full auto glock conversion kit illegal
Courtesy YouTube

Did you read our post a few weeks ago about cheap Chinese knock-off gear being sold through a site called wish.com? The post centered on an arrest that was made in upstate New York after a man bought a kit to convert GLOCK pistols to run in full auto. He’d also bought silencer components from the site.

That case was clearly not an isolated incident. According to a CNN report . . .

Federal authorities suspect that thousands of machine gun conversion devices have been illegally imported into the United States from China, in some cases ending up in the hands of convicted felons, CNN has learned.

Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are actively working to locate the devices and retrieve them.

How many of the illegal conversion kits have made it into the country? A lot.

ATF and customs officials in Chicago identified more than 2,900 packages containing conversion devices “that are believed to have been shipped into the United States” under false customs declarations, according to an affidavit filed in federal court in Rhode Island. The devices render semi-automatic Glock pistols into fully automatic weapons and are considered a machine gun in and of themselves under federal law. While the devices are specifically designed to modify Glock pistols, Engelbert, the ATF spokesman, stressed that they are not manufactured by Glock.

The 2,900 in the CNN report are only the kits that the ATF is aware of (or is willing to talk about). And they’re only from the one web site. It seems a safe bet that a lot more have made it in from this and other sites.

(Former ATF supervisor Jill) Snyder, who most recently ran the San Francisco Division of the ATF before retiring from the agency last fall, said she previously worked on cases involving similar devices being illegally exported from the Philippines.

She said the devices don’t have serial numbers on them and are impossible to track if not recovered in the possession of the original purchaser. She added that, just because ATF was aware of one company’s sales, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t others going undetected.

“That sounds like a significant number,” she said of the ongoing investigation into the Chinese website. “How many other thousands are there that we don’t know about?”

This, of course, isn’t the first time this has happened. The ATF’s website documents a case from 2002 in which someone from Argentina sold similar switches to convert semi-automatic GLOCK pistols to fully automatic. And there’s no telling how many people may be doing the work themselves without the help of foreign sellers.

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131 COMMENTS

  1. Glock giggle switches are not mechanically complex devices. All it does is interrupt the disconnector. Anybody with basic metalworking skills and a 3D printer can make one in their garage. As always, technology marches on.

    • Check that… took a look at the design, it’s even simpler than I thought, it just actuates the trigger bar. Not too familiar with the guts of a Glock firing mechanism, my bad.

    • Full diagrams for devices like this have been floating around on the internet for the better part of a decade now. It’s really surprising that we don’t see more of them showing up in gang arsenals here in the US like they do over in Europe, Canada, and Australia.

      • Most American gangs are less sophisticated then their European counterparts. They tend to be more openly violent then most European gangs, but not nearly as smart. Most of the people running American criminal gangs aren’t all that well educated, and it shows.

        • Where in that post did he mention anyone’s race, ethnicity, gender…any description other than “gang member”?

          He stated a string of objectively true facts, that you can verify with some simple research.

        • Don’t Notice Things is the demonstrated racist here. When we talk about gangs he automatically associates “uneducated violent gang member” with “ethnic minority”. For shame DNT…. for shame.

        • Racist?? Racist against gangs from Europe and the USA? That’s a first one for me! You do know that there are black people in Europe as well as the USA?! There are black people in gangs in Europe too. That last thing that this has to do with is anyone being racist here! Get educated before you speak and life will be a lot easier for you!

    • Spent a day on the range with a Glock 18 years ago. Yawn. Just another full auto firearm. Really, who cares?

      • True.
        There is a Glock specialty manual out there (I have one but won’t say the name so the “reading idiots” here aren’t so easily informed) that shows how to convert the slide of a G17 to full auto. A little time, some basic tool skills and a couple pieces of scrap metal are all that’s needed. You dont need a doodad to hang on the back of the slide unless you’re obsessed with a lever or button. Just add/remove the homemade sear interrupt (a couple minutes effort) and there ya go. When you’re done “playing” out in the back 40, just pull the 2 little pieces out and keep them in your spare parts bin. They’re innocuous on their own and no illegal parts or pieces are around to be found by big brother. Though there are differences between the G17 & G18 so as to prevent the G18 slide being used on a G17 frame, the actual parts that make it work are amazingly simple.

