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Thread: Pistol to SBR back to Pistol?

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by FrankW View Post
    Your probably right. But I HATE having unused gear/equipment laying around.


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    Build a spare AR and brace it.. 2 is 1 and all......


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  2. #22
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    Apparantly, I just bought a pistol lower for my SBR upper that I didn't have to, because I had built it as a pistol first, while I was waiting on the stamp....

    Damn, now I have to go buy another upper so I don't have an unused lower laying around...
    You know what I like best about most people?

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  3. #23
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    Just buy a second lower, stripped or configured as a pistol. Right now (particularly today), prices are so low there is no reason to even spend time asking this question.

    But to answer, the standard guidance I’ve read is that once something is constructed as a rifle, it is always a rifle. Legally, that may not address the pistol-rifle-pistol path, but I’m growing more careful as I age.

  4. #24
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    As I understand it it all boils down to how the receiver was filed with the atf by the manufacturer. ie: a stripped receiver is filed as "other" when it is shipped from the mfg to your ffl, it remains so forever in the eyes of the atf. You may configure it as a pistol or a rifle and go back and forth as you so desire so long as you do not cross into unregistered SBR territory and are perfectly within the letter of the law.

    Where you run afoul is when you register that receiver as an SBR you have technically manufactured a different creation in the eyes of the ATF. That creation shall forever be a rifle albeit no longer held to the minimum barrel length requirements. Even if you file to have it removed from the NFA registry it remains a rifle and may never again wear a short barrel as it can never be a pistol again.

    Where things get quirky is that so far as I know the common practice of installing a pistol brace on a rifle and running a sub 16 inch barrel on said rifle does not legally make it a pistol. So therefore pistol brace or no, it is by law an unregistered SBR.

    In your case your SBR can wear a pistol brace all you like, it is still a rifle in the form of a registered SBR and is subject to the travel restrictions of an SBR.

    Outside of having possesion of an unregistered SBR, I believe the odds of conviction as a stand alone offense for any of these violations is somewhere in the vicinity of winning the lottery, however the prize package for "winning" is not nearly as attractive. As such I would recommend following the suggestions you have received for a separate pistol lower. Or you can take you chances with the "Penal ball" lottery.
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  5. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by FrankW View Post
    ...I HATE having unused gear/equipment laying around.
    The solution to that problem is an easy one. Get another upper.
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  6. #26
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    I think some of the confusion is coming from calling the SBR a rifle. It might be a kind of rifle, but it is also a weapon built around a registered NFA receiver with a specific permanent serial number, and what parts you hang on that receiver doesn't change the fact that it is now registered and bears an engraving that says so. Just like you can't turn a registered silencer back into a piece of pipe by taking it apart.


    The pistol-rifle-pistol thing is a completely separate issue, because neither of those things are part of the NFA. The way it was explained to me is that there is no chain of custody that the ATF could or would bother to establish that your pistol wasn't always a pistol. All the ATF knows is that some receivers were sold new as assembled rifles, so those receivers can never be pistols. New stripped receivers and new pistols don't have that status as "not pistols" that original rifles have.


    The government's point of view is that pistols are more regulated than rifles, so they don't want people making them out of rifles. But if you went to the trouble of buying a pistol (have to be over 21), then the fact that you turned you pistol into a less-scary rifle is not something they mind - you're making your pistol less concealable and they are all for it.
    Last edited by Gödel; 11-24-18 at 02:47.

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gödel View Post
    I think some of the confusion is coming from calling the SBR a rifle. It might be a kind of rifle, but it is also a weapon built around a registered NFA receiver with a specific permanent serial number, and what parts you hang on that receiver doesn't change the fact that it is now registered and bears an engraving that says so. Just like you can't turn a registered silencer back into a piece of pipe by taking it apart.


    The pistol-rifle-pistol thing is a completely separate issue, because neither of those things are part of the NFA. The way it was explained to me is that there is no chain of custody that the ATF could or would bother to establish that your pistol wasn't always a pistol. All the ATF knows is that some receivers were sold new as assembled rifles, so those receivers can never be pistols. New stripped receivers and new pistols don't have that status as "not pistols" that original rifles have.


    The government's point of view is that pistols are more regulated than rifles, so they don't want people making them out of rifles. But if you went to the trouble of buying a pistol (have to be over 21), then the fact that you turned you pistol into a less-scary rifle is not something they mind - you're making your pistol less concealable and they are all for it.
    SBRs are no longer SBRs when a 16” upper is installed. None of the SBR rules apply whilst in full rifle configuration.

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by MegademiC View Post
    SBRs are no longer SBRs when a 16” upper is installed. None of the SBR rules apply whilst in full rifle configuration.
    What are you basing that on? The receiver doesn't stop being registered and marked just because you swap barrels:

    https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/does...otgun-or-short

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gödel View Post
    What are you basing that on? The receiver doesn't stop being registered and marked just because you swap barrels:

    https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/does...otgun-or-short
    Facts based on definition of SBR, as well as ATF opinion.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/921

    https://www.guntrustlawyer.com/files...tate-lines.pdf

    https://www.atf.gov/file/55526/download

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by boombotz401 View Post
    It’d be a whole lot easier to just build a separate AR pistol lower


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    Ding! I stopped reading so however many votes this got, so... sage advice.

    Besides, why undo all of that hassle?

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