Quoted:
Quoted:
When you say "assembled rifle lower", what exactly do you mean by that?
A lower with a stock that has never had a barreled upper of 16" or greater attached, is NOT a rifle. It is still to be transferred as other.
Having a AR pistol and an extra upper for it while owning a AR rifle is NOT posession of a sbr. I understand how people can be uneasy about it but you can have spare parts. Now I wouldn't go crazy with five short uppers with only one stripped, pistol, or non rifle lowers.
Any pistol may be converted to a rifle and back to a pistol. You may not go from rifle to pistol unless the firearm started as a pistol.
So if every build starts as a pistol, it gives you more options.
I'm sure many will disagree but not to long ago I posted links supporting what I have said.
Oh, it is also perfectly legal to use any recwiver extension tube you want, so long as the stack body is removed.
Interesting stuff to know there... Anything I have that is not CURRENTLY assembled as a rifle has never actually had an upper attached... So I guess everything I have is still a "reciever" in the eyes of the ATF.
As for a pistol being able to go back to a rifle... Isn't this one of those grey areas?... I mean... who's to say my recievers were actually built first as a pistol... Then changed to rifle / SBR? What actually qualifies as a Pistol... Does screwing the Pistol Buffer tube into the RX mean it's now a pistol... Or Does it have to be married to a Pistol upper to become a Pistol?
Or am I forgetting something? Like... Is a Pistol lower supposed to be engraved as such?... I thought that just applied to SBRs.
LOTS of troublesome stuff in this whole "whats legal and whats not" problem.
You are correct. Any receiver you have, stock or not, that has never been previously assembled as a rifle, may be built into a pistol. The ONLY possible caveat could be, how did the dealer transfer it. That however may or may not have any weight of law because the definition of what a rifle is can not be changed by something being transferred incorrectly.
See this discussion on the topic.
For the issue of pistol ---> rifle ---> pistol. That used to be a no no except for one specific firearm that had a court case over it. The ATF has since issued a new ruling that covers the issue as well as the issue of having extra or spare parts. There has been MUCH discussion on it and the actual language takes a few readings to really grasp. Bing
ATF ruling 2011-4.
For "when" a receiver becomes a pistol, I would maintain the same criteria applies as to when a receiver becomes a rifle. For a pistol that would be when a barreled upper of LESS than sixteen inches is attached WITHOUT a stock.
Having receivers that COULD be assembled into a rifle OR a pistol and having a unattached barreled upper of sixteen inches or greater, no more creates a a rifle than having receivers that COULD be assembled into a rifle or a pistol and having unattached barreled uppers of less than sixteen inches creates a pistol OR a SBR. Read the ruling.... Now if you have nothing but "rifles" and a barreled upper of sixteen inches or less, then that barreled upper has no useful purpose other than to create a SBR. If you only owned one receiver and built it as a pistol but then also bought a barreled upper greater than sixteen inches and a stock, you would have the legal ability to convert from pistol to rifle and back. In that scenario, when your receiver is legally assembled as a rifle but you still have the barreled upper less than sixteen inches, is that a sbr? Absolutely not.
I am not a lawyer and nothing I have said should be taken as legal advice.