        • It sounds like permanent modification of the slide is required with the method you speak of. If the slide is modified to accept conversion parts or factory “machine gun” parts and ATF becomes aware of that they will call it a machine gun just as if you drill the G3 FA trigger pack hole in an HK-91 receiver or drill the FA sear pin hole and/or slot the rail on an SA AKM. These kits are popular in part because there is no trace of the modification when it is not installed. Frankly I would post the info without a second thought. I couldn’t care less who has a full auto anything. If people are really too dangerous to own any type of firearm they are too dangerous to be in society with the plethora of deadly implements available to them, including their own fists and feet, and they should be locked up for life. That’s how you effectively implement “gun control” that serves the claimed public safety purpose. [Putting away soap box]

  2. Even more fun is going to be how ATF figures out everyone who’s been somewhere on the internet and downloaded some printing plans and 3D printed some.

    Those slide plates are extremely simple if you understand how the Glock pistol works. Making a Full auto-only one would be a simple chunk of steel and having someone file it down in the right places. Good luck ATF.

    • Well, first off, fuck the ATF. Secondly, you can make your own designs. Lastly, fuck everyone who invades our privacy on the internet, and VPN on.

        • The only way an ISP can invade privacy through a VPN is by traffic analysis or deep packet inspection. You can go a step further and use PGP key signatures to encrypt messages

        • No, they do not. A commercial VPN or TOR creates an encrypted connection, essentially a tunnel, over the internet that your isp cannot see inside of. In order to do so they would have to break the implemented encryption, which, as far as anyone knows, is not possible.

  3. You can’t stop the signal. Sorry ATF. as noted above, any half competent person with some garage tools and maybe (maybe not even) a 3d printer could make this.

  4. People who haven’t harmed anyone must be rounded up because they posses the knowledge to potentially harm someone. Freest nation on Earth ladies and gentlemen.

    • Shire-man,

      “People who haven’t harmed anyone must be rounded up because they posses the knowledge to potentially harm someone the ruling class.”

      There, fixed that for you.

    • The ruling class realizes that sooner or later the average Joe or Jane will figure out that they outnumber them by thousands to one. That’s one of the reasons why the increasingly fascist guns laws and so on are being implemented and more and more technology to spy on people are being used. To them, it’s like juggling running chainsaws that you can’t put down and sooner or later your going to sneeze.

  5. It seems more plausible to me that this is the only company selling them than that there are more than 2900 people in this country dumb enough to buy them.

    • They were being sold on E-bay at one time too.

      And it stands to reason that there are other channels.

      • I don’t doubt that the company selling these sold them on multiple exchanges. But are there really significantly more than 2900 people who are willing to risk a decade in a federal prison and permanent loss of their 2nd Amendment rights so they can spit out all 18 bullets in a second and a half, when probably 10% will even hit the target. And then there’s the inconvenient feature of being easily identifiable at a mere glimpse of even a holstered weapon. You’re certainly not taking that thing to a public range unless you’re certifiably stupid.

        • Still, that’s what, 3 rounds on target?

          I’m sure they’d get quite a giggle out of that, but I’m guessing that smirk won’t last through your first day in prison.

        • Guys, really, a full auto Glock is the next thing to stupid. When I shot that 18 I had a little Fobus stock that fit into the pistol grip. No problem keeping 2-3 shot strings in the head at ten yards on a blue man target. Also no problem keeping double taps in the head at ten yards semi-auto without that Fobus stock. Unless it’s belt fed full auto is way over rated.

        • I belong to a club in MA where it seems like half the regular members are 07 FFLs with Class 2 SOTs. Full auto guns, Glocks included are a dime a dozen there since you can LEGALLY put together a full auto MP5 knock off for $2000 or an M16/M4 for about $700 if you have a Class 2 SOT.

          If one of those licensed folks, purchased one of those, the resulting gun, once registered on a Form 2 would be perfectly legal.

