The question with the easy answer is that the new rules are indeed released and official, and are on the NRA website.
As for selecting a different chamber in a replacement barrel, or stock swap, I think you’d need a catalog picture and description proving that the combination you are presenting, was a factory offering.
The Rule clause that would support this position would be:
“Except as specifically described in these Rules, the barrel, action, trigger, and stock/chassis of the rifle must be from the same manufacturer and must be available to the general public as a single package or unit.”
In other words you probably can build your own “factory rifle” from parts, but the parts must match exactly what the factory did offer in a completed rifle, at some point in time.
The other way to read the rules is that rebarreling in a different chamber is now not the same “specification”. This restrictive reading is plausible inasmuch as the liberal rule above does say “except as specifically described in these rules”.
However, that reading fails enforcement when a gun is sold, used. I will always know what a new gun’s original caliber was, but I will never be certain what all was done to a gun I’ve bought used. A person should not be able to avail himself of an advantage under the rules that depends on whether the gun was new or not, which weighs against this interpretation.
Last edited:
