built a pistol with 12.5 barrel but is maybe not legal ?

[georgiacatweazle]

i had my 12.5 inch barreled upper show up this week for a pistol build. offloaded my 300 blk upper.
i was thinking i have a lower for use as a pistol, a pistol length buffer tube, so i assumed any barrel length marked PISTOL would therefore be suitable as a pistol.
OAL, no matter how i measure, i guess the current method is end of buffer tube to barrel threads. any case, it's 26 1/2. safe to say its not on the lower yet, my 223 is on there instead.
i do have a shorter tube coming, but i hear most of the 12 inch PSA pistols run 27+ inches and are still legal ? am i missing something ?

thanks

[grendelnubi]

You are looking at the potential changes to the rule but as of right now it is legal. The only thing that currently differentiates it between a pistol and SBR is the stock. Also if the lower was classified by the FFL as "other" vs rifle etc.... then it would be OK. If the lower was ever a rifle, then you would need a new lower.

This is all in the air right now depending on new rules etc.....

Also depends on which state you live in......

This is my understanding .....

[georgiacatweazle]

You are looking at the potential changes to the rule but as of right now it is legal. The only thing that currently differentiates it between a pistol and SBR is the stock. Also if the lower was classified by the FFL as "other" vs rifle etc.... then it would be OK. If the lower was ever a rifle, then you would need a new lower.

This is all in the air right now depending on new rules etc.....

Also depends on which state you live in......

This is my understanding .....

live in the free state of Georgia. laws in flux are confusing. i build everything, so the receiver was 4473'd as genderless.

[lazyengineer]

Probably not worth sticking with 12"

[myrifle]

My personal suggestion is too run that thing how you want and tell the feds to go pound sand.

[keystone183]

I don't really advise going the 12.5 pistol build at this time.

Here's the story. The law states a firearm with a stock, must have a BBL>16" or it's NFA (Short barrel Rifle, and so regulated). The question arose, is an armbrace a stock? Here is the legal codification (As passed into law by Congress lifetimes ago)
.

So at what point, is an arm-brace really an arm-brace, and at what point, is it really intended to be a stock to allow being fired from the shoulder? There is little codification to actually describe that. So, the ATF initially said "sure obscure company making a handful of these rigid arm-braces, that's not going to be called a stock, and so not in violation of that law, which we're supposed to enforce per Congressional mandate - but we're going to be cool and say that's fine". And so the ATF made a "case by case" assessment if such things were really stocks. Of which, they essentially never did, and people came up with "understandings", of what was OK to the ATF. A whole new industry and market was born, and it snowballed with exponential growth every year. And various not-nearly-as-clear-as-people-think official ATF Letters (which carry little weight anyway) came out, that sort of said these things were OK... sorta.

Fast-forward 10 years, and now you have multiple millions of comfy upgraded variations of armbraces made and a lot of wink-wink about that "arm brace" is not a stock; while piles of youtube video's are made with the armbrace nestled nicely into shoulders. Freedom, I'm all for it - but ... going back to that pesky US Law the courts have said is fine, and the agency that Congress told to enforce that law.... So.... this got awkward. Two high profile actions happened in the last couple of years: HoneyBadger pushed it and came up with a full-length stock, but put a strap on it, and ATF DID come down on them; with basically little more than a cease and desist. The one (1) prosecutorial attempt I'm aware of of making an AR Pistol that was modified to be an SBR (beyond just a common arm-brace", that was attempted, actually failed in court. Interesting.

Then a strange thing happened.
..... Donald Trump lost the election.

The ATF under Donald Trump, knowing the election results, said: "you know what, we think with the incoming administration, this has become a mess, and might be a land-mine that is going to be messy for a a lot of people. So we're going to ramrod through a gift to protect people. We're going to let everybody who has an arm-brace, get a free NFA tax stamp expedited; and we're going to continue to publicly state our police will continue to be case-by-case, but be more serious that if it's really a pistol, it's a pistol, and if it's really an SBR, then it's an SBR. Subject to however we interpret that - which is essentially the same policy we've been rolling with for the last 10 years.
........................ To which KAAABOOOMMMM!!!! Everybody totally lost it TYRANNYY! and wrote their Senators.. .Which Worked! And we all shut that BS down. YEA MAN!, and lots of High-Fives. yay-us, we super won, and shut down those free expedited tax stamp with no other pragmatic change right before Biden gets sworn in!

