I am almost finished with my changes to accommodate these new laws.

One rifle is featureless.
One rifle is now rimfire.
One rifle has a fixed magazine.
One rifle was already a registered assault weapon.

My ten round magazines arrived in the mail today, to supplement the ten rounders I already had.  I want to get some mag couplers for these, if I can.

I ordered some MEAN ARMS reloaders for the fixed magazine match rifle.

I've decided to convert my high cap magazines to ten rounders.  Some have commercial conversion kits.  Others will have a home-made conversion of necessity, as no commercial parts are available - think epoxy, rivets and welding.

This has been expensive and BITTER.

And we all are much safer as a result.

I'm still in the decision phase.

This.  Not quite sure what I'm going to do. 

Guys, figuring out what do was not trivial.  I had to first figure out what the laws required, then decide what was the purpose of each rifle and what were the best options to achieve each goal, then what made economic sense.  It would be easy to spend thousands of dollars.  It was actually quite a puzzle.

Just finished the latest CRPA webinar.  Soon there are going to be an awful lot of new felons in CA whether they know it or not.

eta You know that old saying that goes something like "Ignorance of the law is no excuse"?  Even the CRPA/NRA attorneys who's job is trying to interpret CA gun laws are uncertain about the regs.   The DOJ and politicians have created a new class of criminals.   Just like the 2000 registration, not advertised, not announced. 

I look at it this way.  

Jerry brown said the new term limit laws didn't apply to him because the were passed after he already served 2 terms.  

The new gun laws don't apply to me because I already had them before the laws were passed.  

I think we should all say no by taking this to court.  It should be fought based upon violations of the principles embodied in the Second Amendment.  It should not require some poor schmoe to run afoul of the law and fight it through the criminal justice system.

All of it is going to court but the mag ban goes into place on 7/1.   CRPA/NRA has initiated legal actions and more are planned but everything moves at the speed of law so don't expect anything for a long, long time.

This is why an injunction is needed.  An injunction will avoid the harm we (individually and collectively) will incur in meeting the 7/1 deadline.

As I understand it, an injunction requires a judge. Most of the judges were appointed positions by the single party government democrats running this place.

The injunction will be denied. If it's granted by a judge, who follows the law of the land, there are judges ready to issue a stay

One positive thing in my view is the gun stores picked up on the changes right off to continue selling firearms.

During the original off list lower effort, most guns stores were out of the loop or unwilling to take a chance. In San Diego there were only a couple of places you could buy a off list lower.

Anyone make an epoxy or similar product that has a low melting point? That would make it possible to melt out of the mag later.

Not that I'm aware of. Maybe a woodworking or metal-crafting hobby site?   Haven't looked at the most recent mag rules implementing the law, IIRC they were withdrawn?  I believe they tried to specify methods that would be acceptable. In any event. the idea is that one isn't supposed to be able to revert to prior capacity (anymore).  That's inconsistent with allowing "fixed" mag procedures that can be altered if leaving the state, 3 round plugs (a stick) for waterfowl (and other?) hunting with shotguns, etc.  I'd expect to see movement soon on the litigation side.

You could also consider a product called CerroSafe.  It is a low melting point metal alloy.  You can pour it into the magazine and fill the space.  It will harden into a metal plug/block.  You can melt it and pour it out for maintenance of the magazine.  I think the issue is going to be cost, if you have as many magazines as I do.

Epoxies lose their adhesive strength and begin to decompose at about 350 degrees (F) and above.  A true epoxy does not "melt".  Epoxy is a (two part) curing resin system, more of a thermoset rather than a thermoplastic.  There are plastics that do melt but epoxy isn't one of them.  

What you are referring to is called a thermoplastic - a material that melts with elevated temperature, resolidifies as it cools, can be remelted,...  PVC, styrene, .... there are so many.

Those are the materials.  Then there is process (how to apply the material).

Perhaps one way to go is purchasing and installing a commercially made magazine block, then melting it in place to make it permanent.

None of the above are likely to work if you have a plastic follower and/or base pad, as those items will get whacked by the heat.  Luckily, metal base pads and followers are available for AR's.  


Alternative method - drill small hole near base of magazine body; insert metal tube of sufficient height to limit capacity to ten rounds; match drill hole in tube; rivet tube into magazine.  Install base pad.

There are so many ways to do this it boggles the mind.  When magazines cost only $20, the problem is doing it cost-effectively.  Also, with tens or hundreds of magazines to do, the individual is faced with the issue of total labor hours required to do the modifications.  

