[Zedicus]

I was sitting here looking at pics of various rifles and the thought just happened to pop into my mind.

I know that you can get NFA M249's (that is if you feel like spending the price of a small house for a gun)
But, can you get NFA M4's?:confused:

[cordex]

At the very least ...

You can get lowers for the M16 series.
You can get whatever fire control kit you'd like (safe, semi, full/safe, semi, burst/safe, semi, burst, full).
You can get uppers and stocks to imitate the M4 series carbine.

Close enough, right?

[Hkmp5sd]

You can buy a registered M16/A1/A2/sear and make one. That's what I did. Put a Bushmaster M4 upper on a M16A1 lower. Given the M4 has 3-shot burst instead of full-auto, I like my homemade one better. :)

You can also buy belt fed uppers, attach your NFA lower and have a homemade SAW. One company even has a MG-42 upper in 8mm or .308 that you can attach your NFA lower to creating a semi-clone of the original MG-42.

http://www.brpguns.com/images/c31.jpg.jpg

[ShaiVong]

How much are M16 lowers going for nowadays?

[Hkmp5sd]

Around $8,000 to $14,000 for registered M16s.

[Chipperman]

They have gone up sharply in the past year and 1/2.
I believe this is at least in part due to the Shrike.

[4v50 Gary]

Getting the registered lower is the key. You can do whatcha want with the upper.

[Zedicus]

You can get lowers for the M16 series.
You can get whatever fire control kit you'd like (safe, semi, full/safe, semi, burst/safe, semi, burst, full).
You can get uppers and stocks to imitate the M4 series carbine.

Close enough, right?
Nope...

[cordex]

Nope...
Then what are you looking for? I figured if it were good enough for Uncle Sam, it'd be good enough for you. As I recall, they've done a lot of conversions of older M16s to the M4 style carbine by playing with fire control parts, swapping the upper, the stock and the buffer assembly. This is not acceptable for your purposes?

I think you'll also find that a lot of the "M16" lowers out there aren't really "M16" (as in, the military designation) lowers, but converted AR-15 and clone lowers.

Are you looking for the functionality of an M4, or are you looking for the characters "M4" stamped on the side of the gun?

[MagKnightX]

What I want to know is, with a NFA M16 lower, can you attach a less-than-16"-even-with-MB barrel WITHOUT registering it also as a SBR, or do you need at least 2 tax stamps for that? Because doesn't the actual M4 use a 14.5in bbl?

[JShirley]

Yes.

FWIW, we had *1* older M4 in the arms rooms that was FA instead of 3-round burst. The user was overjoyed, though they didn't let him keep it long. :)

[AJ Dual]

Yeah, that's the one good thing about the NFA a machinegun is a machinegun is a machinegun.

You can cut it down to pistol size, make the barrel 3 feet long, it makes no difference. Machineguns are "machineguns" and not rifles or pistols, so the provisions of the '94 AW ban don't apply either. Since suppressors/silencers are considered as also being flash hiders you can't put them on a post ban semi that already has one other feature, such as bayo lug, or pistol grip, but you can put them on a machine gun.

(Although that's sort of moot, since no new civilian machinegun or transferable auto-sear has been produced since the '86 freeze snuck into the firearm owner protection act.)

The only affect the '94 ban has on MG owners is that mags and machinegun links of more than 10 in a row are treated as separate legal entities from the firearm, so depending on what you have, you might be suffering from the mag crunch along with the rest of us.

[TaxPhd]

Hey Hkmp5sd, point of clarification.

You said "You can buy a registered M16/A1/A2/sear and make one."

In M-16's, with the exception of a DIAS, the lower receiver is the registered part, not the sear. Correct?




Scott

[Hkmp5sd]

The Drop In Auto Sear requires the replacement of the parts in the reciever with M16 parts. If you remove the DIAS, but leave the M16 parts, ATF calls it a machinegun. In 1981, ATF decided the DIAS was a machinegun by itself, so you could be conisidered as having two machineguns if you remove the DIAS from one and install it in another while leaving the M16 parts in the first.

It's easier and safer to just leave the DIAS in the lower and consider the whole thing a machinegun like a standard M16 lower.

