Switching Encore To Hand Gun

Tomme boy

Well-Known Member
I have dealt with the atf. Unless you are doing something really really bad they don't care about your TC frame. They are after the people that are dealing drug, stolen property including guns and and other serious crimes. They don't have the time or resources to enforce this. I know several people that have been busted with full autos and silencers. Being that was their only crime they abandoned them to the atf and were told don't ever do it again.

While this seems strange to hear it is how they operate. But if they had even a small inclination that drugs or stolen guns were involved they would have got jail time. Don't believe the stories you hear about the gun malfunctioned and went FA and the atf sent them to prison. If they did there were other reasons that were not being told. The atf loves the way we scare each other over nothing.

But at the same time we do have an administration that is clueless and would love to hem someone up. I am speaking from the law enforcement in the family.
 

35 shooter

Well-Known Member
Lol, since I started this thread a few years ago, I dug the original box it came in out. Sure enough there was a small label on one end of the box that says “ rifle frame and stock”. I had totally missed that label when I bought it.

I guess even though I did’nt buy a bbl at the same time I bought the frame and stocks, it must have come designated as a rifle frame from the factory just because it was shipped to the store with rifle stocks included in the box?

It’s so accurate with the 35 Whelen bbl. I later got for it i would’nt ever take it off anyway..... but the whole thing just makes no sense.
I’m still bummed about that utter ridiculous law.
Oh well, it worked out just fine as a Rifle Only.
 

Tomme boy

Well-Known Member
You can switch this to a pistol all you want. They have made the determination that the TC can go either way no matter how it was bought. Even the new regs they have proposed right now will not change the way they treat the TC guns.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Well, you can switch it back and forth IF your state allows it. My experience with ATF isn't quite as rosy as Tom paints, but that was many years back. Regardless, you still need to check your state laws if there is any permitting process for the handgun side. I'd also do it quick considering the climate that will exist after Buffalo yesterday and be thankful you don't live in NYS.
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
My understanding is that IF an arm is originally assembled as a pistol that it is forever a pistol even if it is converted to a rifle it may be reverted to a pistol .

The Encore or Contenders aren't the only ones . It's well known that we can't put a butt stock on a pistol here in the states but would you actually be breaking the law if you put a butt stock on a 16" Buntline special ? Then we have the Glock/1911 rifle upper dohickies . Mares leg ........ Striker , the Remington cousin . It's ok to have a butt stock on an 1858 Rem or 1860 Colt even if it's a CF conversion with a notch unless you add a loading gate . Then there's the AR new stripped lower .......
 

Tomme boy

Well-Known Member
The TC guns have their own exemption. Other guns have what I posted earlier.

AR lowers are neither a pistol or rifle until it is assembled and it has its first upper attached. If it is a rifle upper it is forever a rifle. If it is a pistol upper it can be either from that point on.
 

L Ross

Well-Known Member
I will repeat, having dealt with this professionally- state laws differ. Do your homework.
All I know about New York is what I was told. I was going to the Eastern Rendezvous one year and was told, "Do not even think about bringing a flint lock pistol into New York for this event."

Another time the PPA was having a convention or something in New York City and our officers who were attending were told not to bring handguns into New York.

I'd like to visit Maine some day for the sea food, but cannot figure out how to get there. Oh well.
 

Rick H

Well-Known Member
All I know about New York is what I was told. I was going to the Eastern Rendezvous one year and was told, "Do not even think about bringing a flint lock pistol into New York for this event."
I shot in an Invitational Pistol Match hosted by the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police). Crossing the border with a couple of match pistols and ammo per entrant was not an experience for the faint of heart. One would have thought one Ford sedan, four Michigan police officers, 8 hand guns and their attendant ammo was an invasion and act of war. Even after producing all the necessary paperwork, phone numbers, clearances and the intervention of the local OPP post it was a 2+ hour ordeal.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
All I know about New York is what I was told. I was going to the Eastern Rendezvous one year and was told, "Do not even think about bringing a flint lock pistol into New York for this event."

