Short Barrel non NFA the new norm

[commando552]

On the topic of AR "pistols" does anyone have any crazy guesses about how the Franklin Armory Reformation is legal before it is unveiled at Shot Show? A lot of people think it is something to do with a binary (or related) trigger but supposedly this is not the case. My guess is that somehow that "stock" is not really a stock, like maybe it doesn't actually lock in the extended position or something like that.

[funkychinaman]

Originally Posted by commando552

On the topic of AR "pistols" does anyone have any crazy guesses about how the Franklin Armory Reformation is legal before it is unveiled at Shot Show? A lot of people think it is something to do with a binary (or related) trigger but supposedly this is not the case. My guess is that somehow that "stock" is not really a stock, like maybe it doesn't actually lock in the extended position or something like that.

A lot of posts I've read point to the trigger. I'm not sure it can be the stock, they specify the brand and model.

[Excalibur]

I'd buy it

[commando552]

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

A lot of posts I've read point to the trigger. I'm not sure it can be the stock, they specify the brand and model.

One of the admins at The Firearm Blog talked to someone at Franklin and was told that it had one of their regular binary triggers, which has a semi setting so fudging of the language about a "single shot per trigger pull" or whatever it says would not be the dodge. Something else is that Franklin says that whatever this is that makes it legal is new and patent pending, whereas binary triggers have been around for years.

What I wondered about the stock is that if the buffer tube lacks the holes to lock the stock into it could still be a regular off the shelf stock but could not lock in the extended position which might not count as a rifle stock. A company did manage to make a "pistol" in the past that had a regular stock that was permanently pinned in the closed position, as (at least at the time) the ATFs position was that if it could not be put into an extended position it was not shoulderable.

EDIT: I just found that there is also a video on their youtube channel which seems to show it firing in both semi and binary. It is hard to tell on the video, but it doesn't look like it is firing on release of the trigger either which was some people's theory. It also looks like the stock is properly locked out, so I have no idea. I'm not 100% certain on SBR laws but people have suggested that if it is built from a pistol receiver you could possibly mount a stock on it if the overall length ended up being more that 26 inches. This might also explain their specific choice of a rather long collapsible stock. I find this hard to believe though, as if it was that simple it would have been done before, and nothing about this is based on unique patentable technology either.

[Excalibur]

We'll find out today

[commando552]

It has straight lands and grooves in the barrel. As it does not twist it is not rifling so not a rifle, it is not smooth so it is not smooth-bore. This seems dumb as hell, as it totally unstabilized so is 5 MOA with a range of 50 yards.

[Excalibur]

In a practical sense, it is stupid as hell and overpriced. You can build a budget pistol from assorted parts at under 500 and a good one for under 1000 if you know what you're doing and benefits from it being a rifled barrel.

I think in this case, this gun would only work if states recognized that it is a "firearm" and not a rifle in any legal sense

[commando552]

The thing that I am most interested with about this gun is nothing to with the gun itself (which IMHO is pretty useless). With the precedent that straight lands a grooves do not count as rifling or smoothbore, I think you could have some very interesting short barrelled semi auto .410 firearms. Am I correct in thinking that the only requirement for a weapon like this would be for it to have an OAL of over 26 inches?

In the past I believe that one of the derringer companies tried this straight rifling before for .410 pistols, but were told it didn't count as rifling so wasn't legally a pistol so was an NFA item. I get a bit lost with the US "Any Other Weapons" class, but is that what this derringer would have been? Are these "firearm" non-rifle, non-shotgun, non-pistol grey area guns only legal if they have an overall length of over 26" inches?