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As in a masterkey application?  

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No.

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No.

ETA:
(5) The term ``shotgun'' means a weapon designed or redesigned, made
or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or
redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of an explosive to fire
through a smooth bore either a number of ball shot or a single
projectile for each single pull of the trigger.
   (6) The term ``short-barreled shotgun'' means a shotgun having one
or more barrels less than eighteen inches in length and any weapon made
from a shotgun (whether by alteration, modification or otherwise) if
such a weapon as modified has an overall length of less than twenty-six
inches.
   (7) The term ``rifle'' means a weapon designed or redesigned, made
or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or
redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of an explosive to fire
only a single projectile through a rifled bore for each single pull of
the trigger.
   (8) The term ``short-barreled rifle'' means a rifle having one or
more barrels less than sixteen inches in length and any weapon made from
a rifle (whether by alteration, modification, or otherwise) if such
weapon, as modified, has an overall length of less than twenty-six
inches.

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So you could have an AR lower registered as both an SBR and SBS?

Sweet.  

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Also wondering if you can put a .410 Short Barrel upper on a MG lower without approval...???

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Also wondering if you can put a .410 Short Barrel upper on a MG lower without approval...???

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Would require 2 $200 tax stamps I'd think.

I'd be interested to see how that plays out.

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A MG is it's own class.  There's no such thing as a short-barrel machinegun.  I think you could put any upper on it you want, although don't take that to the bank.

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MGs are simply MGs.  They don't have definitions like rifles and shotguns do.

ATF doesn't like changing the class of a weapon, though.  That's why the conversions that changed a MAC from a pistol caliber to a rifle caliber were denied or ruled to be new machineguns.

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Which makes no sense;
if I have a RR M16, I can put a 9mm upper on it. What's the difference?

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Yes, but it would no longer be a rifled bore machinegun... it would be a smoothbore machinegun.

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That's just the rationale they've used before.  I think it was the same rationale that made the 8mm beltfed conversions for the AR illegal.

Tony_K has explained it much better before in the NFA forums.  I'll have to see if I can dig it up.

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IIRC, the 8mm upper stood as an MG on it's own because they could get it to fire without the lower.  Somewhere I've seen the pic where they rigged it up with chains and zip ties.

I cross posted this to the NFA forum.

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IIRC, the 8mm upper stood as an MG on it's own because they could get it to fire without the lower.  Somewhere I've seen the pic where they rigged it up with chains and zip ties.



I cross posted this to the NFA forum.



ETA:  Nevermind.  I was thinking of the RPD upper for the MACs that Savage was trying to build.



http://jpfo.org/images02/BM3000.jpg

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Yup.  I'm curious how the ATF will handle that.

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This shit is SO stupid. With enough zip ties I could get a pencil to be a MG.

I always hope for and expect the best ... but I also always prepare for the worst. That applies doubly to anything under ATF's purview.

For the record, I believe ATF has no objections at all to pistol-caliber, or sub-caliber, conversions of MGs. A 9mm conversion for an M16? No problem. It's when you start going in the opposite direction that ATF Legal Branch will find a way to stop you.

Worse, in most cases, they will give initial approval, and only after hundreds or thousands are sold, do they reverse themselves, and now you have folks who paid good bucks owning instant contraband.

BRP made and sold hundreds of its $5k XMG beltfed 8mm uppers for the M16, over almost a decade, before ATF reversed itself and said they could only legally be used on semi hosts. A lot of my friends lost money on that one.

SOCOM got ATF approval and sold about a dozen of its 7.62x39 RPD M11 beltded uppers, at IIRC about $8k each, before ATF reversed itself and ruled they were post-sample MGs. A close friend lost $$$ in that one, too.

The approve-then-reverse is standard operating procedure for ATF. Since they both write and then enforce the rules, it makes it easier for them to conduct high-profile raids, proving how well they are doing their jobs (and showing why their budget should be increased).

So you have debacles like the Akins Accellerator, initially approved by ATF, then after tens of thousands of $1k stocks had been made, they retroactively ruled them to be machine guns, and demanded owners remove the springs and mail them to ATF. Owners were left with very, very expensive 10/22 stocks ... and somewhere in an ATF warehouse, there's a barrel of springs rusting away.

ATF allowed Cole's Distributing to import and sell hundreds of demilled Uzi parts kits, before deciding they had been improperly demilled. So they served a search warrant on Cole's, confiscated their sales records, and went knocking on customers' doors and confiscating the kits. No one ever got their money back.

I could write an entire book listing similar ATF actions over the years. So I have learned to look critically at every new NFA product before investing my too-much-to-lose cash. Just because it is for sale nationally, does not mean ATF won't come knocking.

As far as the other part of your post, regarding M16 lowers ... I found ATF Ruling 2008-1 to be particularly scary. Google and read it (I don't have a link handy).

That's their decision to reclassify the upper of the FNC to be the receiver, rather than the lower. Their argument:

ATF has reconsidered its classification of the lower assembly of the FNC rifle as the receiver. The upper assembly of the FNC rifle is more properly classified as the receiver. The upper assembly of the FNC rifle houses the bolt and provides a connection point for the barrel. Moreover, the upper assembly is classified as the receiver on similar types of firearms, to include other FN rifles, such as the FN FAL and FN SCAR.

Of course, that also is in keeping with many other firearms –– HKs, etc.

Now, what is to prevent ATF from reclassifying M16s –– or M11s –– to make the portion that "houses the bolt and provides a connection point to the barrel" to be the receiver?

I wish I could be optimistic. A couple of decades watching ATF operate has drained that from me.

Your Mileage May Vary.

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This shit is SO stupid. With enough zip ties I could get a pencil to be a MG.

 

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I'm sure there wasn't tens of thousands, but someone should get all of those people together and file a lawsuit against the ATF.

People sue the government all the time. Why didn't this get any traction?