsoft.com...

Well if you are going to go there, the old M3A1 Cal .45 Submachinegun (aka the Greasegun) could be easily manufactured by a machinist too. Most of the gun is stamped and only the bolt and barrel are machined.

That was a fun little submachinegun to shoot.

.45 ACP Rocks!

A better quality airsoft may be made of metal, but my bet is that's it's the cheapest damned mild steel you can buy. Not exactly suitable for the high pressures / high temperatures that the working bits need to contain.
Then there's the barrel, I've played with airsoft a bit, and those little balls look to be what 3mm? So you need to replace the barrel as well.

Basically what these guys are saying, is that if you take an airsoft gun, the replace everything but the grip and stock you can make a real gun? Wow, I would never have thunk it. By the same logic I can take a car and by replacing everything but the seats I can have a tank?
Infallible logic there by the ATF.

Way cool my daughters fiance is a designer of air soft guns,maybe he can make me a cool piece,but not cheap their guns are about 3500 bucks,could find real machine gun on the streets cheaper

Ridiculous conversion aside, why exactly is full auto so great to have?
I fondly remember shooting my dads .22 marlin rifle that held 15 rounds that I could fire off just as fast as I could pull the trigger....why exactly would you need them to fire any faster than that? Is it just sheer laziness as in its easier to just hold the trigger down and "pray and spray"? Personally I'd rather have the benefit of control of semi-auto than to go around blasting clips at targets and wasting 99% of the ammo.

Warning! As some TV shows say, "Don't try this at home!"

Most, if not all, Airsoft replicas are made from very mild steel c/w stampings to hold it all together.

As such, the breech [if there is one] certainly cannot chamber a round and even if you managed to seat a round in it, it would not seat properly.

This would cause a breach explosion when the trigger was operated and the firer would [probably] lose a goodly sized portion of his or her face.

I have yet to see commercial military training weapons as they are full sized, paintball or BB weapons.

I am no expert but 5.56mm BB slugs must hurt an aweful lot! I wonder what the ranges are?

Incidcentally, this is nothing new. When the L85A1 first appeared 20 years ago, there was something called a Low Velocity Training Round. It was 5.56mm but to be honest, I've never seen it.

This case was on Alex Jones a couple of weeks ago (yes I even listen in the UK from time to time)

The owner of the airsoft company whos inventory was seized had even spoken to the ATF in Washington who categorically stated that they were not interested in Airsoft and the local officer had overstepped his authority.

For all im not a huge fan of AJ i thought he did highlight the case very well and let the company owner state his case.

In the UK airsoft guns are now made of transparent plastic (or rather imported that way) to ensure there is no confusion between them and real guns. The guy also stated that there is no way the gun would be safe if modified to shoot live ammo.

I have no doubt there is some fool willing to try - but to echo Phage's comments - welcome to the Darwin Awards if you do.

A final comment - and good for a laugh - the agent at the centre of the case went on TV to show the airsoft guns off and was unable to load the clip into one of the guns - a bit of a shock considering I assumed ATF agents are trained in a variety of weapons.

Well, I found the original story (I think) here, and I'm going to call MAJOR BS on this one.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms found that the rifles were tooled to shoot plastic balls, but replacement of internal components with original machine gun components would render the rifles capable of firing live ammunition.

“These rifles could have had far-reaching and potentially devastating ramifications if they had gotten into the hands of individuals who wanted to do harm in the American population,” said Customs and Border Protection Area Port Director, Rolando Suliveras, Jr. “This was a good interception by our officers.”

The guns will be destroyed.

Apparently the ATF is full of idiots.

I am an old-time airsoft enthusiast, and unless they started making these things out of considerably higher-grade metal in the past two years, they would never be able to fire real munitions.

The ONLY thing airsoft guns have in common with their real counterparts is the shape. You would have to literally replace the ENTIRE internals with "real" parts in order for them to handle live rounds.

And, according to the story, the airsoft guns were never actually converted into real weapons, the brilliant minds over at the ATF apparently assumed they could, and used that as an excuse to destroy the shipment.

I guess there are gonna be some pissed off hobbyists out there.

reply to post by drwizardphd


Thats the exact one - good find - and that's the agent that couldn't load the mag!

Coincidently the AJ show mentioned that the ATF had seized an additional 20k's worth of inventory from the company - In addition to the initial seizure. This would put the company under severe financial pressure.

Edit for my atrocious spelling

[edit on 21-3-2010 by Silk]

* Second Amendment – Militia (United States), Sovereign state, Right to keep and bear arms.

