Caliber conversions and the law

What are caliber conversions according to Italian law? Do they stack with firearms or not? And what happens to the weapon, from a legal point of view, when the conversion is mounted?

Caliber conversions are practically as old as breech-loading firearms and have always been popular with gun enthusiasts. In most cases they are used to shoot a smaller caliber than the normal one with your own weapon, to save shooting costs or allow training in facilities with a shorter line length. In other cases, caliber conversions allow for example a hunting gun to tackle a different type of game or a sporting gun to tackle a different shooting discipline, in still other cases the caliber of the conversion is the same as the “basic” weapon and the difference is simply the barrel length, for example Micro Conversion Kits

According to law, caliber conversions (which, depending on the case, may include only the barrel, or barrel, bolt, magazine and perhaps recoil spring) are NOT considered firearms, but weapon parts (possibly ” sets of parts”, if in addition to the barrel there is the bolt). It follows that they must be marked with a serial number and certainly must be reported within 72 hours of purchase, but they DO NOT cumulate the report with the weapons you already own. So, for example, if guy has three common guns in complaint, he will certainly be able to buy a caliber conversion for one of these guns without having to request a collection license, because the common guns he owns are always and only three.

Since the caliber conversions are not weapons, it is clear that they are not subject to classification by the Test Bench, as the weapons on which the conversions are intended to be mounted are already classified. There is another aspect, however, which deserves to be explored: since they are not weapons, but parts of a weapon, the conversions do not have a specific category. It follows that the assembly of the conversion, or rather the weapon with the conversion mounted, does not change category. To give a couple of practical examples: it is clear that when we mount a .22 lr caliber conversion on an Ar15 in .223 Remington, the problem does not arise, because the weapon would be a B9 anyway.If the gun is sporty, it will continue to be sporty, if the weapon is ordinary, it will continue to be ordinary even after the conversion is installed. If, however, a .22 lr caliber conversion is installed (for example) on a hunting rifle, the rifle will still be hunting qualified and will continue to have the same European category, but with the conversion fitted it will NOT be used for hunting because the .22 lr caliber is NOT a caliber allowed for hunting pursuant to law 157/92.