You generally don't see many M16 lowers alone for sell. You tend to have to buy someones upper with it. Not really a problem when lower is worth $10k and the upper is about $500. :)

[Brian Williams]

Nope


There are no transferable M4's because of the 86 ban and others


BUT
you could make a gun very similar

1st Get a transferable lower that has; 1, original built as M16; 2, built with a pre 86 lighting link or other transferable full auto or burst sear in a Pre ban lower.

2nd Get whatever upper and buttstock you want, 3" or 3' barrel, solid stock or collapsable, A1, A2, A3,A4.

The controlling transferable item is the receiver or the Auto sear, which must be in a Preban lower, maybe even pre86 lower.

A Suppressor must be transfered by itself with its own tax stamp.



You said "You can buy a registered M16/A1/A2/sear and make one."
But it must go in a proper lower receiver and I can not remember it it must be preban or pre86

Check with the members at the following web sites and they will help you out.
http://www.full-auto.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

http://www.ar15.com/

[TaxPhd]

Pretty sure a DIAS or Lightning Link can go in any lower. Not just pre ban.

[MiniZ]

My understanding is the DIAS or lightening link can go into any lower. A guy I know just scored a DIAS and he bought a brand new Bushy lower for it. Worked out well for me as he decided to get out of AR15s completely and made me a sweet deal on a pre-ban lower.

[Hkmp5sd]

Yep, they can be put into any lower. The thing to remember is if you put it in a post-94 lower, once you remove the registered sear, the gun reverts to a post-ban AR and the evil feature restrictions are back in place.

[Jake 98c/11b]

Cordex, in Bosnia one of the 10th Mountain guys I saw had an M4 built on an Air Force property marked AR15. If the military calls that an M4 then I'm with you, you can have an M4 that is transferable.

[ShaiVong]

DIAS and lightning link? What are those?

I was under the impression that you could just buy an M16 lower and then FA/3rnd burst guts for it from, say, bushmaster. A big time No No to put in a regular AR15 lower, but O.K in a MG lower.

[cordex]

DIAS and lightning link? What are those?
DIAS= Drop in Auto Sear
(but it isn't, really)

A Lightning Link is a little sheet metal contrivance that disengages the sear when the bolt closes, thus causing the gun to be full-auto.

[Hkmp5sd]

A big time No No to put in a regular AR15 lower, but O.K in a MG lower.

Nope. You can only buy a legally registered "machinegun." That means an M16 or M16A1 or M16A2 or a full-auto AR-15 or a registered "sear" (DIAS, Lightning Link or whatever). The latter can then be inserted into any AR/M16 receiver. Anything else constitutes manufacturing an unregistered machinegun. The catch is they must have been registered prior to the ban in 1986.

[ShaiVong]

Ok. Leme get this straight. If I want an MG I have two options

1. Buy a pre '86 ban M16 lower receciver, mate any upper to it.

2. Buy a registered DIAS or Lightning Link, and drop it into any lower mated with any upper. Caveat being that once that DIAS comes out, and if the lower isnt pre '94, it has to follow AWB rules.

What if I buy an M16 stripped lower receiver (pre '86). Can I drop any sear into it? Semi Auto or FA? Or do I need to buy a registered DIAS for my registered M16 lower?

[Hkmp5sd]

If you buy a registered M16 lower, you can put the parts into it and return it to service. ATF considers the registered lower a machinegun by itself. If you by a stripped lower that is merely stamped M16 (ie not registered as a machinegun) regardless of it's date of manufacture or any other AR-15 lower, you can install a registered DIAS in the gun. In this case, ATF considers the DIAS a machinegun, not the lower.

The key is that either the gun itself or the device that when added to the gun allows the gun to shoot full auto, must be registered and possessed only with prior approval. And given the ban, no transferrable machineguns have been registered since 1986.

[ShaiVong]

I love having HK around :D

[ShaiVong]

Does anybody have a link to an FAQ on how to acquire Class III/NFA weapons?

Looking at the NFA / Class III section of gunbroker is driving me nuts, especially that
HK USP .45ACP w/ can. (http://www.gunbroker.com/auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=12300061) :evil:

[Hkmp5sd]

Bardwell's NFA FAQ (http://www.titleii.com/Bardwell/nfa_faq.txt)