I have the engraving CNC program for the mag well finished and was wondering if there were any legal issues with a pretty straight duplication other than serial number?  I am about to start the engraving artwork for the l/h rear of the lower receiver and also are there any issues with duplicating the Colt engraving verbatim or would I need to "invent" a fictional manufacturing company?

Here's what I have so far on an aluminum test block:

http://www.squirtworx.com/pics/AR15%20build/Engrave%20test%201.jpg

Not sure of any legal issues but that looks good other than the slashes in the zeros, real M16 have standard 00000.

Yeah, the slashes were a deliberate thing but could be left out  I figured if the S/N started with wife.gov's initials then the rest really didn't matter! ;-)

Legally, you're using a company's trademark without their permission, and they could (successfully) sue you for it.

If you're doing it for personal use, and not making a business of it, it's rare in practice that they (Colt) would ever know or care about it enough to come after you.  Many companies have gone after airsoft makers who reproduce their trademark logos without permission or payment.

Not gonna make a difference to most but if they get cleaned for everything they own it won't have been worth it.  Fellow borrowed Hotwheels logo from Mattel a few years back for quality big coin reproductions and it cost him 100's of $K's,  lost all his assets and basically ruined his life.  Enter at own risk!  Never know who's lurking in the shadows.

A problem I could see if you started doing it for money, Colt finds out your stealing their trademark name/logo and decide to go after you, but you'd have to be foolish enough to leave a paper trail of how many lowers you engraved and the amount of money you made, etc. There's always the problem of living in a state that has a ban on the AR-15 name and getting it confiscated, like CT for example but living in Texas nobody is gonna give a sh*t.

Yes, strictly for personal use.  This is kind of what I figured.

well..........you have to think that with IDENT, Orion and some others getting away with selling the Colt logo, that you'd be OK doing it for yourself.
What did you use for a template?  Looks good, although I would think that with the "attached" globe you would use the pony that was slightly rotated counterclockwise. Looks like your pony is the one that should be on the "floating" globe........which is why I asked what did you use for a template.

I snagged it from a pic off the net, might have been from here.  I'll try to determine which one and post it up.  The pic I took the "verbiage" from had a logo that was a bit fuzzy so I used one from a different pic (Armalite) but I don't think I rotated it any - maybe I should have.  I pull the images into a blank Autocad drawing, create a new layer, and "trace" over the desired stuff with the polyline tool.  I then turn off the layer with the image and save just the tracing to a .dxf file which I then import into my CNC controller software.

Here's the mag well on the Visionary Arms 80% casting - this was done with a 40 degree .2mm cutter to about .014" deep.  I decided to use this lower due to extremely low cost and to test the engraving on before I screwed up the Tactical Machining forged lower.

http://www.squirtworx.com/pics/AR15%20build/Mag%20well%20engrave%201.jpg

http://www.squirtworx.com/pics/AR15%20build/Mag%20well%20engrave%202.jpg

Justin, sent you an IM

"Personal use" and "not for monetary gain" mitigate the individual risk but do not eliminate it. It would all come down to damages, if any, that are sustained by Colt as a result of this activity. Lost revenue due to the competition of an outright counterfeit product is merely one source of damage.

Imagine for a minute that you create an exacting reproduction of a Colt firearm that then malfunctions at the range.  Anyone seeing this "Colt" product malfunction may form a negative opinion of Colt that is totally unwarranted. Imagine further that the malfunction is catastrophic and does great bodily harm to someone. The firearm says "Colt" right on it, they must make a unsafe product and must be to blame. In this age of cell phone cameras and YouTube, a video of a "Colt" firearm exploding would have thousands of views. It might even make the news. Your honest explanation that it is not a Colt product, but something you made to look like a Colt product, may not lessen the damages sustained.

Regardless of the motivation, if your actions cause harm to a company's reputation, this is grounds for a civil suit.

The subtle modifications to the design certainly help, but from a few feet away it's still a "Rampant Colt".

Guys, this has been debated ad nauseum many times in the past. I suggest anyone interested to check out the archives. Ident and others have changed the logos they are given enough that it is not a trademark infringement. If you were doing a run of these for resale you'd likely have a problem, but doing a single 80% receiver for your own edification is not from what I understand. I am neither a lawyer nor do I play one on television however.     I would not duplicate the Colt logo exactly - that is an infringement.

Morg - I made some minute changes in the logo, changed the serial number format, eliminated the ®, and this logo pattern came from an earlier model, but I have no plans to start a "receiver factory".  I have a pretty good feel for replica collecting and that was not my primary concern but I was more worried about the "PROPERTY OF U. S. GOVT." verbiage.  I tried to do some searching but apparently the search engine will only allow searches to go back 30 days and I didn't find anything that helped.

Well, this is what will be going on my "wall hanger":

http://www.squirtworx.com/pics/AR15%20build/Receiver%20Engrave%201.jpg

If you're worried about angering Colt, you could always go for Hasbro!

Now, that's kinda cool!  I have been thinking, for my shooter, about a "Rampant Dragon" or something similar.

You can always use google to search previous postings:  site:ar15.com <your search terms>

Thanks!  Learn something new every day...