Letter Archives

In this ATF letter, the author asked the ATF’s opinion on a number of great AR pistol related questions. I am paraphrasing a few points I found important to help folks doing full text searches for opinions:

1) An AR lower receiver is neither pistol nor rifle until it is built the first time. If you want to make a pistol, a lower receiver must *never* have been built in a rifle configuration.

2) AR pistols do not have a barrel length restriction.

3) AR handguards can be used on an AR pistol

4) An AR rifle and pistol can be in the same household — note, and this is a personal comment, what got a guy in trouble years ago was that he had only an AR rifle and a pistol upper with no lower to mount it on. I don’t remember all of the details but the main thing here is that you never want it to look like the only reason you have a pistol/SBR upper is to put in on your AR that is legally classified as a rifle.

5) Magpul angled fore grips (AFGs) are permissible on the bottom accessory/picatinny rail.

I recommend people print and keep copies of letters just in case they need to show someone that some aspect of a weapon was “approved” by the ATF at some point. Just bear in mind that ATF letters are not absolutes but it helps to have them handy if asked. A state or local government may have their own more restrictive regulations as well so this may not mean AFGs are legal for everyone everywhere.

Legal Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and am not giving legal advice. I am just passing this information along and it is up to you to determine what you can/can’t do.

Please treat this as reference material only and not legal advice. The ATF does not always adhere to letters, states and local governments are doing their own thing and it’s hard to say what is acceptable or not just to be perfectly blunt. We live in interesting times unfortunately.

Folks, here is an ATF letter saying that an angled foregrip (AFG), such as Magpul’s models, can be used on an AR pistol. This is the first time someone shared a definitive letter with me vs. hearsay.

12/14/2014 Update: Here are scanned images of two different ATF letters saying AFGs can be used on AR pistols because they are not considered vertical grips:

This is a second letter wherein they answer a number of good questions about AR pistols in general. On page three is another comment that the AFG is allowed:

The reason this matters is that a vertical foregrip is not legal without first registering the pistol as an “any other weapon” or AOW. I recommend people print and keep copies of letters just in case they need to show someone that some aspect of a weapon was “approved” by the ATF at some point. Just bear in mind that ATF letters are not absolutes but it helps to have them handy if asked. A state or local government may have their own more restrictive regulations as well so this may not mean AFGs are legal for everyone everywhere.

Legal Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and am not giving legal advice. I am just passing this information along and it is up to you to determine what you can/can’t do.

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