Would there be a market for these pieces made in metal?
Yep, there is a market they sell for about $7,000+ require a background check, fingerprints, local law enforcement sign off and a $200 tax stamp and they must be legal to own in your State... Douglas Oefinger (DLO) pre-registered a butt load of these silly tubes before the 1986 machine gun ban went into effect in the US, and has capitalized on his investment many times over since then... His tubes are grandfathered and no more can be made for public sale after the 1986 ban...
Honestly I can't believe there's no kit out there offered like this, and if there IS interest in this...
The tube with the holes is equal to a machine gun in the US (that is if the BATF decides it can be readily converted to be functional, they decide arbitrarily there is no written definition) thus manufacturing the tube is equal to manufacturing a machine gun in the US... There have been "80%" tubes made and there are tubes with bonded blueprints available... The "80%" tubes push the legal limits to the edge and most of those offerings have thus dried up, likely due to BATF pressure, or at least that was what one person that used to manufacture and sell them told me happened to him... The "80%" tubes are generally just cut to length and have the 76 barrel holes drilled, none of the other cutouts are done...
Fines start at $100,000 (misdemeanor) or $250,000 (felony) and includes several years of free room and board at a Federal facility...
And the IRS puts the cherry on top for TAX evasion since they are a tax stamped item, that lack of paying the tax will get you another $100,000 fine and 5 more year free room and board at that Federal facility...
It's just a pipe with holes in it..
Once you put those correct holes in that pipe it's no longer a pipe, it's a machine gun in the US...
FYI the newly manufactured semi-auto Sterlings have a metal block welded inside the tube that prevents the full auto bolt from fitting in, the bolt is modified as well as the trigger group, and they also have a slight modification to the tube area where the trigger group attaches that will not allow the full auto trigger group to be attached... And they have a 16"+ barrel... These modifications are BATF approved mods that remove it from machine gun and short barrel NFA category and place it in a normal gun category... The modified tube is still a firearm and all firearms laws apply, it's just not a machine gun anymore...
