Anybody ever order from http://stenguns.tripod.com/ , and what is a tube gun? I found  the semi auto fcg and a bolt, so it would be legal to build after the sbr tax stamp.  

Check out semiautosten.com

A tube gun is just that, it's a gun with a tube as the reciever, the STEN, and M-3 Greasegun for example are tube guns, infact some people have and probably still due assemble the kits with muffler pipe....  In order to assemble a STEN legaly it's not enough that it be semi-auto only, the BATF has also ruled that it must also be closed bolt, the STEN is an open bolt desighn, so you would have to completely redesighn it, the end result would be a completely new desighn that only superfitialy looks like a STEN....  The only sorce I know of for semi-auto kits is the one above, however that one has no provisions for a front site....  Also the origional STEN used a rolled sheet metal reciever, not the pipe that most kits, like the one above use....

So does the tube look different than the original receiver? And would it be safe to order the kit and a receiver tube, to see if i can figure out how to make it legal. If i cut up the stock fcg?

Yes, the picture on the site you posted is actually an origional STEN mark 3 note the line going all the way down the length of the top of the reciever:



That line was formed because the origional reciever started as a piece of sheet metal, and was rolled into a tube, the line is the seam, the tubes you buy are just metal pipes with no seam, also the front sights were part of the sheet metal reciever, and just folded up to form the front sights, the recievers you buy will not have this, or any other provision for a front sight, with the sxception being the STEN mark 2 kits which have a seperate front end, but they still origionaly had rolled recievers....

A tube gun, if they're talking NFA stuff is a gun made from a "tube" that was registered pre-86 but wasnt yet manufactured into a gun. There are still some of these tubes around and you can buy newly manufactured machine guns made from them.

As for the legal question you would have to ask the BATF, but ultimately it depends on what mood there in....  It's perfectly legal to have a complete semi-auto reciever, not just a tube, and as many full auto parts as you want provided that they can't be directly used as conversion parts, meaning that there isn't actually a law against it, but if the BATF feels like it they will arrest you anyway for "intent", even though you have not actually done anything illegal yet, a "thought crime" if you will....

Quoted: Anybody ever order from http://stenguns.tripod.com/ , and what is a tube gun? I found  the semi auto fcg and a bolt, so it would be legal to build after the sbr tax stamp.

As long as its a "CLOSED" bolt gun then yes it would be legal.  You don't even need a tax stamp if you weld a barrel extension on it to bring it over 16", the barrel that is.

I've seen people selling Full auto bolts with a collar welded on the back the whole size of the tube.  Yes this effectively does trip the dissconnector every time the bolt comes back making it a semi gun.  However, the ATF views newly manufactured open bolt semi's as machine guns.  Regardless of weather or not they are welded to a semi state.

A state legislator in Alaska was busted for trying to build a STEN illegally.  He asked a machinist to thread a tube, the machinst figured out why, and called the cops.  The legislator already had a bunch of legal full auto guns and DD's, but still tried to make one.

I think he's still in office, so he probably beat the rap.

www.akrepublicans.org/foster/index.php