Featureless rifles are rifles with modifications made to remove prohibited features from Modern Sporting Rifles. The term is most commonly used with rifles manufactured or retrofitted to comply with

gun laws in California Gun laws in California regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the state of California in the United States. The gun laws of California are some of the most restrictive in the United States. A five-year Firearm Saf ...

. Guns with a

bullet button A bullet button is a device used to remove a magazine in a semiautomatic rifle, replacing the magazine release with a block which forces the user to remove the magazine by using a tool rather than the magazine release button. This allows the rifle ...

pistol grip On a firearm or other tools, a pistol grip is a distinctly protruded handle underneath the main mechanism, to be held by the user's hand at a more vertical (and thus more ergonomic) angle, similar to the how one would hold a conventional pi ...

flash suppressor A flash suppressor, also known as a flash guard, flash eliminator, flash hider, or flash cone, is a muzzle device attached to the muzzle of a rifle that reduces its visible signature while firing by cooling or dispersing the burning gases that ...

and

folding stock A gunstock or often simply stock, the back portion of which is also known as a shoulder stock, a buttstock or simply a butt, is a part of a long gun that provides structural support, to which the barrel, action, and firing mechanism are attach ...

have been considered assault weapons requiring formal registration in California since July 1, 2018. While some gun owners have opted to register their guns, others have chosen to make modifications to keep their weapons compliant with state regulations such that registration is not required. One common change for guns with a flash suppressor is to replace it with a

muzzle brake A muzzle brake or recoil compensator is a device connected to, or a feature integral to the construction of, the muzzle or barrel of a firearm or cannon that is intended to redirect a portion of propellant gases to counter recoil and unwant ...

, and some have converted their guns to use

.22 Long Rifle The .22 Long Rifle or simply .22 LR or 22 (metric designation: 5.6×15mmR) is a long-established variety of .22 caliber rimfire ammunition originating from the United States. It is used in a wide range of rifles, pistols, revolvers, smo ...

cartridges, which are smaller and less expensive than the

5.56×45mm NATO The 5.56×45mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 5.56 NATO, but often pronounced "five-five-six") is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge family developed in the late 1970s in Belgium by FN Herstal. It consists of the SS109, L110, and ...

.223 Remington The .223 Remington (designated as the 223 Remington by the SAAMI and 223 Rem by the CIP) is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was developed in 1957 by Remington Arms and Fairchild Industries for the U.S. Continental Army Command ...

cartridges that

AR-15 style rifle An AR-15-style rifle is any lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on the Colt AR-15 design. The original ArmaLite AR-15 is a scaled-down derivative of Eugene Stoner's ArmaLite AR-10 design. The then Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporat ...

s are predominantly chambered in. Some companies sell "featureless grips" made of

Kydex Kydex is a line of thermoplastic acrylic- polyvinyl chloride materials manufactured by Sekisui SPI. It has a wide variety of applications, including for aircraft bulkheads, firearm holsters, and sheaths. A similar acrylic polyvinyl chloride ...

that can convert pistol grips so they no longer meet the statutory definition of prohibited features. With these types of modifications, high-capacity magazines can still be used. Some companies, like Cobalt Kinetics and

Hi-Point Firearms Hi-Point Firearms, also known as Strassell's Machine, Inc (distributed by MKS Supply), is an American firearms manufacturer based in Mansfield, Ohio. All of their firearms are manufactured in several different locations in Ohio. Construction o ...

, have released rifles designed to be "featureless" under California's assault weapons statute. Both the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA) and the

National Rifle Association The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent gun rights lobbying organization while cont ...

(NRA) have released detailed information about "featureless builds".

References

External links

Frequently Asked Questions: Assault Weapons and .50 BMG
at CA.gov Firearm terminology Assault rifles

See also

References

Further reading

External links