Originally Posted by
Thin Man
All this discussion is relevant to what happened at my shop yesterday. A young man came in with a Spike's Tactical 5.56 pistol. It had a pistol buffer tube, no brace, and a 10.5" barrel. He claimed he had assembled the entire package himself. In a separate box he had a rifle buffer tube for a 4-position stock and a 16.5" barrel. He wanted these parts installed on his pistol to change the pistol into a rifle. He looked sensible and spoke intelligently, but there were a few flags waving that made me cautious. He claimed to have built the whole pistol himself, thus he should have been able to make these changes for himself. He even had a correct barrel nut wrench for the uncommon barrel nut on the pistol. The wrench appeared well worn, far beyond what would have been required for one barrel installation. The free-float tube was on the pistol, but it was not anchored down - could be removed to inspect the barrel and low profile gas block. I found the castle nut on the buffer tube was staked onto the lower. Hmmmmmmm, says me. With this I challenged him (politely) on his building the lower. He then allowed he had bought the lower already assembled as a pistol lower. OK, so he was shy about his skills. I asked for his driver's license to complete the work order form (I do this with all customers). I know most of the roads in this county but did not know his, then asked him where that was in the county. He answered "right off Highway "1234". I then asked, north or south. He stumbled for a minute and answered "north", right near (another road name). I replied "north" goes toward (another town) but your road is south toward (another town). He acted confused, and I'm smelling a rat. We completed the repair order and he left the building.
As soon as he was off the property I called the local ATF field office and spoke with whoever answered the phone about this conversion request. Yup, I know different people can and will give different answers, but here is what I heard: If I were to complete this project, I would have either (1) qualified as a manufacturer for turning a pistol into a rifle, or (2) I would have created a NFA firearm because of (long, intricate explanation). This was the position of the ATF officer I spoke with. My FFL is a type 1 dealer license. I do not hold a manufacturer's license, nor do I hold a SOT license. Beyond that, I have instilled a personal choice to refuse to work on any NFA firearm because of all the legal bear traps contained in those regulations. There are enough properly licensed craftsmen out there to handle those chores. Perhaps the person at the field office was wrong, and I could have made these changes. That by itself would not have stopped their agents from bringing a charge against me for going outside my license abilities (if one employee said it was illegal, others could also). Even if I were charged and later found innocent the lawyer costs and public black eye would have been more than I care to tolerate. Bottom line, I'm too old and tired to risk trying to pee against the wind.
I called the owner of this pistol and explained my conversation with ATF to him. At the end I asked him to pick up his project at his convenience. Strange thing, he was still really close to the shop and was inside the door in 15-20 minutes after the call ended. Again, things that make one say Hmmmmmmm !?!