The law says
- Flash hider or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
A threaded muzzle brake is not a threaded bbl. Its also not designed to accomodate a flash hider.
So Its legal. Provided its "permanently affixed" to the threaded barrel.
the muzzle brake is not the barrel. Sorry. Words have meaning.
Not exactly... This is the feds, after all. Legally, he's right.
The MA stuff is hard to parse out because the MGL does not include the text of the '94 AWB, just a reference to the USC.
As a result, most people have for 20+ years simply tried to comply with the FEDS determinations on what does or doesn't constitute an AW.
The feds did not/do not consider a muzzle device, when blind pinned and welded, or silver soldered (over 1100* melting point), to be an accessory or separate part. Those are the two means of making them "part of the barrel" in the eyes of the feds - that is their legal meaning and has been since before the '94 AWB even. Now, if it was a flash hider that had been permanently affixed by either of those means, the feds did consider said flash suppressor to now be PART of the barrel, but a flash hider none the less, and therefore not compliant with the AWB. If it was a compensator, muzzle brake, or cap, then it likewise became "part of the barrel", but not being a flash suppressor it was AWB compliant, being that the barrel was no longer threaded (in a way that could accommodate a flash suppressor, let alone be intended for it).
To this day, people get away with having shorter rifled portions of their barrel by buying a 14" or 10" threaded AR barrel and permanently installing a long brake or flash hider via the proscribed means so it becomes "part of the barrel" in the eyes of the feds, reaches over 16", and therefore is compliant with the NFA and not an SBR. Some companies even made/make one-piece (not threaded / pinned / soldered) barrels with built in brakes or flash hiders that resemble thread-ons for that purpose.
Those two methods meet the requirements of the NFA and met the requirements of the 94 AWB. It got muddier with the 89 import requirements where a few spot welds on the muzzle device were acceptable to make a barrel "not threaded" and therefore legal to
import as a sporting rifle, but while they made the muzzle device fall outside of ITAR import regulations, they did NOT make the muzzle device meet the standards of the NFA or the AWB as "part of the barrel". Do not simply tack weld a barrel device on to achieve compliance with anything other than ITAR; the feds will not count that as adequate.
Anyone else can feel free to step in and fill any gaps here.
