Pump shotgun without pistol grip

[plumbum]

Get a 12” LOP stock if you want to shave inches - pistol grips are not even good for range toys.

[ojisan]

Please see my post #7, the second part.

To clarify a bit...Fed law first:

If the 500 (or other brand / model) as newly manufactured had a butt stock attached to it and meets the 26" OAL and 18.5" min barrel length, it is a shotgun, and the maker would have reported to the Fed that its serial number is a shotgun.
As long as you stay over 26" OAL and 18.5" min barrel length, you can put any type stock or grip on it that you want, but it will always be a shotgun in Fed eyes.

If the 500 as manufactured had a pistol grip installed, and never had a buttstock installed on it, it is an "Other".
It is not a shotgun (not made as one and never had a butt stock which is part of the Fed definition of what a shotgun is) or handgun (it meets the 26" OAL and 18.5" barrel requirements, too long for the handgun definition).

Going below 26" OAL, usually with a shorter barrel (since it's really hard to shorten the receiver haha) would create either a Short Barreled Shotgun (SBS) if it was originally a shotgun, or an Any Other Weapon (AOW) if it was originally an Other. *
Both of these types require a Federal Tax Stamp to legally make, purchase and own.

Now Fed law used to allow making a pistol into a rifle, but you could not go back to a pistol.
CA currently follows this, but the Feds a few years ago changed and allow you to go back to a pistol again.
I know I crossed over to pistols and rifles here, but the concepts apply.

It's rather dumb sometimes but that's how it works.
So, as in post 7, if you think you might want to do an AOW modification to a Mossberg 500 (or other) in CA, starting with a PG only version is best since it was never registered as a shotgun.

* I'm not going to talk about pistols with vertical front grips as AOWs here.

My apologies to the legal beagles for the "Reader's Digest" version above, but I think I've hit the gist of the matter using plain English.

[Librarian]

Ojisan has it right.

There's common usage where 'shotgun' includes everything that is smooth bore and fires shot shells.

And there are legal definitions, which ojisan covered adequately.

Please remember, 'legalese' only looks like English.