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Creeky73
13 September 2009, 10:52
In the process of tinkering with my first AR, I am of course finding myself with a slew of parts left over and am strongly considering building a second gun with them. Since it would be an "extra" I am thinking about making something fun but not very practical, like a pistol AR, but first I need to acquire a new lower. Should I buy a lower that is designated for pistol use, or can I set up my old lower as the pistol even though its serial # has it as a rifle? Also, what makes an AR a pistol, besides being limited to the short barrel? Is it illegal to put a stock on them? Is there a tax stamp involved like on SBR's? Also, if I buy a new lower for my primary rifle instead of the pistol, can I use the barrel that is registered to the old lower on it? Basically I have no idea how the whole process of registering these guns works, especially if you are building one from scratch. Any help is appreciated.

Army Chief
13 September 2009, 11:26
I believe the prevailing school of thought here is that ATF takes the position that "once a rifle, always a rifle," so the critical question is this: how is your receiver registered? If you don't buy/register it specifically for pistol applications, then the resulting weapon is in jeopardy of being ruled an illegal SBR.

More to the point, an AR pistol cannot possess a stock, nor can you put a conventional VFG on it without changing the classification of the weapon; something that many an HK SP89 owner discovered when he started shopping for a MP-5K VFG.

All of this notwithstanding, pistol ARs are registered and transferred as any other pistol would be, and do not require tax stamps or NFA approval.

AC

Creeky73
13 September 2009, 12:40
yes, what I am gathering is that since my current lower came original on a registered rifle, I had better not use that one for a pistol configuration. I have been reading a good deal about this on AR-15.com and most of those guys are saying that a new stripped lower is not sold as being either rifle or pistol, so technically you can use it for either, but it would be best to have a lower marked for pistol use just to avoid any question. Since it is not legal to have a VFG on one, would the presence of a 4-rail handguard bring up any question? I assume that since you can legally mount lights and laser devices on conventional pistols, you should be able to mount them on these, right?

TehLlama
13 September 2009, 13:11
The last detail is that dropping the pistol upper onto a stocked lower creates an SBR, a big no-no.

Some states treat pistol magazines differently as well - keep that in mind. For example, if I were to bring my SBR upper from home out to where I'm stationed, I'd have to get a pistol lower, and then Cali style bullet button-ize it with a 10rd magazine.

Liljake82
14 September 2009, 00:26
This is interesting. I have a friend that is into TC contenders and he has the same problem. IIRC he says a pistol reciever can be turned into a rifle but you can't turn a rifle reciever into a pistol.