Another time the PPA was having a convention or something in New York City and our officers who were attending were told not to bring handguns into New York.

I'd like to visit Maine some day for the sea food, but cannot figure out how to get there. Oh well.
True enough. A flintlock pistol with the capability of being fired, eg- pistol, ball, flint, powder all in one place, moves it from an antique "non-firearm" into the classification of a pistol under NYS law. And NYC has their own separate permitting process outside of NYS permit process. So A NYC permit is good anywhere in NYS, but a NYS permit is not good in NYC. That case in before the SCOTUS now and I hope it's fixed.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I shot in an Invitational Pistol Match hosted by the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police). Crossing the border with a couple of match pistols and ammo per entrant was not an experience for the faint of heart. One would have thought one Ford sedan, four Michigan police officers, 8 hand guns and their attendant ammo was an invasion and act of war. Even after producing all the necessary paperwork, phone numbers, clearances and the intervention of the local OPP post it was a 2+ hour ordeal.
Back when the Rez was going strong in the 90's we (NYSP) would regularly cross the border and eat with the OPP or QPF (Ontario Provincial Police/ Quebec Police Force) and the Mounties. They would come over to our side and eat with us. Everyone was happy, except the indians anyway. Someone got a wild hair up their butt on the Canadian side and all that stuff ceased one night. After that we would have to escort the QPF guys from the Port of entry in Massena to the Quebec line in Hogansburg NY so they could access the part of the Rez that they couldn't get to from the Canuck side.

Whoever thought of putting an indian reservation on both side of the US/Candian border that was also bisected by 2 Provinces was a real moron!!!
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
For whatever it's worth the lines may not have been so rigidly fixed when the First People Nation was parked there .

In Nevada the state legislature pulled the plug on Las Vegas and Clark county having their own set of requirements 7-8 yr ago under the premise that having individual town/city or county laws for firearms in particular placed an undue burden on not only traveling residents but visitors . With the state being tourism , mining , and ranching driven such things just weren't working out . The whole state now has one set of gun laws , the state laws .



Whew that was close ......
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
For whatever it's worth the lines may not have been so rigidly fixed when the First People Nation was parked there .
Well, the St Lawrence hasn't moved since long before these people pushed the actual first inhabitants south and west, but the Provincial probably did change at one point when Upper and Lower Canada became Ontario and Quebec respectively. I'm still not sure if that was before or after the Rez was formed, but it was a dumb idea regardless.
 

GEMIHUR

Member
Put a grip and a pistol barrel on that frame and have at it!
Don't try to use it as a concealed carry unless you are HUGE, tho.
30 TC left side.jpg
30 TC, quite the handful
....forearm, sans finish.
 
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beagle

Active Member
And then you get into the "grandfather" situation. This is where an old Contender frame was sold before this all came up and there was no place on a 4473 to designate. I once bought a Contender with a Super 16" barrel. Legal with stock so I ordered one. No problem, no foul in those days and I switched back and forth and even sent it back to FOX Ridge with the barrel on the pistol frame/grip and it passed through the NICS system again with no problems and they even replaced the barrel. I shot at public ranges for years and never had anyone say a thing about which stock I had on it if the barrels were correct.
Then the "benchies" started rebarrelling XP-100s and M700s back and forth and BATF got interested. Then the Encore and finally the ARs. Now the BATF has a new thing to beat us up on.
I'm out of the Contender business now. The last time I checked, you could own a frame and a shoulder stock. When the stock was on, it better have a 16" barrel. When a shorter barrel was on it, it better have the pistol grips.
BATF may have changed the policy but that's the way it was last time i looked on older Contenders and early Encores.
I did try a 10" .30/30 barrel on the stock once. At 100 yards, accuracy was better as a handgun./beagle