Perusing Gunbroker, I was struck with this thought:
How come the cheapest SBR AK is $1800-ish, plus $200 transfer tax? Couldn’t you just buy a $900 AK Pistol and throw a stock on it for like $80 (after making it a legal SBR via the proper paperwork)?
Am I missing something?
It’s pretty cheap to SBR something yourself; just the $200 making fee.
As a manufacturer or dealer, the expenses are MUCH higher; and they set their prices accordingly.
Then private sellers (who by the way have to transfer through a Class III dealer, so there’s another cost to add on top of it) see what the dealers are charging, and set their prices the same.
So it really is as simple as buying the pistol, doing the paperwork, and putting on a stock?
Generally it’s easier to buy a rifle lower, receiver etc… and a short barrel/upper, but yeah that’s pretty much it.
You have to pay the making tax, get it signed off by your local chief LEO, and get it approved by the ATF; before you ever assemble the weapon in an SBR configuration.
It probably goes without saying, but you will definitely want to be mindful of the whole “constructive possession” situation – basically, I would suggest against keeping both a short barreled upper and a non-SBR’d lower in the same house, and the same for a pistol-ed rifle and a stock that would fit on it, etc. etc. Granted, once you have an SBR item onto which those things can be mounted, you are golden, but until then… well, let us say that the ATF has charged and tried people for less.
The biggest problem I have seen for taking a pistol-ed rifle and turning it into an SBR is that you have to get it engraved with the manufacturer’s name and location – in your case, your actual name and the city/state you live in. Some people (myself included) have some issues with that, should we ever wish to sell the SBR later… Gun shops, on the other hand, engrave them with the shops’ names, which is hardly a problem.
Well, crap. My plans have been thwarted by the Safe Storage Requirement.
See, I was thinkin a krinkov would be an awesome truck gun, now that we can keep loaded (but not chambered) long guns in our vehicles. Alas, it appears that I would run afoul of ATF Regs (but not the actual NFA).