I recently bought two stripped receivers from Surplus Arms and Ammo. I was thinking about turning one into a pistol but not sure if that was possible if I didn’t declare it when it was bought. I sent them an email asking about it, and this was their reply. Are they right?
EMAIL RESPONSE FROM SAA:
You need to have already purchased/transfered one from your dealer (in this case, us) as a pistol, not as a “receiver.” If you’ve already had these paper’ed out to you (4473 form and NIC’s check called in, approval, all of that) then it’s too late to “register” one as a pistol. These need to be declared as a pistol when they are first transfered from the dealer to the individual and the additional pistol paperwork needs to be done as well.
Basically, at this point, you would need to buy another and declare when purchasing that you will be building it into a “pistol” config. The term “pistol” is not required to be on the receiver (although we do sell those for those individuals that want it) but it is at this first transfer (and no, future, subsequent transfers won’t “fix” this, once the ATF finds that this has been transfered to the end user, i.e. an individual rather than an FFL holder, then it can destined to be a long gun) when you can declare it as a pistol frame.
And no, this is not simply a scheme on our end to make you buy another. You can double check other sources, no problem, this is the law as we know it.
If it was a recent purchase they are mistaken. Changes last year to the form 4473 have a separate listing as a “receiver” which under ATF rules is neither a pistol nor a revolver until you build it as such. If you bought stripped receivers the FFL you purchased them through must have selected “receiver” on the 4473 since they didn’t transfer a rifle or a pistol to you.
You can therefore build it either way so long as you don’t build an illegal configuration as an NFA classed firearm (ie… SBR or AOW) without the appropriate approved Form 1 from the ATF.
I’m sure someone will come along with a link to the ATF doc on this shortly.
A receiver does not meet the definition of a rifle or a pistol. It should be transferred as “other, receiver” on a 4473.
If your FFL did it wrong and transferred yours as a long gun I would choose not to make it a pistol, though it would be legal as long as it was never built as a rifle.