ATF issues guidelines on receiver sales

Is it just me, or is this law slowly becoming unworkable?

Yea...they even put a new check-box on the 4473 to show that it was a receiver.

And because the water rejects it, it is a witch.

Not to worry, Jim, the atfe will figure out a way to make it worse and more illegible. The beetre to screw you with.

That's consistent with my experience.

I purchased 2 S&W M&P recievers earlier this summer at Atlantic firearms in Silver Spring. There was much confusion since I'm a VA resident.

1) They made me fill out all paperwork - including maryland paperwork - and logged sale in as to me.

2) Since they were recievers I wasn't allowed to take possession of them as a non resident (we went back and forth on the idea that AR15 recievers were the same as handguns). They ended up shipping them (no charge) to Virginia Arms in Mannassas VA.
3)VA Arms logged them in and made me fill out NICS and VA State police form. Treated it as any other transfer.

Does this mean any AR receiver may now be made into a pistol? (As opposed to only those so marked.)

Yes, any "virgin" reciever that has never been a rifle, can be made into a pistol. However the ATF has said that the burden to prove that the reviever has never been a rifle falls upon the owner and they recommend that you have a letter from the manufaturer stateing that it left the factory as a stripped reciever. The pistol marking in non regulatory. It's an industy thing and not required by ATF

I'm not an attorney.

This was treated in BATF Newsletters in fall 1998 and Spring 1999.

The focus then was on pistol-grip-only 'shotguns' like Mossberg 500 "Cruisers" or similar Rem 870 models. Such firearms are not shotguns per GCA '68 since they are not shoulder-fireable, and thus cannot be sold to those in 18-21 age range.

BATF did allow that if a buttstock were thrown in the package at the time of sale it could be sold as a shotgun.

Bill Wiese
San Jose CA

Seems like the ATF is actively trying to confuse the issue. Example: a bare receiver sold as a 'rifle' on the old 4473 (BTW: how very-very stupid of them to give a new, different, form the same old number) but currently un-built... can that be built up as a pistol? My guess would be that in that case - you're writing your own arrest warrant.

Complications caused by bare receiver sales; something that used to be a rarity. At least the BATFE is narrowly interpreting the CFR and not making shit up.

There are interesting opportunities here.

You can get a bare Mossberg receiver, put a pistol grip on it and a 12" rifled barrel, and call it a pistol instead of an AOW ... heh.

OK, Kristopher...i'm going out on a limb here, But assuming your talking about a 12 guage barrel, I think you just made a Destructive Device.

Negative. A twelve gauge only becomes a DD if some hack serving a sitting president unilaterally declares it to be one.

Specifically the Striker-12, the USAS-12, and the Streetsweeper.

No reason was given other than the Sec.Treasury simply declaring that he was retroactively declaring them DDs because a 12 gauge shell instantly became "unsporting" when it was chambered in one of these firearms.

The worst kind of executive fiat bullshit from the Clinton Whitehouse.

"However the ATF has said that the burden to prove that the reviever has never been a rifle falls upon the owner and they recommend that you have a letter from the manufaturer stateing that it left the factory as a stripped reciever."

That's an interesting statement coming fom a law enforcement agency. But it doesn't suprise my coming from the BATFE.

Hmmm... so as in the case of a Thompson / Center Encore pistol, it (by my understanding) is legal to later assemble the pistol as a rifle by changing the barrel to one longer than 16" and swapping the pistol grip for a shoulder stock.

The reverse is not true. You may not convert an Encore frame that left the factory as a 'rifle frame' to a pistol configuration. That constitutes manufacturing an illegal SBR.

At least that was the case prior to this letter.

If this ruling states that bare frames have no existing designation as pistol or rifle, and the original 'first functional' configuration of the firearm now determines its label (pistol or rifle), wouldn't it then be in one's best interest to assemble ALL receivers first as pistols for greater 'flexibility' of function?