Annnnddd then Joe Biden began his Weekend-At-Bernie's Presidency got sworn in. Now we have a brand new administration who don't quite have the same view as the Trump administration. So, the ATF has announced that basically the bulk of current arm-braced firearms, that were sold as pistols, are in their opinion, not pistols after-all. They announced they are going to update some codification, and begin enforcement of such items as NFA SBR violations. There will be no grandfathering, and no expedited free NFA tax stamps; and ATF will just BOOM: declared illegal ; and it's your problem to figure out what to do. They'd be fine if you throw your property away. That would be your 12.5" Grendel you just built.

And so they began:
Step one, write a huge 100 page opinion on the matter, and seek "public opinion". Which basically says we're going to come up with a complex point system that essentially makes all current renditions into illegal SBR's, and we're going to just change the Federal Register to say what we want it to say. [DONE]
Step two, pre-register current arm-brace owners, errr... I mean Jews; wups! I mean "valued citizen input", to receive public opinion. To which there was a huge push that everybody everywhere register their real name and address with the ATF to voice their clever and carefully crafted opinions. These would essentially be the same folks that were way too clever to consider that free NFA tax stamp last November, because that's registration you know. [DONE]WA1
Step three. [current step] ATF files everyone's name and address, and then ignores all of that of coures (after careful consideration, of course - just like they did with the bumpstock item). At this time, your 12.5" AR pistol is effectively legal, while ATF works their way through this step for the next few days.
Step Four update the Federal register and begin enforcement of NFA upon the vast majority of current armbrace AR-Pistol configurations. (And tadaa, in a few weeks, your 12.5" now is an illegal SBR).

What Step Four really means is force manufactures to cease manufacture and sale of the items and parts, which is the main goal. It will mean the relatively rare actual enforcement, and essentially zero prosecutions of regular individual citizens who already possess such items, but mostly used as a pile-on charge with other crimes. If you take some comfort in that, remember that one violates on average at least 3 laws a day, often without even knowing it. And consider that right now there are people who have been in Federal Prison for close to 9 months now, without trial, literally over misdemeanor Trespassing charges.

So what that means is that the likelihood of you being chased down for having that 12.5" AR pistol is fairly close to zero - but it's about to be an underground firearm. Many gun ranges will likely ban their usage. Using one for hunting or self-defense, will bring considerable risk. Dime dropping from Ex-girlfriends and close rivals could be a greater threat now, should you be a fellow with a high-drama-content life. As time goes on and the digital conversion and compilation of everything you ever do, buy, say, or type, is text-converted and uploaded (this is happening now, so you know), and when that starts to be cross checked with "correct thought" and "not correct thought" as scanned, flagged, and forwarded by massive Google engines (which actually is NOT happening now.... mostly... for the most part... yet. Unless you have an Apple phone and Apple's autosniffing software unilaterally decides it doesn't like some of the pictures you keep on your phone that is - and then flags the FBI. But, I'm sure it'll stop there with just "those" pictures; right?)

Or the really short of it: Your gun is about to be declared a felony level Federal violation. That's going to happen, don't think it won't - and don't think your states internal "shall not complie actually means anything. When that happens, you probably can still have it, and probably won't face criminal persecution and prosecution for it directly. But should you actually use it, there will be an exposure if someone decides they don't like you or your kind.

My advise for you and your 12.5:

Plan A: Remove the arm brace and discard that part. Fire it only with the bare tube.
Plan B: Try to "stay below the radar", and hope for the best (most will do Plan B)
Plan C: On your own register it and pay the tax stamp and wait (and wait), and SBR it.
Plan D: 14.5" pin and weld to 16" total. It's about the same size and weight, and eliminates the worry.

My personal suggestion; look at D or C.

I won't advise you what to do, other than to ignore this wall of text.

[hellishhorses]

My personal suggestion is too run that thing how you want and tell the feds to go pound sand.

This.