We have been getting an over welling amount of calls about New York compliant or Featureless AR-15′ sport rifles so we put together this section to shed some light on this for you and hopefully answer some of those questions you may have. Please remember Top Gun Tactical Weapons is not giving any legal advise but is just touching upon the laws that you have read. First and foremost the term ASSAULT RIFLE is a term dubbed by the news media and politicians, AR-15 stands for Armalite Rifle Corp, model AR-15 designed by Eugene Stoner, Robert Fremont And Jim Sullivan in the 1950’s and based off of Stoner’s original design the AR-10. To set things straight most rifles need to be modified to comply with the laws and regulations set forth by the NY Safe Act, This where the term featureless rifle comes into play. And that is exactly what it is. It’s a semi-automatic rifle with no visible features of a traditional model AR-15 rifle. Dark Storm Industries based out of Long Island, NY is one of the very few manufactures that offer an out of the box featureless rifle for this market. Here is a link to some of those laws, smartgunlaws.org/assault-weapons-in-new-york/ An owner of an assault weapon, as defined in the NY gun laws link above, which was possessed legally before January 15, 2013 , must make an application to register the assault weapon with the superintendent of the Sate Police on or before January 15, 2014. A person who fails to register an assault weapon on or before January 15, 2014 will be guilty of a class A misdemeanor. January 15, 2014 was the last day you had to register your rifle in New York. This is where the New York compliant or Featureless rifle came into existence. Smith & Wesson and Ruger both touched upon this market with the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 and the Ruger AR556 for NJ offering a fully compliant rifle out of the box for that market. The rifle possesses all the requirements required by New York with the exception of the pistol grip. This is where the Thordsen Customs FRS-15 rifle stocks and the AR Spur grip come into play, They both replace the pistol style grip New York considers one of the ban features so to speak. There are some other options on the market and Dark Storm Industries as mentioned above offers their DS15- line of rifles and lower receivers. They have a permanently fixed magazine which requires you to open the action and top load the magazine. It’s not the best solution but it does allow you to keep or posses all the other ban or evil features as they are referred to. With that said, coming to market are a couple of new manufactures called Mean Arms and Bear Flag Defense and they are showing a lot of promise with there top loaders, it allows a fixed magazine rifle to be loaded from the ejection port without opening the action, and it’s a pretty good option to splitting the action. Your last option is to remove all the ban features to make the rifle compliant. This can be done by replacing the collapsible butt-stock with a fixed stock such as the Thordsen Customs FRS-15 stock or a A2 butt-stock (M16 Style) or pining the collapsible stock rendering it useless. Other than the Thordsen FRS-15 stock both the A2 and pinned stocks will require the use of the AR spur to remove the pistol grip requirement. You will also have to remove the bayonet lug on the A2 front sight or replace the front sight with a full floating hand guard and low profile gas block as many owners already do, so this is no big loss in my book. And lets not forget the grenade launcher feature (really I don’t even know where to get one) enough said about that one. Last but not least is the muzzle break or flash suppressor, what ever you want to call it will have to be removed. You can install a thread protector on the threads of the barrel so they don’t get damaged but it has to go. The above information is what the law requires, I am not here to dispute the law but am obligated to make sure I uphold it. I don’t personally agree with it or see how any of these features make this rifle any more or less safe or scary, it still shoots the same 5.56 NATO ammunition and is one of the most popular rifles in the world today. JUST MY OPINION. I have included a few photos for you to see your options. And hope this helps you with your purchase.
Sincerely,
The Staff at Top Gun Tactical Weapons
Thordsen FRS-15 Stock
NJ Compliant M&P15 Just Needs The Spur
NJ Compliant Ruger AR556 Just Needs The Spur
The Spade Not Mentioned But An Option
A2 Buttstock With The Spur
