A friend of mine has a 'Patriot' AR pistol in .223.  It looks good, but is a complete POS.  I cleaned and lubed the thing to death, but it still functions like crap.  You can even see bullet strikes on the crown of the muzzle brake.  
What I thought we might do to salvage it is convert it to a post-ban rifle, if that's legal. Slap a bushy A3 dissipator upper on it, if'n I get my way.
Apparently it is of preban manufacture, however it left the factory as a pistol, so my understanding is that it's disqualified from having those cosmetic features the gubmint deems evil, and would be considered a post-ban reciever.

Is this OK to do?  Or is the ATF gonna burn my house down for posting this?

It's legal, but why would you want to turn a $2500 pre-ban pistol into a $500 post-ban rifle?

Have you consider just trying a new barrelled pistol upper?

7.5 inch uppers go for about 300$. you could also try diffrent buffer(some of those supershort pistol buffers look a bit "shakola" to me). it wouldnt cost much to replace every part on the gun in question. if all else fails, take it to a gun show and sell or trade. hell, i bet you could trade it for 3 brand new past ban rifles. on a personal note, i would sell it, and buy an ar50 before the ban.

Think it's worth that much?  Damn, I just had it in my head that it was a POS and wanted to make it useful. I'm gonna tell him to sell or trade it, but right now it's in questionable legal status and attempting to sell it would be detrimental to my buddy's freedom.

Thanks for the input, guys.

well, just make double sure its preban,but if its apatriot,im pretty sure it is. it isworht some serious cash