Resurrecting an old thread. But does the “vertical” part apply to the front of the grip? Aka could a railscales anchor be mounted with the flat part in the rear, angle in the front? Or is that asking for trouble?
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If you spend some time searching the interwebs, you will eventually find two documents that people use for this discussion:
The first is a "determination" by the ATF around adding a vertical grip to a handgun, located here:
https://www.atf.gov/file/97256/download
Several key pieces of this that do very little to help clarify:
1: notice the definitions of "handgun" and "pistol" at the top, and how both note they are designed and intended to be fired from one hand. As we know today, that is complete and utter bull. Can they be fired one handed? Sure. Are we all using 2 hands when we can for better control and accuracy? Duh.
2: The crux of the argument from the ATF falls back on the definition of adding a VFG changes the "design and intent": ATF has long held that by installing a vertical fore grip on a handgun, the
handgun is no longer designed to be held and fired by the use of a single hand. Therefore, if individuals install a vertical fore grip on a handgun, they are “making” a firearm requiring registration with ATF’s NFA Branch.
Now we know the above to be a crock as even with the favorable "determination" of the pistol brace addition to the AR platform, the AR platform was never designed and intended to be fired one handed. The fallback on that is what establishes the "not converting a rifle to a pistol" and that if you order a stripped or complete lower, and have never installed the upper to it, the process of completing the "creation" of a rifle has never happened. So instead you add a brace, and magically, you have now designed and created a firearm that is "designed to be held and fired using a single hand."
Notice nowhere in the above is there any consideration for ACTUAL USE of the firearm; that is to say using two hands to fire a revolver or Glock because it makes it more accurate, the same as shouldering a pistol brace because it makes you more accurate.
The second letter that pops up is a letter from the ATF to a specific manufacturer of an angled foregrip, asking for clarity and a "determination" on their product. This letter is often pointed to in relation to the "if it's anything other than 90 degrees, you're ok to put it on there". However, if one simply reads the very next paragraph of that same letter,
it explicitly states that the determination is only intended for use by the addressed individual or company with regard to the specific scenario described within that correspondence.
In summary, the ATF are idiots and you can do what you want as a free American.