  6. Here again, mere possession of an inanimate object you purchased or fabricated is a crime… Stupid beyond belief for a society that is suppose to be “free”. Using a gun is a crime of robbery, assault or murder is no different than using a baseball bat or a Ford F250. We have laws against robbery, assault or murder already. Guns are tools, nothing more, and possessing them harms nobody.

  7. First of all, do not break the law. It was broken before you got here and if you break it some more you are only going to get into trouble for the full breakage, not just your part of it.

    Second, these stupid gadgets should not be illegal.

    But hey, the law is broken, so, best not break it more.

  8. I had a 1911 go full auto on me. Not a whole lot of control in .45. 9mm might be easier.

  9. Neither the ATFingE or the NFA should exist.
    Repeal the latter and the former can go back to hassling distillers and tobacco growers.

  11. I would argue that many of our gun laws don’t pass constitutional muster. With that said, if you choose to break them, you get what comes with it.

    • If you tell Louis you don’t feel like paying the protection money anymore, then you get what’s coming to you. But that doesn’t mean it’s right for Louis to demand the protection money or administer a crippling beat down when you fail to provide it.
      That’s where we are with the NFA and batf.

    • So, an American citizen get caught with a converted Glock goes to jail and is
      fined up the ass? Illegals caught get arrested, maybe? Released and even if caught again get released again. WTF is wrong with this picture?

  12. What the hell are you going to do with a full auto Glock? Scare the shit out of someone, I really doubt anyone who feels the need to convert a Glock (hell any semi auto pistol for that matter) can shoot anyway, I can run 16 rounds through my 10mm G29 in about 4 seconds and land 10 kill shots, that ain’t happening w/full auto anything in a handgun or most rifles.

    • They really aren’t that hard to control. I’d prefer a burst option, but that would take a complete redesign of the firearm.

      • 20 years ago, I swapped e-mails with a guy in the usenet group rec.guns who lived in the Phillipines who had his gunsmith reverse-engineer the G-18 and do that to his micro-Glock G-26. He said it was un-controllable.

        Doing the conversion on a standard Glock, especially with a forward grip mounted on the on the under-rail and-or a can on it, it would work just fine as an improvised SMG…

        • Once they buy the illegal auto conversion and add the illegal vertical foregrip, they might as well get the illegal buttstock, too!

      • You must be the 6’5″+ 300+lb dude on the block…LOL
        Most people can’t control full auto, that’s why the burst function was developed.

        • 5’11” 220, but there it’s not about control, it’s about wasting ammo. The burst function was developed because people without extensive training tend to mash down the go button and let their gun click dry. Controlling full-auto is fairly easy with anything in a sub-battle rifle caliber. The hard part is getting the trigger time and ammo allotment to learn to do so.

        • Except with a lot of ‘solutions’ like this, particularly with 9mm semis, the rate of fire is quite high. Hell, even the manufactured burst-capable glocks are around, what, 1,200 rpm? So 20 rounds a second. Not an easy control in full auto.

      • “Why does the Glock 18 exist?”

        Because compact SMGs are a ‘thing’ in Europe, like the MP5, Uzi, etc…

        • Yeah… you throw a stock and 33 round mag on it and it may have some function. Not much though, to be honest. There’s almost nothing a glock 18 can do that a semi-auto pistol or a ‘real’ SMG can’t do better.

    • I found it very easy to control when using a 2 handed grip and a good combat stance. I kept all 35 rounds on a cardboard IPSC target at 7 yards. And it was an un-compensated 18.

  13. It’s as if gun controllers are too dumb to realize that entire guns will come in this way if they ban them much like drugs or virtually anything else of illegality. I wouldn’t be surprised if some countries that we would compete with would quietly have their governments give a wink and a nod to it in order to cause civil unrest as well.

  14. You gotta love the Chinese! They may not be supporters of their own people’s gun rights, but they are certainly big purveyors of tactical goods to support ours!

    “in some cases ending up in the hands of convicted felons…”

    In other cases, ending up in the hands of future felons… Just what we need, more felons… or, maybe what we really need are fewer laws!

