Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots Encore pistol?

I have a 30-06 encore pistol with a 15 inch barrel. Is it legal to put a rifle stock on it. It was sold and serial number as a pistol. I can’t google the law on this myself. Edk

You can put a >16” barrel on it and put the buttstock and be legal. You cannot put your 15” .30-06 barrel on and put the buttstock on and be legal. It is, in that configuration, a short barreled rifle. Don’t get caught that way. You’ll be in serious trouble with the BATF

For going down the rabbit hole…
https://www.bellmtcs.com/blog/converting-rifles-to-handguns/

I have had one frame that I purchased in 2002 that did not specify on the 4473 if it was a pistol or a rifle. I also use minimum 16.25” barrels on my gun. This way it’s legal whether it has a buttstock or pistol grip bolted on. Practically, it’s virtually impossible to determine if you’ve had it set up as a rifle or a pistol and as long as ou don’t go hunting with a buttstock bolted on and a 15” barrel in the frame, you’ll be fine. There isn’t a prosecutor in the world that will win a case in the court of law that you have illegally made a short barreled rifle unless you get caught red-handed with the buttstock on. Then you’re screwed. I had a 12” .22 BR barrel for a while that was a fun pistol to shoot. I currently own 18” barrels in .357 Max and .260 Remington from MGM.

Ok thanks. I heard a few years ago that there was kind of a gray area on encores. People said if you had a rifle action and put pistol barrel and stocks on it was illegal. I didn’t know about the other way around. Edk

Technically, it’s a gray area. Because the barrel isn’t legally the firearm, the frame is the firearm. So if you take a rifle and put a short barrel on it that is <16” you have a short barreled rifle, which is not allowed without the right NFA form. But because you can also change out the buttstock or pistol grip, as long as you don’t put the buttstock on with your 15” barrel on and go hunting or to a public target range, no one is going to call you on it, regardless of the 4473.