The problem is the need to do it, at all.

Am I missing something, regarding the disassembly of magazines as parts?

The law says no parts kits, so a completely disassembled mag in a bag is banned. This was to block the mag kits sold online.

I can break apart mags, placing springs in one bag, mag bodies in another bag, and so on. I can modify some mags to 10rds and the rest become parts.

Maybe.  I don't think anybody really knows yet.  As of January as per the CRPA webinar the possession of all of the parts to build a mag = mag.  Now?  Unknown.  It's nice of the DOJ to give us absolutely no warning.  Again.

I'm going to assume the worst for now.  My guess is that high capacity magazines and/or the parts required to fully assemble said magazines will be illegal to possess in the state as of 7/1/17.   Can you disassemble all of your mags and move one of the components (base plate, spring, follower, body) to another location thereby not possessing all of the parts together and avoid prosecution?  Dunno'. 

Non compliance is great in theory.  But CRPA legal says it's a bad idea.  Their advice is to comply and let them fight it out in court. 

eta Except no one knows what "comply" means when it comes to mags.

As bad as it is to lose ten or even a hundred magazines, it represents only $200 to $2000 dollars to the individual.  That's not trivial, but it is hard to do anything cost-effectively when replacement cost is $20 per magazine.


What's really not trivial is that $200 per owner multiplied by the 9 million gun owners in California.  That's $1.8 billion total, just for magazines.  Bullet Button conversions and/or registration costs add to that.


Heck, I was going to buy a 458 SOCOM upper and convert the mags for use with that cartridge, as a means of preserving some value from the previously-grandfathered magazines I own.  The thing is, the upper, mag conversions, dies, etc, cost $1k, to avoid a $200 loss in magazines.  

I may still do it.



<All the above are rough order of magnitude numbers.>

I tried looking at Calguns to see what might be happening that hasn't shown up in the hundreds of send money e-mails.  Didn't see anything on mags but looked more at general stuff.  It looked like there was a legislative procedure underway to delay the "registration" required date back 6 months.  That was supposed to be acted on yesterday, haven't seen anything new there yet today.

Any mag injunction activity might have been in different discussions.

They filed for an injunction in one of the two suits against the mag ban.

I don't really know how that all works in the legal niceties.  Aside from any issues regarding the taking of property, 2nd Amendment, etc.,but I would think it would be hard to argue against an injunction where the regulations were proposed in a semi timely fashion then withdrawn and not revamped or resubmitted.  The state had said, we need to define what must be done to be compliant: you need to do a, b or c (or maybe a and b and c - badly written proposed regs).  However, in the past various other approaches or maybe one like rivet but not epoxy, etc., were used so now the person who thought they were already in compliance, purchased in good faith an item sold legally, or is attempting to make the necessary changes to magazines to comply, can't know what methods or approaches the state will apply to determine permanence.

So the initials rules were excessive and wrong.  Or the standards by which compliance will be judged are unclear, vague, unenforceable and can't be complied with.  So stay implementation until all of the arguments are resolved.

The injunction was granted and is in place.


My MEAN Arms reloaders showed up in the mail today.  I pray this purchase was money "wasted".

Featureless or upper/lower separation. Registration is not an option...

Yeah, I wrote that comment in May.  All of my rifles are featureless now.  Seemed like the logical solution.  But we all know it's temporary.  They're coming after all semi automatics soon.  Bet on it.

Agreed, I'd put money on it that they aren't done. Only a fool would think that.

I'm open to other options such as 22lr conversion put am not a fan of the couple-few options that require upper/lower (partial) separation...

Is the injunction just for the one bill, or can it be applied to local city ordinances who have passed mag bans?

I'm thinking just the one bill, so LA and SF bans are still in effect

I found the answer to my question. LA just repealed the ultra compact pistol law and the standard capacity magazine law

The law must still be active in SF

https://www.turners.com/info/crpa-nra-la-repeals-ultracompact#.WaX09lGGPRY

The action taken was by the L.A. City Council so it only applied to the LA laws.  Reports on the drive home news were that the small handgun law was  repealed unanimously without t discussion which means that the reporting sources probably either didn't know or didn't want to really detail why the change was made so quickly and sort of quietly.  They didn't report the mag law changes.  I'd quess SF might hold out for the press pluses (in their eyes) knowing that they will lose a court case.  I've only heard of a case or two and one was a rather odd minority community activist trying to push his 2nd Amendment rights by driving erratically and waving guns out the car window on LA streets (IIRC).