  15. And as has been mentioned…how many have been made or converted domestically?

  16. Amazon was selling them for Airsoft imitation Glocks. I managed to get a human on the phone at Amazon and explained it, and the next day they were gone. Not sure who else notified them, but getting a human on the line isn’t easy.

    • This comment is why fellow “Boy Scout” gun owners are our worst enemy. Beating down the door to squeal out other gun owners to the ruling class. Don’t think for a minute if semi autos are banned that fellow gun owners won’t rat out people they see with “banned” semi auto rifles because possession of them is “illegal” people like the above poster will lick the boots of the ruling class law enforcers. It’s a slippery slope to full on confiscation and acts like those above are the first step!

      • Dude he did the right thing. People where buying them and not knowing they where committing felonies they would get caught for. He didn’t eat on gun owners he tatted on Fed entrapment.

        • I have seen kids with full auto airaoft Glocks for a long time now; they also have full auto gas ARs. They rarely get any attention because it’s airsoft and everyone knows that, but when government has to show they are doing the public proud they go round up some airsoft stuff and say they are protecting the public’s safety.

          I feel less safe when government has more power and they start using it.

          Look at what they are doing to Julian Assange after they said they weren’t going to do what they are now doing. Trump wanted him taken out and now they are moving to do that. They pulled him out of his safe space and put him in a cage. Now the U.S. is seeking dozens of charges on this non U.S. citizen for breaking U.S. laws. All for being a journalist reporting on U.S. crimes in an effort to drain the swamp.

  17. Why would anyone want a full auto conversion kit for a Glock?
    With a little practice you can learn how to short stroke the trigger so that the sear remains cocked. This shortens the trigger stroke and pull force, making it possible to get better than six rounds per second out of it.

    • Exactly, my buddy put a pyramid trigger in his glock and with the right manipulation it would easily and repeatably go full auto.

    • Let me tell you something, when you get to a certain age, with enough hand injuries, you do not have that level of dexterity.

  19. Don’t want to start an argument here.
    But who cares about a Glock pistol giggle switch???
    No more then anyone who wants a bumpstock in my book.
    Both useless.
    But
    FUN!!!!!!!!!!!

  21. So my question, Is how is the Federal government tracking/tracing “private” packages/mail to a private citizens home? Why are THEY tracking/tracing private packages in the 1st place ?

    • The same reason they invade every other aspect of privacy under the radar. Corruption and greed. Nothing we do goes unmonitored now days. If the “crime” is severe enough, they’ll just rewind the recording from satellites and every other device. Still feel free?

    • Considering many of my Amazon packages are delivered BY the federal government, I’m not surprised they track the packages. How else would they know they lost them.

    • They’re not, which is why so many of these are out in the wild, but they can back-trace it by going to the business in question and subpoenaing their records and then using the payment and shipping information to come up with suspects. If the business doesn’t cooperate then they can go to the middlemen like Amazon, Ebay etc and find the same information but without the specificity as to what they were buying.

  22. OMG, with that many deadly conversions out there the streets must be running with blood, and those evil devices must be rounded up and the owners severely punished. No, OK never mind.

    • I would bet there’s an underhanded motive to why China is doing this. China doesn’t ever do anything “good.”

  24. The ATF should promote the use of these among criminals. The only aimed shot is the first one. Less good guys killed. I rue the day the Moms figure out semi is (for most scenarios) the more lethal of the two.

    • The ATF should fuck off. If you want to own a full auto, do it. SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

  25. We’re these the ones marketed for Airsoft guns? Not really familiar with airsoft, but would they actually fit on one? Just makes me curious if claiming ignorance and actually placing one on airsoft would save someone from actual punishment of the ATF.

    • Possibly. A gas blowback airsoft pistol is quite mechanically similar to real steel handguns. The biggest difference is that the firing pin strikes the gas release button on the magazine rather than the primer on a round

      • They were in with Airsoft accessories on Amazon. A comment in firearms magazine (the paper type) warned that they were compatible with real Glocks. I pointed it out to Amazon, the next day Airsoft Glocks and the full auto back plate were gone. I would love to be able to own one, but federal prison food sucks.

