Some Options for AR Pistols
BY PGF
1 year, 7 months ago
If you own one of these things with a brace you have a decision to make. Doing nothing is still a decision. The article is about more than just the brace and covers AR pistols in .300 AAC Blackout among other things.
Like most people I can shoot more accurately with a rifle. An AR pistol with a brace is not a rifle but it does give at least three points of contact when used as intended. I bought a stripped lower receiver from my local gun shop and ordered a lower build kit from Palmetto State Armory. Online an upper receiver with a ten-inch barrel was ordered. Besides a red dot optic and flashlight, a detachable sling was desired. An SBA3 pistol brace was chosen because of the good reviews and the ambidextrous QD sling socket. After everything was assembled it became one of my favorite firearms. Accurate, low profile, in a caliber that had dozens of projectiles in weight and configuration with many suitable propellants that could be experimented with. But then came January of 2023.
The ATF rule 2021R-08F, almost 300 pages of nebulous wording of what classifies as a short-barreled rifle (SBR) includes overall length, weight, and eye relief of an optic. What it boils down to is if you have a barrel less than sixteen inches and a pistol brace the ATF now considers it an SBR.
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On May 22, 2023 at 7:52 pm, Miles said:
The article has this mistake:
“Keep in mind that once your lower receiver has a rifle upper on it or you decide to install a rifle barrel it is forever a rifle in the eyes of the ATF. There is no going back.”
That is incorrect
ATF lost a court battle that wound up at SCOTUS in U.S. v Thompson Center.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-0164.ZO.html
That, along along with ATF’s own regulation: ATF Rul. 2011-4
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/ruling/2011-4-pistols-configured-rifles-rifles-configured-pistols/download
is that a pistol (that ‘started life’ as a pistol) can be configured into a rifle (NFA laws applying of course) and back into a pistol at the owner’s discretion.
The gun owners of the U.S. are often their own worst enemies when it comes to fact as opposed to ignorant rumor control.
On May 23, 2023 at 1:11 pm, scott s. said:
The whole “short-barrel rifle” bit needs to be done away with.
On May 25, 2023 at 1:49 am, Steve Ramsey said:
Regards the AR-15″Buffer Tube”, that contains a counterweight, and the recoil spring, and allows room for the bolt to cycle. It is essential to the function of rifle by design.
With the advent of the M-4 carbine and all carbine versions of the AR-15 these versions came the six position collapsible stock, which uses a special buffer tube with a ridge with holes to hold the stock vertical, and provide latching holes.
The early AR-15 pistols came with the plain buffer tube, and early pistol brace versions were friction fit rubber over the plain cylindrical tube.
Most later AR pistols however, came with more solid braces designed to be adjustable in length, and utilized a carbine buffer tube. All were approve by BATF as non NFA items both alone and as attached to the firearm.
Now BATF says the brace must be removed and essentially destroyed to avoid a federal felony. They do not want it available for quick re-attachment and would prosecute you under the doctrine of constructive possession.
But at no time has the BATF expressed concern for a pistol with a carbine style buffer tube, that can accept an actual shoulder stock in about 2 seconds.
I believe they know and understand this ,and simply did not address it in order to have the ability to snare carbine buffer equipped AR pistol owners into a beef over the constructive possession of a short barreled rifle if they also separately possess an AR-15 carbine stock, or even another AR-15 carbine or rifle with a collapsible stock.
Thus BATF’s demand to destroy the brace is a mere deception.
If you think I am stretching it, there are two men in prison right now because they sold a etched to scale picture of a machine gun part. BATF put them there.