Don’t Call It a Short-Barreled: Firearms That Skip The NFA Tax
Travis Olander 01.12.24
If you’re a gun owner, you’re going to want a short-barreled something, eventually. Whether it’s a shotgun or rifle, anything with a stubby barrel is fun to shoot and practical. The arbitrary minimum barrel lengths decreed by federal law (16″ for rifles and 18″ for shotguns) for regular guns sacrifice some practicality. Many of our favorite cartridges don’t even need barrels that long, especially when it comes to slingin’ some shot shells. So, let’s take a look at some of the non NFA Tax options for short-barrel adjacent firearms.
NFA Coverage on AllOutdoor
- Watch: How NOT to Shoot a Short-Barreled Gun
- The Beginner’s Guide to Suppressors – How Do They Work & Function?
- Silencer Central Legislates for ATF Tax to Support Wildlife Conservation
- Guide to PDW Stocks: The Good, Bad, and Ugly plus our 2023 Top Picks
- AllOutdoor Review – Beretta 3032 Tomcat Covert .32 ACP
Buying (or Building) NFA Guns is Complicated
But going through the hassle of obtaining a tax stamp for short-barreled rifles and shotguns – classified as Title II firearms by the Gun Control Act of 1968, and heavily regulated by the National Firearms Act – can be costly, confusing, and needlessly expensive. This writer’s been down the path. When I built my 300 Blackout-chambered SBR, I had to meet my local sheriff, schedule an appointment to get fingerprints taken, take a passport photo, spend hours wrestling with the ATF’s eForms website, pay $200, and wait half a year before I could put everything together.
If you get approval from the ATF to buy or build a short-barreled rifle or shotgun, you’re still beholden to a set of strict regulations: You can’t modify your NFA items without notifying the agency, you can’t loan them to others without the other possessor also receiving approval, and you can’t easily sell them to another party, nor leave them to family members without yet more paperwork. Because of the extra steps required to build and sell NFA guns, retailers also often include markups on these restricted guns. Basically, you’re paying a premium for that shorter barrel. Thankfully, though, there is another way to own a short-barreled rifle or shotgun without jumping through the hoops – and it’s perfectly legal under federal law, according to the ATF.
Not All Short-Barreled Guns are NFA Items
Thanks to the myriad gun laws passed over the past century – and we have to give credit to the ATF for its endless rulemaking – it’s actually pretty easy to make a short-barreled firearm that’s totally legal, not considered an NFA item, and which doesn’t require going through the application process to obtain a tax stamp.
Take the Mossberg Shockwave, for example, pictured above. It obviously has a barrel that’s shorter than 18″, and it fires shot shells through a decidedly shotgun-esque receiver and magazine – it is, after all literally a Mossberg 590 – but, legally, the Shockwave is not a shotgun. Nor is it a handgun. It isn’t a rifle, because it’s smoothbore. And, critically, it’s not an “Any Other Weapons”, or AOW (more on that later). It’s simply a firearm: A generic gun that doesn’t meet any of the definitions that define regular and short-barreled rifles, shotguns, and handguns.
How is this possible?
What Makes an NFA Firearm?
To answer that, we have to first clarify what actually constitutes an NFA firearm. Then we can explain how the Shockwave – and plenty of other firearms – don’t meet these definitions, even if they have short barrels.
Short-Barreled Rifle
A short-barreled rifle, or SBR, is any rifle with a barrel shorter than 16″, or with an overall length under 26″. That includes even if the barrel’s longer than 16″. And a rifle is defined as a firearm with a rifled barrel that’s designed to be fired from the shoulder which, practically speaking, means it has some sort of stock or shouldering device. That means the M4, which has a 14.5″ barrel, is considered an SBR. It also means that any bullpup rife with a 16″ barrel but with an OAL under 26″ would also be considered an SBR.
Short-Barreled Shotgun
A short-barreled shotgun (SBS) – like this ludicrous creation inspired by the shotgun from the film Killing Them Softly – is a shotgun with a stock and smoothbore barrel (or barrels) shorter than 18″, or with an overall length under 26″.
Any Other Weapon (AOW)
An AOW is a sort of NFA catchall: it’s any firearm that isn’t a rifle or shotgun, that has an overall length less than 26″ (barrel length doesn’t matter, here) and which is not designed to be fired with a single hand. This Nomad Pistol from Seraphim Armoury clearly resembles a shotgun, and it fires shot shell. But it’s not a shotgun because it doesn’t have a stock. It does, however, measure less than 26″, and it’s made to be fired with two hands: One holds the pistol grip, while the other holds the forend. That makes it an AOW. So, let’s look again at the Shockwave from Mossberg:
Well, it looks damn near identical to the Nomad, right? It clearly has a pistol grip and a grip on the forend for the pump action. It’s got a short barrel, and it’s made to be fired with two hands. So, isn’t it an AOW? No, it isn’t.
Why Firearms Aren’t NFA Guns
The reasons for why the Shockwave isn’t an NFA gun is simple: It doesn’t meet any of the definitions needed to classify it as an AOW, an SBS, nor an SBR. Why? Let’s review the facts:
- The Shockwave clearly has a barrel shorter than 18″. But it doesn’t have a stock, so it’s not designed to be fired from the shoulder. That means it can’t be an SBS. It also has a barrel that’s obviously shorter than 16″ – but, again, it doesn’t have a stock and it’s a smoothbore gun. So it’s not an SBR.
- And, most importantly, although it is clearly designed to be fired with two hands, it’s overall length exceeds 26 inches. That means it can’t be defined as an AOW.
- It is simply called a firearm. Not a shotgun, not a rifle, not “any other weapon”. That means to own one of these bad boys, you needn’t submit to the long, complicated, and expensive process of getting a tax stamp approved. You can simply buy a Mossberg Shockwave (and any other Firearm that carefully meets these same standards) like you would any regular gun through a typical FFL.
While lil’ smoothbore guns the Shockwave are often sought after for the cool factor, generic firearms can provide an important exemption for gun owners who live in restrictive states. Take this DS-15 in 300 Blackout, for example. It might be mistaken as an AR pistol because it has a brace installed on its buffer tube. But isn’t a pistol, because it has an overall length greater than 26″ and it has a barrel longer than 12.5″ – another key distinction that makes it not a handgun. In states that have banned “scary assault rifles” and “assault pistols”, an AR-type firearm can provide safe, legal ownership in spite of those restrictions. Now, if you want to see how awesome the not-a-shotgun Shockwave really is, check out Paul Harrell’s range day with it, and hear his thoughts on the stout ‘Berg.
