A guy at the range showed me an AR 15 made from "rough" OlyArms forgings that he "finished".  The gun was in a pre ban configuration but had no serial number on the receiver.  If I were to buy this gun, what would be the is the BATF's opinion on its legality?

Legal if assembled into a complete rifle prior to sept 13, 94.

Tate

From what I understand, a person can make a firearm, but it cannot be sold.  Now whether or not it needs a serial # or not I don't know.  As for pre/post ban, the rifle you make has to go by the current firearm laws.  If you make (finish the milling work) it today, even if the forging itself was made in 1802, it still became a firearm today, and its a post-ban.  But, assuming you were old enough and had the equipment and forging before the 1994 ban, it would be somewhat difficult to prove whether the rifle you made was made before/ or after the ban.

I'm not 100% sure on the legalities, but I'm not even sure that he [i]can[/i] sell it. Unless he has paperwork saying he is an ATF registered weapons manufacturer, that is basically considered like he made his own gun.

Legally, I think making your own is not a problem but you must have ATF approval or something else to transfer a home-made weapon.

Either way it will have to have a serial number assigned to it and you would have to find out the exact date it was made to find out the status of it.

Also it doesn't matter if he finished it himself or not, it is still affected by clinton's 1994 constitution burning. If he made it 6 1/2 years ago it is fine. If he made it sooner than that it is an unlawful AW. I'd recommend checking the legalities of transferring homemade weapons and find out when it was made [b]before[/b] you buy it.

You can sell a homebuilt.  The excise tax is not levied on a gun made solely for personal use, and not for resale - nor is a manufacturer license required to do so.  The key is the gun was not made for the purpose of resale, as demonstrated by holding on to it for a year, and not making a bunch the same way at the same time.

At some later time (ATF guidelines say wait at least a year) you can legally sell your personal property, even if it is a homebuilt with no serial number.

It can't be built into a preban config unless it was legally assembled or set aside as a complete rifle before 9/13/94.  If this was done, and the maker will give you an affidavit that he built it into a preban config before that date, it's a legal pre-ban rifle.

Some states won't let you build a gun without a federal license, or require a serial number on all guns.  Check your state and local laws.