Use 10rd mags in Swiss Arms rifles

[Shooting Centre]

These handy adaptors cost less that the NEA replacement receivers, require no permanent modifications to your rifle, and allow you to use AR15 magazines and especially the RRA LAR15 10 round mags in your Swiss rifle. You can switch back by simply loosening three screws.

Note the picture of a mounted system is the prototype unit, the individual unit shown second is the production unit. The changes simplified machining and but do not affect utility.

To ensure correct fitting we ask that we do the first installation. Kit includes one modified magazine that can be used to adapt others, or you can purchase spares from us. $225 installed.

[fenceline]

Saw this at CSC a couple of weeks ago on a range gun. Very cool.

[Shooting Centre]

Guys, the magazines still work in an AR and are appropriately marked. If someone has a real letter or reference please post it or direct us to it.

[ghostie]

As a Swiss Arms owner, I am really looking forward to this product. I don't think I'll send my green carbine to Calgary just yet, but if these catch on I'm sure there will be places in Vancouver and elsewhere that will install them.

As a practicing criminal lawyer in British Columbia who has argued firearms cases, including statutory interpretation cases about "cartridge magazines", and someone who has provided legal advice on related issues to Canadian firearms businesses I... regrettably... cannot just bite my tongue on this legal point. I say regrettably because I have learned over the years here on CGN that no one ever really changes their position on these things, they just keep arguing what they believe to be the case no matter what anyone else says or does. However...

Let's start from the basics...

There are only a few different sources of law:
1. Statue (in the area of firearms the statutes are, the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act);
2. Regulation (sometimes called "subordinate legislation". Statues like the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act will have sections which authorize the "Governor in Council" (the government) to make regulations regarding certain things not set out in the statute.
3. Common Law (sometimes called "Judge-made" law). In addition to applying the laws (Statutes and Regulations) that are made by Parliament, the courts sometimes have to interpret the laws in order to apply them to particular facts. These interpretations also become a kind of law, in that the rulings of higher courts (in the same province, or the SCC) are "binding" on lower courts. Decisions of other courts are generally "persuasive".

Opinions about the law, including the opinions of the Canada Firearms Centre and the RCMP, are not law. There are many complex regulatory issues in an area like firearms and neither the law, nor the regulations, nor the Courts can or ever will address all of them. Government agencies like the Canada Revenue Agency or the Canada Firearms Centre will sometimes put forward directives which indicate what they believe the law to be. This helps the regulated parties (businesses and individuals) to avoid prosecution by staying on the same side of the legal interpretation as the regulator - but this doesn't make it law. Only Parliament (and in some limited cases, the Government and the Courts) can create law.

On the issue of magazines.... there is nothing in the statutes that comes close to addressing these issues. About the closest you will find is the definition of "cartridge magazine" in s. 84 of the Criminal Code, but that does nothing for this debate.

Having argued "cartridge magazine" cases in court in recent years, I can say with some considerable confidence that there is no judicial consideration of the issue: "are there modifications which can be made to cartridge magazines - not related to capacity - which render them prohibited devices?"

That leaves us with Regulations. The regulation dealing with magazines, the only one dealing with magazines, is this one:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/PDF/SOR-98-462.pdf

Specifically, we are looking at section 3 ("FORMER CARTRIDGE MAGAZINE CONTROL REGULATIONS") of Part 4 ("PROHIBITED DEVICES"). That is it folks. The answer has to be found in one section of one regulation. Anything else, at this point, is somebody's opinion. Fortunately, as the original poster has said, the regs are pretty straight forward.

The answer is here. What is prohibited is...

3. (1) Any cartridge magazine
...
(b) that is capable of containing more than 10 cartridges of the
type for which the magazine was originally designed and that is
designed or manufactured for use in a semi-automatic handgun that
is commonly available in Canada.

That is it... the same old thing we are all familiar with. It doesn't say that you can't modify a pistol magazine. The issues are:

1. Was it designed or manufactured for use in a semi-automatic handgun that is commonly available in Canada? (Yes. It was designed and manufactured to be used in the Rock River Arms LAR-15. The markings placed on the mag by the manufactuer are determinative of this.)

2. Is it capable of containing more than 10 cartridge of the type for which it was originally deisgned? (No. It was designed to hold .223 REM cartridges, and it is not capable of holding more than 10 of them in its present configuration).

There is nothing in there about modifications of pistol magazines for use in a rifle. The issue is not relevant to the legal classification of the device as prohibited or not. It also does not say that no one is allowed to make any modifications to any magazines. In fact the next subsection is all about how you can modify mags to bring them into compliance with the above quoted definition, so clearly, at least in that regard... the idea of modifying mags is contemplated by the regs.

Mods that don't affect capacity are legal, I would say. You are free to change out the springs, the follower, modify the lips of the magazine or whatever. There may well be a point at which magazines are so extensively modified that they become "re-manufactured" (for a different purpose other than the one for which they were "manufactured or designed"), but I don't think that is a small modification like cutting a slot or groove would be "re-manufacturing" a magazine. In any event the law does not address this issue at all. It would take a judicial ruling or a change to the Regs. The idea that a pistol magazine could be so extensively modified that it is now "designed or manufactured" ("re-manufactured") as a rifle mag is just an opinion or theory that I have put forward. There is nothing to support that theory in the law as it stands.

