Search Terms: June 2007

Ultimately, it's the goal of TGW to know everything. But until then, the best way for it to grow in usefulness is for articles to get written in response to searches you folks make.

To that end, I present the June 2007 edition of Search Terms

• shoeless ventures rifles - Shoeless Ventures was the manufacturer of the FAB-10. The FAB-10 was an early California-compliant AR lower, with the magazine well sealed off and a permanently fixed 10rd magazine inserted. It is not illegal to open up the magazine well with a dremel tool, and many FAB-10 owners registered their FAB-10's as 50 BMG rifles during the 50 BMG registration period. Those individuals may legally buy and use 50 BMG uppers now for their FAB-10's. The rest of us, must make do with 50 DTC.

• bushmaster ca legal assault rifle - Evans Gunsmithing advertises at gun shows as "California Bushmaster". He's received approval from Ignatius Chinn to weld a floorplate onto the magazine wells of listed Bushmaster AR-15 receivers, as it was Chinn's opinion that it would thus adequately remove it from the series ban. The approval to do so, and his subsequent multiple years of business in listed Bushmaster receivers has created a large gap which has restricted Department of Justice's ability to retract positive statements it's made about the legality of later off-list, open-magwell receivers. It is also worth noting that the Bushmaster Carbon-15 receiver, made of carbon fiber, is off-list and California-legal.

• ca legal assault rifles - You can't have an assault rifle in California, unless you're law enforcement or you import it via a Military Assault Weapon Permit. However, you may build up rifles which look and act a lot like the prohibited weapons.

• california approved ruger mini 14 model number - There are no banned Mini-14's, and long guns do not require approval in order to be sold in CA, so long as they don't have prohibited features such as pistol grips, etc.

• dci akm receiver distributor - you may order directly from DCI at http://www.nodakspud.com/ - you don't need to go through a distributor.

• decocking cz-52 - the safety switch has a 'decock' function. Unless you know your CZ quite well, don't trust it not to function as an alternative trigger, though!

• fn ps90 california compliant - there are many PS90 California compliance kits on the market presently. Check http://www.calguns.net/ for details.

• where to buy an ar-15 receiver in california - your best bet on this, is to contact one of the out-of-state vendors that sends the AR receivers into California. They've got lists of transfer dealers throughout the state.

• amd-65 fcg - I believe the AMD-65 uses a standard Tapco G2 trigger group.

• best assault rifle for california - That's a matter of opinion. I'd personally love to have a Bushmaster M17S?, just because it looks cool - but, assault rifles are prohibited in CA. You probably want the best "assault rifle like" rifle in CA, which is also a subjective opinion. I will, however, toss out that the AR-15, AK-47, and PTR-91 are the three front runners in my opinion.

• californa gunsmith license - good question. Federally, there is no longer the concept of a 'gunsmith license' - you have to get a full 01 FFL, which is the same FFL that a gun shop has to have. The state, however, may have some slightly more relaxed standards for a gunsmith than they do for a retail location.

• california assault gun points - this is probably asking about assault weapon features. In the now-expired federal assault weapon ban, there were "counts" of features. In California, there are no feature counts. This pertains only to semi-auto centerfire rifles; it doesn't pertain to 22LR rifles or bolt-action rifles. Anyway, if your magazine is fixed, you may have any number of features installed (i.e. pistol grip, collapsible stock, flash hider, etc). If it is detachable, you may not have ANY assault weapon features on your gun.

• california rifle legal length - 30" for semi-auto centerfire, 26" for all others

• gun silencers anatomy - no, we're not answering this question.

• how to build a polish akms - I imagine that it would be very similar to a Romanian AKM.

• how to remove the pump action on a par1 rifle - Push out the pins holding the pump handguard on. Pop off the dust cover, remove the spring in the rear, and pull the bolt carrier / charging handle group out of the PAR-1. Then you can shift the lever next to the rear sight base, and remove the upper handguard. Once you've done that, I seem to recall that the lower handguard just comes right off. If what you meant to ask was how to render it semi-automatic, I would strongly recommend buying an AK-47 or building one from a parts kit. Converting the PAR-1 would require more work than building an AK.

• is saiga california legal - Yes, as long as it was imported by the one company, and not the other. I believe Russian American Armory is the one presently being used in California.

• jp ctr-02 - yes, one of those touched off the whole off-list-lower movement. You will find them at http://www.jpenterprises.com/

• making an sks legal in california - SKSes, in their stock configuration, are already legal in California unless you're talking about the SKS-D or SKS-M rifles. If you have one of those, there's no way to make it legal.

• prince50 california doj - no, DOJ doesn't approve any of the various legality conversion parts that are used in California. Pretty much par for the course.

• ptr-91 10 round mag - the only reliable source for these at the moment, is to order 10/20 magazines (20rd magazines which have been converted to 10rds)

• su16 vs ar15 - The SU-16 is sold as a complete rifle by gun shops which aren't bold enough to carry AR-15's. You can find them used around $500, however they aren't bad guns at all. They're inexpensive, and tend to work pretty decently. That having been said, AR's from "non bottom feeder" vendors are definitely much better, and not too horribly much more expensive. The one clear cut advantage the SU-16 has is its looks - it doesn't look like an assault weapon, and isn't likely to get you in trouble during a traffic stop or other law enforcement interaction.

-- SeanNewton - 18 Jul 2007

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