Comments on: Serious Gun Porn

By: Alcibiades McZombie

Alcibiades McZombie — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:14:36 +0000

I was talking about the Thompson… though I wasn’t sure what the ATF considered AOW/SBR and not. (Though this could also apply to the Mare’s Leg, being a large two-handed gun.)

By: RevGreg

RevGreg — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:57:17 +0000

I still wish ATI had gone the extra mile and duplicated the HK trigger pack…I’d have bought a GSG-5 at Small Arms Review East if I could drop an auto sear in it. I’ll likely still buy one but I spent on parts kits and barrels…they’re getting scarce with the new import bans.

By: fits

fits — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:47:48 +0000

Great job as usual, Caleb. The .327 intrigues me as perhaps a decent enough revolver to fit my yearning to ankle-holster everything.

By: Caleb

Caleb — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:11:40 +0000

Also, it occurs to me that McZombie was talking about the Mare’s Leg and not the Thompson – my vertical foregrip reference was to the Thompson.

By: Caleb

Caleb — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:10:51 +0000

A little gun history as well: the Mare’s Leg used by Steve McQueen in Wanted Dead or Alive was an SBR – chambered for .44-40. Although the fictional part of the show portrayed the gun as being chambered for .45-70.

Another notable Mare’s Leg in fiction is the nerd classic Firefly, where Zoe uses one to great effect many times.

By: Tam

Tam — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:01:51 +0000

The skinny:

A “Mare’s Leg” built on a rifle action that was purchased from the factory as a stripped action and which has never had a buttstock on it is a pistol.

A “Mare’s Leg” built from a cut-down rifle is an SBR and requires a $200 transfer tax.

If you (for some odd reason) put a vertical forward grip on the first Mare’s Leg, it would become an AOW, and require a $200 “making tax”. Subsequent transfers would require a $5 AOW transfer tax.

If you put a vertical forward grip on the SBR Mare’s Leg, it wouldn’t require another tax stamp, because rifles are not “designed to be fired with one hand” and so the number of grips “perpendicular to the action” they have is immaterial.

By: Caleb

Caleb — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:27:07 +0000

No, they consider it an “Any Other Weapon”, but it has to be a vertical pistol grip – so the forward forearm is okay.

By: Alcibiades McZombie

Alcibiades McZombie — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:22:20 +0000

I thought the ATF’s opinion is that a handgun with a forward grip is a short barreled rifle (though I heard they lost a case regarding this).