"Proably"* legal to own IF you have a license for a firearm of the same type.
However, I doubt highly that you or anyone else here will have a license for a former full-auto whatever you fancy there on the site.:) But, say if you wanted to Retro you AR Modern sporting rifle into a "Nam " lookalike M16, and you got the relevant bits for it.[Minus obviously the select fire control and bolt carrier, which would be illegal to instal or use under new EU law.] You should be ok. These are a pretty new phenomenon the Continent now post EU directive of 2017.As the new directive has skyrocketed the price of high tech clubs, that were formerly perfectly safe deacts for millions of collectors EU wide These parts kits are basically just parts that you cant assemble to look like a gun.Its old German law of pre-2001 on detected full auto stuff.You could have the parts, just not in an assembled state.

The second part of your question is pretty much covered by the fact if you have the license ,it covers you to own as many parts for the gun as you please.Including receivers. The receiver thing is US law, not EU or national law.The US considers the receiver the building block of the gun and everything else are just add on bits. The EU considers the pressure bearing parts IE bolt, barrel, etc as the liscenseable parts.Ireland we consider ALL the parts licensable.so you could* own a receiver as well.

* This is my opinion on a topic that isn't covered very well if at all under Irish gun law and doesn't have any legal basis.So Cevat emptor, your mileage may vary, objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are etc.

Uinseann_16 wrote: »

Are old m16s and ar-15s old enough to be shot in classic and vintage rifle matches here i know they've been around since the late fifty's? i seen on that website they have original armoury new untouched m16's if you had a ar could you stick an old upper on it and be able to shoot in matches or is it too new?
thanks for the info( dont worry i wouldn't use i heard it on boards your honor in a court case)
i do like the look of the retro ar-15s with walnut stocks but just the upper reciever for a build is about 200 quid and on backorder from the Us so it might be an alternative for the lads who have ARs here and want a retro upper receiver

If you have so much as a screw or any other part of an AR15 or an old M16 and don't have a licence for the firearm, you are in possession of an illegal firearm. Yes, I'm serious. The way the law is worded, any part of a firearm is considered a firearm. So if you don't have a licence, then you might be in the sh1t if the authorities find out.

Now, while it is very difficult, you might be able to get a licence for an AR15 if you can convince a Chief Super that you need one. Good luck with that. Not impossible but very very difficult.

I'm far from an expert but I think the M16 is select fire. If it can be set to fully auto, then forget about it. You won't get a licence for that.

Taking your and BC posts together.
Are they old enough to be shot in Vintage and classic rifle?Dunno,proably form the age point of view certainly,..You'd have to ask the VCRAI lads here.

Could you stick an old M16 upper on a AR style lower and shoot it? Nope! from a technical and legal point.Depends on the age of the M16, which seeing as it is military surplus is no doubt Colt. Colt changed at some point the upper /lower hinge pin configuration around the mid-late 80s to a smaller? hinge pin to prevent this happening with its civilian Ar15s and M16 uppers. So you would have to have a small pin lower receiver that would take an M16 upper. You could use however the M16 bolt carrier group in an AR15 and it is legal or was legal to do so in the US.provided you have ZERO other M16 parts in the gun.Or in your possession, that also means at home in the darkest corner of your junk drawer, BATFE considers it "intent to create a machine gun" .

TBH, what you are going to get here is a lot of crappy plastic bits, although I do like the triangle handguard alot more than the round ones on the later model,it is POS plastic, as is the stock and lets not talk about the biter A1 pistol grip, if you have hands slightly bigger than a 10-year-olds.You'll have a fire control mechanism that is while not illegal to own here, in conjunction with a bolt carrier,[you still have to source an M16 bolt, which will be fun here or in the US] an M16 lower and upper and a licensed MSR in an AR configuration,it wont take long to convince a jury of Irish wood heads on guns that you had a machine gun or were going to build one.

Now, a SMART Bear would get in contact with a very nice Bavarian gunsmith called Herr Neidermeyer in Munich [Google it for contact] and ask does he have any rebuilt to German Bundes Kriminal amt Technical division approved M16 A1 lookalikes for sale? Or even Colt Commandos,[if you want something even less reliable] for sale. And even ask him could he construct from one of these parts kits a legal under German and EU law M16 lookalike for you?He will no doubt answer in affirmative and tell you it will not be called an M16 as such are illegal under German war weapons laws.But it will be called the Niedermeyer 16 or the like.And it will have a much better barrel in it for better accuracy than some good enough for Govt spec barrel.IE "it's straight and has twirly things in it Man!"[As the Hippy said on the shift that day when it was made sometime in the 1960s.] That's what I'd do with one of those kits if I wanted a"cheapish" Retro M16 that has been irrevocably converted to SA using genuine parts.Get a pro gunsmith to do it, who is well up on both German and EU gun laws on this matter, but will charge you about 2k for it.But is 2k worth you not being a guest of the nation?

As to licensing it here..Well, that's another bucket of haddock altogether.;)

Cass wrote: »

If it is full auto regardless of ability to select it you're in the sh*t and with the recent EU law/directive (Grizzly45 is more up to speed) if it was full auto but converted to semi-auto you could still be in the sh*t.

I'm moving to the Czech Republic. They're eon the right track.

Not quite, You can still own it as they will be grandfathered EU wide.Or if say you have such a parts kit and it is Reworked by a competent gunsmith and is called something utterly different then it's legal for future sale.IOW I take that M16 kit, put a new barrel in it.Block up the auto sear part of the receiver by tig welding in a steel block and machining it to spec,or just building a new copy of the lower, modify the M16 bolt group to AR spec in semi-auto only and then resell it as the Grizzly 16",after the German Federal police technical labs try and take it apart over 6 months and try to rework it with normal household tools to full auto,or it doesn't fit the weapons of war ban list its legal to sell.

What is going to happen, is that they will not allow anymore surplus military or police arms stocks to be sold into the GP market in the EU.However with a good few millions of converted stuff flying about, and allowed to be freely traded, sold, inherited, etc.It's kind of why did they bother?? And yes moving to the "Texas of Europe" has its charms.Seeing that they, as a country, are taking the EU directive to court.