Short barreled rifle vs long barreled pistol??

In Title 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations, you'll find all the definitions of these various items: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/27/479.11

It boils down like this:
1) A rifle is a rifled-barrel arm that has a shoulder stock. An SBR is such a weapon that is made to have, or is "made from a rifle", such that the barrel is less than 16" long and/or the overall length is less than 26" (with any folding or collapsing stocks fully extended).

2) A handgun is a weapon designed to fire with a hand, or hands. Its barrel must be rifled or it will fall into the category of an NFA "Any Other Weapon."

One of the sticky wickets left over from the original cobbled-apart (lol) wording of the NFA is that 26" is the limit defined as "concealable." So, the point with SBRs and SBSs was that if they were over 26" long, they were considered not a concealable weapon, and so exempt from the NFA. THis only makes sense when you understand that the original version of the NFA was supposed to prohibit handguns as well. Without that restriction, this "concealable" language makes no sense, but it's still there.

3) The fact that there are firearms that are over 26" long and which do not have any shoulder stock lead to the inclusion of the term "Other Firearm" on the form 4473 transfer paper. This is where things like pistol-only grip shotgun (type things...they aren't legally shotguns) go, as well as semi-auto belt-fed weapons with no shoulder stock, very long barreled rifled handguns that don't have stocks but still are above 26" in overall length, and also things like bare AR-15 receivers that don't have a shoulder stock (yet).


Probably the only place where the difference between a rifled long-barreled pistol and a rifled "other firearm" really matters is in the case of AR-15 based pistols and the use of vertical forward grips.

Under the NFA, any handgun that has a vertical fore-grip installed becomes an NFA "Any Other Weapon." So if your AR-15 pistol is under 26" in overall length you can't add a vertical foregrip. But, no such restriction applies to "Other Firearms." So if you build an AR-15 pistol-looking weapon that's more than 26" long, it is perfectly lawful to add a vertical foregrip to it.

Weird, huh?

Sam nailed it. But, if you want to think of it in the simplest terms possible, the difference is if it has a shoulder stock or not.

That part alone can be confusing, however, since in recent years manufacturers have been making pistols that have “arm braces” that look like stocks but aren’t. Where’s the line drawn between a shoulder stock and an arm brace? That’s a question that the ATF (and the courts, if it comes to that) has to answer. Which is why anyone who attaches an arm brace (or something similar) to a pistol should make sure the ATF has already decided that the arm brace in question is not a stock. Most manufacturers of those types of products will include a copy of the ATF letter in the box, or at least make it available on their website.

Sam1911 said:

3) The fact that there are firearms that are over 26" long and which do not have any shoulder stock lead to the inclusion of the term "Other Firearm" on the form 4473 transfer paper. This is where things like pistol-only grip shotgun (type things...they aren't legally shotguns) go, as well as semi-auto belt-fed weapons with no shoulder stock, very long barreled rifled handguns that don't have stocks but still are above 26" in overall length, and also things like bare AR-15 receivers that don't have a shoulder stock (yet).

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I’m not sure if the last part here is a mistake or simply an omission, but for the sake of complete correctness I’ll assume it was a mistake (and I’ll apologize in advance if it was actually just something Sam omitted for simplicity’s sake).

Even if an AR lower receiver is fully built out with a stock, it’s still transferred the same as a bare lower receiver without a stock. And — as long as that built lower receiver with a stock didn’t come from a firearm that was previously assembled first as a rifle — it can be treated like a bare lower receiver by the owner. This means it can be built as a pistol just like a bare, stripped lower can be, just make sure you remove the stock first (and it’s a good idea to also remove any buffer tube that can accept that stock, which can help protect you from constructive possession issues).

www.typicalshooter.com/atf-putting-a-stock-on-an-ar-15-lower-does-not-make-it-a-rifle/amp/

The reason that an AR lower receiver with a stock on it is treated as a receiver and not a rifle is because it doesn’t meet the federal definition of a rifle since it doesn’t have the required parts.

Disclaimer: This is all federal law, obviously state and local laws may vary.

Ah, should have said "Isn't a rifle, yet."

What about this:

I used to have a Ruger 10/22 with a Butler Creek folding stock and a carbon fiber barrel and wanted to enter it into our club's pistol competition. My reasoning was that, since once a rifle is always a rifle, removing the stock only got me in trouble legally if it shortened the overall length of the weapon to under 26". With the folding portion of the stock removed the remaining rifle was 26.5" and fired from a pistol grip with no vertical foregrip. It would be, in fact, fired like a pistol with both hands on the grip. In my mind, this is still a rifle (always a rifle) and due to its length has not been made into a short barreled rifle.
The guys at the range were concerned that by removing the folding portion of the stock, the rifle would transform into something not designed to be fired from the shoulder -- an other weapon -- and had therefore become illegal.

It doesn't matter now. I moved and haven't been a member of the club for years, and their club means their rules. But I've always wondered who was correct legally.

I used to have a Ruger 10/22 with a Butler Creek folding stock and a carbon fiber barrel and wanted to enter it into our club's pistol competition. My reasoning was that, since once a rifle is always a rifle, removing the stock only got me in trouble legally if it shortened the overall length of the weapon to under 26". With the folding portion of the stock removed the remaining rifle was 26.5" and fired from a pistol grip with no vertical foregrip. It would be, in fact, fired like a pistol with both hands on the grip. In my mind, this is still a rifle (always a rifle) and due to its length has not been made into a short barreled rifle.
The guys at the range were concerned that by removing the folding portion of the stock, the rifle would transform into something not designed to be fired from the shoulder -- an other weapon -- and had therefore become illegal.

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The law doesn't say it has to remain shoulder-fired. It says that if it is a rifle it can't be shorter than 26" overall and can't have a barrel shorter than 16".

tkopp said:

What about this:

I used to have a Ruger 10/22 with a Butler Creek folding stock and a carbon fiber barrel and wanted to enter it into our club's pistol competition.

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Unless its a Charger it will never be a "pistol", no matter what you do.

My reasoning was that, since once a rifle is always a rifle,

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Not true.
FIRST a rifle, always a rifle.
Any pistol can be converted into a rifle and subsequently converted back into pistol configuration. Back and forth as often as you wish.

removing the stock only got me in trouble legally if it shortened the overall length of the weapon to under 26". With the folding portion of the stock removed the remaining rifle was 26.5" and fired from a pistol grip with no vertical foregrip.

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And according to Federal law it remains a rifle.

It would be, in fact, fired like a pistol with both hands on the grip.

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How you fire it is irrelevant.
In fact, you could attach a second vertical grip and it remains a rifle.

In my mind, this is still a rifle (always a rifle) and due to its length has not been made into a short barreled rifle.

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Then why try to enter it into a pistol competition?
BTW, it's still a rifle in the mind of ATF as well.

The guys at the range were concerned that by removing the folding portion of the stock, the rifle would transform into something not designed to be fired from the shoulder -- an other weapon -- and had therefore become illegal.

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They are wrong.
It was originally designed to be fired from the shoulder. As long as you don't go less than 16" bbl or 26" OAL you still have a rifle under Federal law.

dogtown tom said:

Then why try to enter it into a pistol competition?

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The targets were clustered at a good distance and the fast-cycling low reciprocating mass of the bolt coupled with the relatively heavy weight of the firearm effectively took recoil out of the equation. I never had to swing the thing much which would have made the length awkward. Plus I could have walked around with a better than two foot 'pistol' hanging off my hip in a shotgun holster. These competitions were for fun, not for serious.