        • A lot of kids have them on their airsoft guns. I guess we have to arrest those 13 year olds for having illegal machine guns as we arrest their parents for having illegal machine gun bump stocks.

          What is the legality of having full auto parts that are not intended for use on actual guns? If you have a real Glock, an airsoft Glock and one of those accessories are you going to prison for having a full auto if the switch is on the airsoft gun not the firearm? Are you going to be charge with construction or possession?

    • Depends on the airsoft gun. Some guns are so close the ATF requires they be redesigned so real trigger components can’t be used without heavy modifications. They don’t want people to be able to switch parts out between real guns and airsoft because they really support liberty and the 2nd Amendment.

  26. When are we going to go after ATF agents for enforcing illegal laws? Not a single person should be arrested for possession of something that government is all too capable of getting everyday. Fuck the ATF and every single one of its piece of shit agents. If anyone needed a tarring and feathering, it would be these weasels.

  27. I don’t see much use for one of these unless one wants to destroy a Glock 17, possibly get arrested, and sent to prison in the process. Now an ATF legal, Glock switchable binary trigger would be another matter.

  29. Rookie Question of the Week: How much different or difficult, mechanically speaking, would a kit that allowed for burst fire (3 round, etc) be compared to these full auto kits?

    I would imagine it would be a fair bit more complex, involving some sort of cam to regulate the bursts, but I’m just taking a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) here.

  31. What they are not mentioning is that these are likely airsoft parts and people are using them on real guns. Some airsoft guns can use real gun parts, as they are that close in design to the real thing.

  32. 1911 full auto vs Glock full auto. That would be interesting.

  33. most of these that i have seen are being sold on ebay and amazon as airsoft parts.. people must be getting creative !!!!

  34. I wonder these would pair up with a Roni shell? It would a a neat little PDW with a 33 rounder magazine. All hypothetical of course .

  37. A report from CNN (communist news network), Really, who believes CNN, Fake news at best, Gun hit piece. CNN has zero credible reporting.

  38. AFAIK parts for full auto weapons are NOT illegal at all. It is the act of modifying/machining a receiver to accept those parts which is illegal.

  39. I’m one of the idiots who purchased a few of the Chinese made switches. Atf confiscated them and sent me a letter. I did my homework before purchase and read in multiple areas, these were legal to own. I’d that false? If so, why are they being manufactured and sold here in the states and mailed directly to your home?

  40. I too was one of the thousands of idiots that ordered,back in the winter.Took the ATF a few months to show up,just wanted the devices back.Airsoft junk in my opinion.ATF could charge you with having a unregistered machine gun,don’t think they could convict you in court but how much would you spend in legal fees on chinese junk.

  41. VERY SMART!

    Convert your glock into a full-auto pistol. That way, you spray ammo far and wide and hit little to nothing! Plus, your neighbors hear your little playtoy and call the cops, which ends up with gun confiscated and you in jail, facing BATF charges!

    But hey, you get to show off for all your little gay boyfriends! Instead of sucking dick tonight, they’ll all be lining up to suck YOUR dick! Cause you’re so cool, with your little toy machine gun!

  42. I have a whole box of these burried way out in the woods. I’m going to pass them out to my buddies when the great boogaloo Gos down. 😉 “The birth of change is going to be a bloody mess” ‘ANARCHY KING’ 🖕😎🖕

  43. Searching for a gun for self practice but the gun laws are very strict in this country. I want such a gun that contains holographic sight so that i can target moving objects. Which gun will be perfect for practicing? & how can I get shipment?

  44. This should be shipped free to anyone that wants it.. if some idiot felon w a violent past gets this and rolls up to shoot some people, they will act like they are gonna “spray bullets” everywhere but the 15-32 rounds will be spent before the sights even land on someone. This is perfect for the type that doesnt ever sight guns in because they have a machine gun. This weapon is empty before the shells even hit the floor (seriously)

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