Is this legal? SBR? Contemporary conversion?

[WestKentucky]

It’s not what I would call common but occasionally items pop up which are very questionable with respect to NFA law. One such item was listed seemingly as a bit of a joke on Gunbroker and I think it sits in murky waters regarding legality. So knowing very little about this other than the basic info provided by the seller, do we believe this to be a legally transferable firearm without jumping through NFA paperwork?

Not my item, no affiliation with seller, it just caught my attention. Personally I wouldn’t touch it with somebody else’s 10ft pole, but that’s just me.

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/890438157

 

[Jim Watson]

"Blacksmith made rusted custom 22 (pistol) made from Page-Lewis rifle action"
Not legal.

A good many years ago, the centerfold gun in American Handgunner was a pump action pistol, very nicely done. The builder started with a Winchester 1890 .22 WRF. He rechambered to .22 WRM and jiggered the feeding for the longer cartridge.
He cut the barrel to 8", the magazine to match, and cut the foreend down to just a knurled metal sleeve around the magazine tube as a pump handle.
He cut, bent, and welded the tangs into a Bisley shape pistol grip.
Sights, grips, and blue were professionally done and it was a well proportioned pistol of odd design.

Unfortunately, he had built it without prior approval and when the feds saw it, they took it away from him.

 

[dogtown tom]

That there.....is a firearm made from a rifle, requiring an SBR tax stamp.
Seller should know better.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

"Blacksmith made rusted custom 22 made from Page-Lewis rifle action."
It would be a concealable weapon made from a longgun, a short barrel rifle, SBR,
transferable only if federally registered, on a Form 4 after paying the federal transfer tax, $200.

If totally blacksmith made copying the Page-Lewis rifle action, it would be a handgun;
and, if it was made in Mexico, it could be the co-star in a Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt romantic comedy.

 

[bearcreek]

Unfortunately, he had built it without prior approval and when the feds saw it, they took it away from him.

Is that all they did? Confiscate it? No charges?

 

[Ohen Cepel]

If it were a rifle action, but old enough to be an antique would that change the SBR status? I know that is likely not the case but wasn't sure about antique SBRs (if they exist).

 

[Carl N. Brown]

The ATF has reclassified Trapper rifles made before 1934 with short barrels 12, 14 inches as Curio & Relic Title I rifles no longer NFA Title II short barrel rifles. That's the only SBR exception I know about.

The intent of Congress in the 1934 National Firearms Act was to criminalise evasion of the uniform pistol acts by sawing off rifles and shotguns to make concealable weapons. To me Intent of Congress trump's Letter of the Law, but as Frank Zimring pointed out, the 1968 and 1934 federal acts are so poorly written, they are hard to interpret and enforce logically.

I would not expect an antique rifle pre-1898 manufacture remade post- 1934 into a handgun to be an exception to the general rule that you can not make a long gun into a concealable weapon without registering it as an SBR or SBS on a Form 1 before doing the conversion.

Kinda like Canada: you can buy a factory made short barrel shotgun (such as 14" barrel) as a more restricted type, but you cannot take a less restricted long gun (19" minimum barrel) and saw it off yourself.

 

[GAF]

What guy said in ad seems more like a political statement that a gun offered for sale.