PITTSBURGH — On a quiet street in Rochester, Beaver County, the Master-Ammo Co. operates out of a cramped garage in an unassuming white house, its machine room strewn with power tools, boxes of bullets and shotgun shells.
Under fluorescent lights sits Sam Piccinini, a gunsmith who’s dealt in weapons and ammunition for nearly a decade. On a metal shelf behind him, a dull black AR-15-style rifle rests flat on its side.
Piccinini holds up a silver-colored 80% finished receiver, the part of a firearm that contains its trigger assembly. It is the foundation of a self-assembled weapon that’s sold in kits — dubbed more recently as “ghost guns” — because the kits are not given serial numbers and are sold without background checks, making them virtually untraceable for someone looking to build one.