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. [

1 : to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another

I believe that citizens should have access to all weapons as the Constitution states and I also believe that the States of the united States of American are not upholding their constitutional obligations by not requiring citizens to form militias and this is not the national Guard as they are now under federal rule

Originally posted by Blazer
Ridiculous conversion aside, why exactly is full auto so great to have?
I fondly remember shooting my dads .22 marlin rifle that held 15 rounds that I could fire off just as fast as I could pull the trigger....why exactly would you need them to fire any faster than that? Is it just sheer laziness as in its easier to just hold the trigger down and "pray and spray"? Personally I'd rather have the benefit of control of semi-auto than to go around blasting clips at targets and wasting 99% of the ammo.

This +1

Never, ever use full auto when shooting. It is almost completely pointless, 99% of the time at least. Only in movies do people spray n' pray. Especially when you move on to manly calibers like the ak47's got. Indoors and using peashooter m4a1's there might come up a situation full auto is beneficial...

Originally posted by drwizardphd
Well, I found the original story (I think) here, and I'm going to call MAJOR BS on this one.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms found that the rifles were tooled to shoot plastic balls, but replacement of internal components with original machine gun components would render the rifles capable of firing live ammunition.

“These rifles could have had far-reaching and potentially devastating ramifications if they had gotten into the hands of individuals who wanted to do harm in the American population,” said Customs and Border Protection Area Port Director, Rolando Suliveras, Jr. “This was a good interception by our officers.”

The guns will be destroyed.

Apparently the ATF is full of idiots.

I am an old-time airsoft enthusiast, and unless they started making these things out of considerably higher-grade metal in the past two years, they would never be able to fire real munitions.

The ONLY thing airsoft guns have in common with their real counterparts is the shape. You would have to literally replace the ENTIRE internals with "real" parts in order for them to handle live rounds.

And, according to the story, the airsoft guns were never actually converted into real weapons, the brilliant minds over at the ATF apparently assumed they could, and used that as an excuse to destroy the shipment.

I guess there are gonna be some pissed off hobbyists out there.

yes that is the right one did you get a good laugh out of it

reply to post by JIMC5499

you forgot the city morgue.

Originally posted by ACTS 2:38
* Second Amendment – Militia (United States), Sovereign state, Right to keep and bear arms.
As part of a well regulated militia. At least that's the next part of that sentence. This thread is not about Second Amendment. I thought I made that clear at first.

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

1 : to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another

I believe that citizens should have access to all weapons as the Constitution states and I also believe that the States of the united States of American are not upholding their constitutional obligations by not requiring citizens to form militias and this is not the national Guard as they are now under federal rule

this thread is about the overreaction of a small group of extremely conservative individuals that think it's 1955 within the law enforcement community. But that is a completely different subject. Then what this thread is about.


MOD EDIT : to correct code issue.

[edit on 5/7/2010 by benevolent tyrant]

This is the reason BROCOCK air pistols were taken off the market,so easy to convert into .22 live. they used a self contained Co2 and pellet type of ammo, so all you had to do was drill the barrel to .22 and alter the cassings to act as a jacket to house the .22 bullet and there you have it! air pistol to firearm. though still deadly to the shooter as the barrel's were not of the qwality of a real firearm.

This is complete bull. First they claimed you could turn one into a real gun. Completely bunk. Then they claimed you could pin the airsoft lower to a real upper and have yourself a functioning AR that was less than legitimate because the lower is what is considered the 'gun.' Well, the holes dont line up and if you tried to drill them to line up you'd destroy the fake lower.

It's absolute bull any way they try to spin it. Either there is a real reason behind the confiscation that they dont want us to know or they're simply being government thugs acting how they please without anyone to answer to.

Interesting info from the company who got their guns seized, AirsoftOutletNW:

Now we at Airsoft Outlet Northwest, being the rational individuals we are, went out and had a gunsmith check the true compatibility of these replicas and found the following information:

* The WE TTI M4’s lack any sort of functional gas tube which is integral to an AR15’s operation
* The upper receiver of an AR15 fits onto the lower of the WE TTI M4
* The stock trigger pack in the WE TTI cannot strike the firing pin of a AR15 bolt
* The body of the WE TTI lower is several mils thinner than an AR15 lower, and shims would be needed for any AR trigger pack to work
* The trigger pack of an AR15 appears to be able to fit onto the lower receiver of a WE TTI M4, one of the AR15 trigger pack retaining pins is impossible to insert without major modification, and the hammer isn’t operable with the WE TTI lower.

Airsoft Conversion?

[edit on 24-3-2010 by thisguyrighthere]