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Pistol grip shottys

505 Views 17 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  gunsmoker
I have been shooting a shotgun since age 12, a shotgun was the first gun I learned to shoot. In South Georgia (Thomas County ) My family owns plenty of land there. We hunt quail and pretty much any other 4 legged rascal. All our shottys have the regular stocks. I've always used a regular stock on all my shottys but I recently purchased a 12ga Maverick 88 for home defense it has the regular stock on it and it came with a pistol grip too. Is there any use for the pistol grip other than it being used for a range toy?
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If you want to conceal one (on your person or elsewhere), it would make it more compact. I'm really not sure what kind of responses you want. If you want a pistol grip, use it. I'm still not sure why the ATF is fine with them right now, but whatever.
budder said:
I'm really not sure what kind of responses you want.
What is the pistol grip shotgun good for ? Does it have any tactical use ? What is its advantages and disadvantages in home defense ? Otherwise the grip will just get thrown in my junk drawer to stay.
It's shorter. You can turn faster. Your aim gets worse, which may not matter in a home defense situation. You look like a fool. That's about it.
budder said:
Your aim gets worse,
I can deal with the looking like a fool part cause if I have to respond to a home invasion late at night I'll probaly be half naked :) The part about aim being worse I can't deal with. Thanks
budder said:
If you want to conceal one (on your person or elsewhere), it would make it more compact. I'm really not sure what kind of responses you want. If you want a pistol grip, use it. I'm still not sure why the ATF is fine with them right now, but whatever.
Why wouldn't they be fine with them? Also you can now buy sub 18" PG shotguns with no additional paperwork now as long as the OAL is over 26".
Jmark said:
budder said:
If you want to conceal one (on your person or elsewhere), it would make it more compact. I'm really not sure what kind of responses you want. If you want a pistol grip, use it. I'm still not sure why the ATF is fine with them right now, but whatever.
Why wouldn't they be fine with them? Also you can now buy sub 18" PG shotguns with no additional paperwork now as long as the OAL is over 26".
They are looking at reclassifing them, since they currently don't meet the definition of 'shotgun'.
JMJ2 said:
budder said:
I'm really not sure what kind of responses you want.
What is the pistol grip shotgun good for ? Does it have any tactical use ? What is its advantages and disadvantages in home defense ? Otherwise the grip will just get thrown in my junk drawer to stay.
I have a Mossberg 500 with a Knoxx PG. It's strictly for HD. From the few time I shot it at the range to get the feel for it and such, aim was not an issue for typical HD distances.
Adam5 said:
Jmark said:
budder said:
If you want to conceal one (on your person or elsewhere), it would make it more compact. I'm really not sure what kind of responses you want. If you want a pistol grip, use it. I'm still not sure why the ATF is fine with them right now, but whatever.
Why wouldn't they be fine with them? Also you can now buy sub 18" PG shotguns with no additional paperwork now as long as the OAL is over 26".
They are looking at reclassifing them, since they currently don't meet the definition of 'shotgun'.
That's already happened.

http://www.nfaoa.org/documents/testttt20001.pdf
So...Pistol grip shotties are going to require a stamp/be illegal what?
what i like is the full stock with the pistol grip. :righton:
gruntpain1775 said:
So...Pistol grip shotties are going to require a stamp/be illegal what?
Neither, only thing that has changed is that you can now get a pg shotty with a sub 18" barrel w/o a stamp.
Interesting. I didn't know this.
So does it matter that the barrel on Len Savage's Mossberg 500 Crusier (pistol-grip-only, as sent by factory) was 17" long and thus the overall length requirement was still met?

What if Len wanted to take the shotgun barrel down to 12" and modify the magazine tube accordingly?

BATF's letter to Mr. Savage says that you have to still watch out for state laws regarding these sort of weapons.

But it looks like in Georgia, our state definitions mimic the federal ones. (O.C.G.A. 16-11-121, 124).
If a pistol-grip-only Mossberg Cruiser is not a "shotgun" because it was never intended to be fired from the shoulder, then cutting it down doesn't make a short shotgun. It makes a short some other kind of gun!
There is a extensive discussion of the topic here.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=1077741&page=1

If the tube puts the OAL over 26" you should be gtg. I'm not sure what the point of that would be though. Personally I wouldn't spend the extra money to get a 17" gun but if it was for one of these........

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That discusstion above is full of bickering, idiotic comments, deleted or edited posts, and links that don't work and photos that don't appear.

Can you point me to the relevant parts without having to wade through page after page of crap?

I'm really confused why the Mossy 500 Cruiser doesn't have to have an 18" barrel but it DOES have to meet the 26" overall length requirement. Is that to keep it from being called an AOW (smoothbore pistol, caliber over half-inch?)
Well that's general discussion for you.

A PG shotgun is no longer considered to be a shotgun so that removes the 18" requirement and so as long as it remains longer than 26" it does not fall under the definition of an AOW according to the NFA.

Read the third paragraph.

http://www.nfaoa.org/documents/testttt20001.pdf
Okay, found this quote from the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog (did a Google search):

...In response to a request for clarification of the law, ATF advised a firearms manfacturer in a letter dated July 20, 2010
" . . . in an effort to achieve consistent application of the law, ATF utilizes 26 inches as the presumptive standard to determine whether a firearm is 'capable of being concealed on the person' [and] "barrel length is considered only to the extent that it constitutes a portion of the overall-length measurement of a firearm."


OKAY, so an "AOW" must be a concealable weapon, and ATF has said that under 26" overall length IS concealable (you could hide it under your arm while wearing a coat).

But ATF apparently also says that no matter how long the barrel is or the gun's OAL is, if you do in fact conceal it, it is an AOW. If it's a smoothbore weapon that does not meet the definition of a regular shotgun, and you conceal it, you've proven that it's "concealable" and therefore an AOW.

(This is quite inconsistent with what BATF has said about using the buffer tube on the back of an AR-15 type pistol as a sort-of de facto shoulder stock. You can use it as such, as long as you don't modify it to look like a stock or function as a stock.)
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