Are They Secretly Illegal?

[Correia]

as in...a crown job would make them illegal.

If your gunsmith feels the need to saw the end of your barrel off for a "crown job", it is time to find a new smith...

 

[yesit'sloaded]

If they are exactly 16" to begin with, a crown job could reduce it to 15.999 inches. I don't put that kind of thing past the ATF.

 

[RevolvingCylinder]

If they are exactly 16" to begin with, a crown job could reduce it to 15.999 inches. I don't put that kind of thing past the ATF.

IIRC 16" they;re legal. jim
Checked the web site 16.125" on the barrel

 

[Wes Janson]

I'm so glad that all the kids with .50 cal rifles can't buy .22 target pistols. That knowledge lets me sleep at night instead of staying up in fear. Who thinks up this junk anyway...oh wait I know "It's the shoulder thing that goes up".

That's the really sad thing. I can legally go buy armor-piercing incendiary tracer ammunition for my belt-fed Ma Deuce, but can't go buy .22LR for a Ruger MkIII. Why is it that Congress fears my purchasing of CCI Mini-Mag so badly that they felt it necessary to make it a crime for me to do so?

 

[Brad Johnson]

For the unknowing, here's a mind-bender for ya.

You can't chop the barrel and stock on a rifle to make it a pistol. Big, big no-no.

However...

If you take that very same action and manufacture it with a short barrel as a pistol and it is entirely legal. Think Remington XP100.

Go figure.

Brad

 

[Double Naught Spy]

If they are exactly 16" to begin with, a crown job could reduce it to 15.999 inches. I don't put that kind of thing past the ATF.

Given the price of a Crickett or a Chipmunk, you would just about be better off getting a whole new barrel or new gun. I bought my Chipmunk used for $75. New ones run about $120. Recrowning will run about $50-60.

Come on! Are you really going to reinvest have the value of a new gun in recrowning a little .22 that isn't all that great to start with?

I guess if you are going to that expense, then you can add a flash hider or muzzle brake to make up the difference.

 

[OEF_VET]

well look at an AK or M4 barrel. they are a little over 16" and if you look at it right, thats not alot. (for accuracy's sake)

Actually, a true M4 barrel is 14.5". The civilian versions have either a longer, 16" barrel, or they have a muzzle device permanently attached, in order to make them 16" long. More examples of accomodating a stupid, arbitrary law.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

I checked with my gun guru, and he 'splained it this way - -
The govt sold off some M1A1 stocks - - the folding, "Airborne" type. A standard carbine installed into such a stock did not make the minimum 26-inch OVERALL LENGTH required by law, so there were a lot of shooters in technical violation of the law. In (what we today would consider) a rather astounding act of accomodation, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit of the Treasure Department made a revision of minimum rifle barrel length to 16 inches. ATTU, of course, was the then-name for what we now know and love as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

How would shortening the barrel length from 18" to 16" get a rifle that was already too short (<26" overall length) to meet the overall length requirement?

 

[Gator]

They didn't shorten the barrel, they changed the law.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

They didn't change the 26" law. How does changing the 18" law to 16" law affect a rifle that is <26 inches to start with?

 

[Roccobro]

crickets have a plastic cocking knob with two plastic tabs on it that go into the bolt

This must be something new. I bought one for my daughter last year and it is a solid piece. Only polymer items are the butt plate, and the front sight base. Very accurate too, with the Super Colibris.

Justin

 

[Werewolf]

....

 

[Imaginos]

Black Powder to the Rescue!

You can avoid all of this nonsense by teaching your kids to shoot using black powder guns.

At 18 you can buy/own a percussion revolver. (Wish I'd known that when I was 18. :banghead
IIRC, removable stocks for percussion pistols are still legal.
No minimum length requirements for rifles.
Navy Arms used to manufacture a 14" 12ga SxS percussion shottie.

I expect my daughter's first long gun will be a .36 squirrel rifle we build from a kit.

 

[Futuristic]

hkmp5sd wrote:

They didn't change the 26" law. How does changing the 18" law to 16"
law affect a rifle that is <26 inches to start with?

I'm not sure what the previous posters were talking about, but there are at least 2 Federal cases from the 1950s and 1960s that reference the M1A1 Carbine.

In point of fact, it was those two cases that firmly established that, for purposes of the Federal NFA '34, NOT necessarily for the purposes of State Laws (in particular California), the Overall Length of a Rifle is to be measured with the Stock in the Firing Position.

You can check it out, M1A1 Carbines, and the later folding stock Uzi Carbines, are LESS THAN 26" with the Stock Folded. They are perfectly legal as Title I Firearms since they are over 26" with the Stock in the Firing Position.

Futuristic

 

[Hkmp5sd]

and the later folding stock Uzi Carbines, are LESS THAN 26" with the Stock Folded.

Yes, I know. I have one.