[Tuco Pike]

Makes me want a Swiss Arms just to put that adapter on and have 50 LAR Magazines for it. People hiding and crying instead of effecting and affecting change. Lead, Follow, or get out of the way.

[Roughneck12]

I'm looking forward to getting one.

[Slowbalt]

Interesting

[Shooting Centre]

OK folks I have cleaned this thread up and I apologize because there really were some interesting points brought up this is just not the place.
To summarize, some people are afraid that the modification of the magazine amounts to "manufacture". We disagree. There is no direction from the RCMP, legal opinion or other reference available that suggests cutting a slot in the magazine spine results in the manufacture of a magazine.
If you disagree, please do not buy one or post in this thread.

Also please note: These magazine conversions are not suitable for bear defence.
Firing should always be done in a properly ventilated location, in a safe direction, and in a safe manner.
Always follow all local, provincial and federal firearm laws and regulations.
Etc, etc.

[Canuck223]

I believe Ghostie has summed this up nicely, and I have to give Shooting Center credit for preserving the concern even while decluttering the thread.

[Martin248]

As a Swiss Arms owner, I am really looking forward to this product. I don't think I'll send my green carbine to Calgary just yet, but if these catch on I'm sure there will be places in Vancouver and elsewhere that will install them.

As a practicing criminal lawyer in British Columbia who has argued firearms cases, including statutory interpretation cases about "cartridge magazines", and someone who has provided legal advice on related issues to Canadian firearms businesses I... regrettably... cannot just bite my tongue on this legal point. I say regrettably because I have learned over the years here on CGN that no one ever really changes their position on these things, they just keep arguing what they believe to be the case no matter what anyone else says or does. However...

Let's start from the basics...

There are only a few different sources of law:
1. Statue (in the area of firearms the statutes are, the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act);
2. Regulation (sometimes called "subordinate legislation". Statues like the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act will have sections which authorize the "Governor in Council" (the government) to make regulations regarding certain things not set out in the statute.
3. Common Law (sometimes called "Judge-made" law). In addition to applying the laws (Statutes and Regulations) that are made by Parliament, the courts sometimes have to interpret the laws in order to apply them to particular facts. These interpretations also become a kind of law, in that the rulings of higher courts (in the same province, or the SCC) are "binding" on lower courts. Decisions of other courts are generally "persuasive".

Opinions about the law, including the opinions of the Canada Firearms Centre and the RCMP, are not law. There are many complex regulatory issues in an area like firearms and neither the law, nor the regulations, nor the Courts can or ever will address all of them. Government agencies like the Canada Revenue Agency or the Canada Firearms Centre will sometimes put forward directives which indicate what they believe the law to be. This helps the regulated parties (businesses and individuals) to avoid prosecution by staying on the same side of the legal interpretation as the regulator - but this doesn't make it law. Only Parliament (and in some limited cases, the Government and the Courts) can create law.

On the issue of magazines.... there is nothing in the statutes that comes close to addressing these issues. About the closest you will find is the definition of "cartridge magazine" in s. 84 of the Criminal Code, but that does nothing for this debate.

Having argued "cartridge magazine" cases in court in recent years, I can say with some considerable confidence that there is no judicial consideration of the issue: "are there modifications which can be made to cartridge magazines - not related to capacity - which render them prohibited devices?"

That leaves us with Regulations. The regulation dealing with magazines, the only one dealing with magazines, is this one:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/PDF/SOR-98-462.pdf

Specifically, we are looking at section 3 ("FORMER CARTRIDGE MAGAZINE CONTROL REGULATIONS") of Part 4 ("PROHIBITED DEVICES"). That is it folks. The answer has to be found in one section of one regulation. Anything else, at this point, is somebody's opinion. Fortunately, as the original poster has said, the regs are pretty straight forward.

The answer is here. What is prohibited is...



That is it... the same old thing we are all familiar with. It doesn't say that you can't modify a pistol magazine. The issues are:

1. Was it designed or manufactured for use in a semi-automatic handgun that is commonly available in Canada? (Yes. It was designed and manufactured to be used in the Rock River Arms LAR-15. The markings placed on the mag by the manufactuer are determinative of this.)

2. Is it capable of containing more than 10 cartridge of the type for which it was originally deisgned? (No. It was designed to hold .223 REM cartridges, and it is not capable of holding more than 10 of them in its present configuration).

There is nothing in there about modifications of pistol magazines for use in a rifle. The issue is not relevant to the legal classification of the device as prohibited or not. It also does not say that no one is allowed to make any modifications to any magazines. In fact the next subsection is all about how you can modify mags to bring them into compliance with the above quoted definition, so clearly, at least in that regard... the idea of modifying mags is contemplated by the regs.

Mods that don't affect capacity are legal, I would say. You are free to change out the springs, the follower, modify the lips of the magazine or whatever. There may well be a point at which magazines are so extensively modified that they become "re-manufactured" (for a different purpose other than the one for which they were "manufactured or designed"), but I don't think that is a small modification like cutting a slot or groove would be "re-manufacturing" a magazine. In any event the law does not address this issue at all. It would take a judicial ruling or a change to the Regs. The idea that a pistol magazine could be so extensively modified that it is now "designed or manufactured" ("re-manufactured") as a rifle mag is just an opinion or theory that I have put forward. There is nothing to support that theory in the law as it stands.

I wish we could take all the posts like this, that are truly informative and insightful, and save them somewhere. This is high quality information.