ATF Approved: New AR “Stabilizing Brace” Makes the Grade

It looks like a new AR pistol brace has been approved by BATF.

ATF is fickle. When a short “arm brace” was okayed for use on AR-style handguns some time ago, the shooting world erupted with people either clamoring to buy them, warning that doing so was a recipe for a jail sentence, and/or begging ATF to rule on the item’s legality.

The question was: Would adding such a thing to a pistol magically transform it into a short-barreled rifle (SBR), which requires one to bribe the government and jump through hoops in order to legally own?

ATF at first approved of such use, but later ruled (in early 2015) that such a thing can exist and be legally affixed to a pistol–but if you touch it to your shoulder, you’re a lawbreaker unless you’ve done the aforementioned payment/red tape routine classifying the firearm as an SBR.

Sigh.

I’d say the newly-approved brace will have the same rules applied: Touch it against any other part of your body, but set it against your shoulder and you’d better make sure there are no government drones watching.

The new design is by SB Tactical, which will reportedly be pushing development of two different models of pistol braces.

We are very excited with the ATF’s approval of our new adjustable Pistol Stabilizing Brace design, and understand the overwhelmingly positive implications of the decision,’ said Jeff Creamer, Vice President of Business Development, SB Tactical. ‘SB Tactical’s commitment to emerging technologies and innovation has been the facilitator for the growing PDW pistol category. This Opinion ushers in an exciting time for us and the PDW community; we are proud to introduce the MPX PSB and SBPDW models.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.