Stubbing legality issues.

[Mr BadWrench]

 Sorry to make a second post but my question is unrelated to my original posts.

 I was talking to my friend about cutting a 20gauge H&R and he told me he was pretty sure it was illegal to cut the barrel regardless of the final product desired.

 Im assuming he is at least partially correct and I wanted to know the order of assembly that I would have to follow. I am assuming that if you thread the chamber first making it impossible to accept a round then it would be legal to cut, or do I have to start out with a white barrel?

Don

[mechanic]

Unless you've got an ATF agent in your shop, who would know?  As long as it's a work in progress you should be fine.  As a matter of fact, I'm thinking a barrel thats not attached to a receiver is not a firearm anyway, it's just a steel tube.
 
Ben

[cbshtr]

Pretty sure minimum shotgun barrel length is 18". Pretty sure it has to have a shoulder stock. I thought there was a minimum overall length but don't recall what it is if there actually is one. Probably could  be googled like anything else.

[mechanic]

Pretty sure minimum shotgun barrel length is 18". Pretty sure it has to have a shoulder stock. I thought there was a minimum overall length but don't recall what it is if there actually is one. Probably could  be googled like anything else.

Unless I'm mistaken, he is talking about using the 20 ga. barrel as host to stub another barrel, such as a centerfire into.  In this case, he is not making a short barrel shotgun, but a normal or long barrel rifle.  Unless the barrel is attached to the gun shortened, and carried out in public, I don't know how anyone would even know.
 
Larry Trotter and others on this forum use stubs often, and I'm sure will weigh in on this issue.
 
Ben

[Mr BadWrench]

 Grey area then...

 no problem with that.... I will leave the action at home until the work is to a point where there is no issue.

[bikerbeans]

Like Ben says a barrel is not a rifle or a shotgun.  The receiver with the serial number is the actual gun.
 
Federal specs on a shotgun are, 18" min. barrel length and 26" min. overal length.  Modifying a shotgun with either of these dimension too short and you did what Randy Weaver did.   
 
Note there are a bunch of state & local regulations that come into play so you need to research the law where you live.  In my state a long-gun must have at least an 18" barrel to be in compliance with DNR hunting & transportation regulations so I don't have a need to trim a host shotgun barrel for a liner project to less than 18".
 
BB 

[Airsporter]

I'm thinking, technically - if you have a receiver in your possession and cut a barrel (stub) below the limit, you may be guilty of "manufacturing" an NFA (short barrel) firearm  .  If you chuck a shotgun barrel in a lathe and bore out the chamber a little bit - to rim diameter, you no longer have a barrel (stub) that can chamber a round.

[gendoc]

If you chuck a shotgun barrel in a lathe and bore out the chamber a little bit - to rim diameter, you no longer have a barrel (stub) that can chamber a round.

that is correct. but i'm sure, others will probably condem my statement......oh-well,
hey, i once knew a fella that cud spell BATFE

[trotterlg]

I always do all the machining on the stub before I cut it off the barrel.  It is much easier to do this way and you never have a shotgun barrel that is shorter than 18 inches.  Larry

[bikerbeans]

While we are on the subject, are there potential ramifications if you stub a CF rifle barrel into a shotgun stub and finish it less than 18" but over 16" and the receiver serial# can be identified by HR1871 as a shotgun receiver? 

BB

[geezerbiker]

I was always told that if you bore out the chamber first so that a shotgun cartridge will no longer fit, then you can cut it off to the length required and not run afoul of the ATF.

Tony

[cwlongshot]

While we are on the subject, are there potential ramifications if you stub a CF rifle barrel into a shotgun stub and finish it less than 18" but over 16" and the receiver serial# can be identified by HR1871 as a shotgun receiver? 

BB

That one is NO WORRY cause of the rifling in the barrel.... STICKER situation might be wanting to cut a RIFLED shotgun barrel at 16", calling it a rifle barrel....

IMHO, simply machining the barrel (stub) so it will not chamber a given round/cartridage, THEN the chopping meets the "letter" of the BATF law. (Its simply a piece of steel that fits a rec BUT will NOT chamber anything fire-able)  BUT then again, as mentioned, its already just a piece of steel, the firearm is the serialized receiver.

If it was me I would simply set up my work so it was short as "short" a period of time as possible. Meaning have everything you can set up for assembly of the stub.

CW

[jy951]

Id say as long a you don't have a receiver in the room you will be fine.  You can poses machine gun parts without paperwork as long as you don't have a receiver laying around.  I doubt a shotgun barrel is any different. 

[trotterlg]

What defines a gun as a shotgun or a rifle is the barrel that is on it.  If you ever listen when they clear you with the ATF they only say if it is a long gun or a hand gun you are being sold, the ATF doesn't know rifle or shotgun.  Larry

[knight0334]

Technically if the stub can still chamber a cartridge, and if the stub's length is under 16" for rifled bores or 18" for smoothbores, and if there is a suitable receiver that it will fit on present - you are at minimum in violation of NFA laws under "constructive possession".

Not having a receiver in the same room isn't enough legal distance.  A person should completely divorce himself of receivers from the same property until the chamber is reamed out so that it doesn't hold a cartridge.

"Constructive possession" is what can nail you even if you never fit the stub to the receiver.