7 parts - WASR 10 / SKS Hypothetical

The gun store owner is probably referring to 922r compliance.

If one is assembling a firearm from the design as imported than one by law has to bring that firearm under 922r compliance which means having American parts to replace foreign parts.

There is a list of parts that makes up firearms and out of that list there can be only 10 of those parts that can remain foreign in their manufacture. The list of parts varies base on design of said firearm in question.

Do some of your own research by searching 922r compliance. There is a lot of information about it from various sources.

https://gununiversity.com/922r-compliance/

All of the above being said I have never heard of anyone being charged with non-compliance with 922r but I know it has been used as an “add-on” offense to a crime.

@Tortuga i edited to add some info above after you liked the post.

Tortuga said:

So then one could theoretically just buy a US made buttstock and pistol grip and/or US Made Monte Carlo stock and everything is just peachy?

Or am I missing something?

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No you would need to make sure that firearm has less than 10 foreign parts on the 922r compliance list.

let me try and find a spreadsheet someone did a long time ago that really lays out what parts you can cha be on various foreign imported guns to bring into compliance.

So obviously this will vary on which parts are found on different firearms, so it’s best to find a “922r Compliance” list for the specific firearm in question then add up all the foreign made parts and replace individual parts with American made parts so that the sum of all foreign made parts is less than 10.

Here are the parts that count towards 922r, so a foreign imported gun if any changes are to be made from how they were imported they must then contain less than a sum of 10 foreign made parts that reside on the list below.

1. Frames, receivers, receiver castings, forgings, or stampings
2. Barrels
3. Barrel extensions
4. Mounting blocks
5. Muzzle attachments
6. Bolts
7. Bolt carriers
8. Operating rods
9. Gas pistons
10. Trigger housings
11. Triggers
12. Hammers
13. Sears
14. Disconnectors
15. Buttstocks
16. Pistol grips
17. Forearms, handguards
18. Magazine bodies
19. Followers
20. Floorplates

So an easy change is to change the trigger to an American trigger on firearms as that takes away #’s 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14; which goes a long way towards 922r compliance.

Foreign parts just means manufactured outside the USA.

So it has nothing to do with design just strictly where the parts are manufactured.

As to the reason...*crickets* because it sounded good to some loser politician that desires to make anything related to firearms difficult.

So for instance on a "Chinese SKS" taking the 922r list it would go something like this:

I've eliminated parts that are not found on an SKS so we are left with 15 Compliance parts, so by switching 6 of the foreign parts to US manufactured parts brings it into 922r compliance.

1. Frames, receivers, receiver castings, forgings, or stampings
   
2. Barrels
   
3. 
   
4. 
   
5. Muzzle attachments
6. Bolts
7. Bolt carriers
8. 
   
9. Gas pistons
10. Trigger housings
11. Triggers
12. Hammers
13. Sears
14. Disconnectors
15. Buttstocks
16. 
    
17. Forearms, handguards
18. Magazine bodies
19. Followers

922r the way I understand it, is for "assembly of firearm" so with an imported firearm, it was imported with all the parts that are current on it. I don't think what the gun store owner was stating is accurate if he was talking about changing parts on a complete firearm that was imported as a complete firearm.

@Tortuga just as a disclaimer, I know enough to be dangerous on 922r compliance, so please do your own research. Hopefully, someone will come along that has definite answers, but I think that what I've told you has been accurate.

Tortuga said:

Okay, well this is where I'm confused.

If it must have "fewer than 10 foreign parts." I buy a compliant rifle, and then add a bunch of American parts to it, then it should be that easy - no? There's no way it's going to add foreign parts if I take off an old stock and add an American manufactured one.

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Where 922r really has to be considered again in my understanding is with all the "parts kits" that were sold. But then there was also a lot of Saiga Sporters (at that time they had to be sporterized to be imported, so maybe that strict importation design plays a role) that were sold and when one started changing parts from sporter to a standard pistol gripped AK variant 922r compliance had to be considered. This example is similar to changing an SKS to a pistol gripped stock I would surmise. So it's still not totally clear to me.

@illinoisburt doing a search on 922r, illinoisburt seems to have some knowledge to share on 922r compliance. There are a few posts where he said making changes to an SKS one must consider 922r. So I may be in error, in the fact that completed imported firearms such as a Chinese SKS when changing any parts one must consider 922r compliance. Maybe he'll see this and provide some insight.

https://gununiversity.com/922r-compliance/

Read this article, it includes the text of the statute. It does a pretty good job of summarizing, but I’m not a lawyer.

BreechFace said:

@illinoisburt doing a search on 922r, illinoisburt seems to have some knowledge to share on 922r compliance.

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Thanks for the thoughts, but at best I've stayed at a Holiday Inn Express occasionally rather than a guru. It's actually a very complex set of rules which can be somewhat contradictory so nothing we post here is the final say in how things work.

The basics are pretty well covered above. The government essentially banned importing new non-sporting (ie military style) semi auto rifles and added the 922r rules to prevent folks from going around the bans by assembling them stateside from imported parts kits. For various reasons they settled on the parts-counting scheme to define what counted as a banned imported gun versus a legal domestic gun with a few foreign sourced parts.

To make things a bit more confusing we need to keep in mind Curios and Relics (C&R) which basically says military arms in original configuration are a separate category. This is not applicable to an AK pattern rifle as those were all select fire so for practical purposes no one could get one imported here after 1986 anyway. The WASR and all the other AKM type guns sold the past few decades have been assembled on a new US or modified foreign semi auto receiver with the appropriate number of US parts regardless the marketing as built from military parts kits. The best advice for changing parts on it are to find out which US ones were used to begin with and keep count from there.

SKS is somewhat different animal in that it was a semi auto from the start and many do have C&R status. In those cases keeping it in original military configuration or restoring it to such may be okay when swapping parts. Once you change to non-military configuration, or decide to swap parts on a commercial non-military gun you get into parts counting and have to meet the requirements people posted earlier.

I personally would not be worried too much buying an SKS which was already modified in some way (assuming not smithed by bubba's dremel!). However I would keep and use it as-is or go full parts count/restoration if it needed even the smallest changes by me.

Unless you have a local law that says you can't have a pistol grip on a rifle (like in California) just do what you want as long as it doesn't change the function of the rifle. Like make it go FA.

AK Hunter said:

Unless you have a local law that says you can't have a pistol grip on a rifle (like in California) just do what you want as long as it doesn't change the function of the rifle. Like make it go FA.

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That may be the reality of many people's actions, except this question is in the legal section. The regulations exist and are complex.

AK Hunter said:

Unless you have a local law that says you can't have a pistol grip on a rifle (like in California) just do what you want as long as it doesn't change the function of the rifle. Like make it go FA.

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Unfortunately, the regulations on 922r are not that simple. Like I said I’ve never heard of anyone getting jammed up just for a 922r violation but I’ve read/been told that it is used for add-on offenses. And even that doesn’t change the fact that the regulation is still out there for an over zealous cop/attorney to go after a person on.

922(r) applies to assembly, not to possession. That means that for a conviction, there must be proof that the accused assembled the gun in the proscribed configuration. (He might have bought it from some unknown party who did the assembly.) Being simply found with one is not a crime. In practical terms, 922(r) is a concern, mainly, for manufacturers and importers. And those people, in turn, are generally very careful to comply. That's why prosecutions under 922(r) are unheard of.