The National Firearms Act really is a drag. Thanks to its legal restrictions on short barreled rifles, some of the lightest and handiest classes of firearms are substantially restricted from common ownership in the US. The police carbine (semiautomatic short barreled pistol caliber rifles) and the PDW are two of the hardest hit classes: Both kinds of firearm are handy, easy to shoot, and inoffensive, but both are at their best with barrels under 16″, right where the NFA cuts them off.

So if we don’t want to go the NFA route and pay an extra $200 for a tax stamp and accept other legal restrictions, then what could we do instead, with just a normal 4473 transfer? BreachBangClear’s David Merrill has come up with an idea so crazy, so… Tacticool, that it just might work. I’ll let him explain:

80’s Awesome
Using a sling to increase stability and compensate for recoil on a stock-less gun isn’t a new idea. Instead of physically pulling the stock back into your shoulder, you instead push forward on the weapon to increase sling tension.

…

No, it’s not as good as a traditional buttstock. With the smaller size comes compromise (that’s what she said?).

You’ve Got Options…
Back to that conversation with the Yeti: options discussed included using the original lanyard hole, which is suboptimal because as you extend it forces the nose of the pistol down, and the light rail itself. The issue with the light rail is that:
-You can no longer utilize a WML
-You have to take care that the sling isn’t biased toward one side or hindering your controls

The best place to attach a sling balance- and stability-wise would probably be right on the back of the slide. But that won’t work for obvious reasons. I was contemplating this during a conversation with the aforementioned Bad Idea Enabler. One thought was to buy one of those cheap Israeli stocks, chop it down, and attach a sling to what would formerly be a cheekpiece. Another was to modify a Grip Force Adapter to accept a QD stud beyond the beavertail. Then I remembered the TSA-G ENDO Stock adapter, and how it accepts regular AR stocks.

It went something like this:
“That’s retarded. …but…”
“Mall ninja as f&#!. …but…”

Though when it was released the ENDO Glock stock adapter was upwards of $155, it currently sells for a small fraction of that at just $35. The adapter itself fits into the rear of the frame and is secured with a ball lock pin. More importantly, the top of the adapter is contoured to fit a Glock factory frame, which in theory should add to how secure it fits. With the encouragement of the Bad Idea Enabler, the purchase was made. I’d figure the rest out.

Setting it Up
The adapter fit my Glock 17 well with only minimal futzing. The ball lock pin came equipped with a cheezy ball chain, which was immediately broken off, thrown out, and replaced with gutted 550 cord. But how to attach the sling? One could absolutely just loop it through the adapter itself. However, I wanted QD capability and that came in the form of a $20 receiver plug from Spikes Tactical. Originally made for .22lr AR pistols, it seemed like a perfect fit for this project.

For the sling itself I went with Armageddon Gear. It’s a quick adjust, has a FASTEX clip to get out of it quickly, and also has a bungee so I can keep tension during extension. I can’t think of a better option here. The particular model I had originally came with an Hk hook, which I replaced with a standard strap. Both ends of the strap were fed through a standard QD loop and secured.

[Readers should note that I’ve chopped this excerpt quite a bit to just give our readers the basic idea. I highly recommend they click through and read David’s entire discussion.]

The end result. Much ninja. Very wow. Image source: breachbangclear.com

Aesthetically, David has ruined a perfectly good Glock 17. Practically, though, I – who put silver duct-tape on my guns and am an avowed enemy of the tacticool – am increasingly fond of the idea. It does not have the disadvantages of the pistol-caliber carbine while having probably 90% of the advantages, thanks to a red dot sight and the stabilizing sling. In many ways, it’s worse than a pistol-caliber SBR, but in a couple of ways it’s probably better (concealability and draw speed). Most importantly, it circumvents my primary objection to slung rifle-based pistols, which is their weight, size, and general ungainliness when held in two hands. Without tension on the sling, Merrill’s slung Glock 17 is still basically a Glock 17 with an RDS rig, and that’s OK. The best part in my eyes is that the whole setup isn’t particularly expensive. Not including the Aimpoint and light, it costs only about $840 to put together, which is less than the MSRP of a Scorpion Evo (and – for my comments section – yes, Glocks take Glock magazines!).

Lothaen over at LooseRounds wrote last year that he thought the pistol was becoming the civilian PDW, thanks to modern red dot sights and mounts. Is the ENDO stock adapter with a sling swivel the missing ingredient for the true rise of the civilian PDW, or just a harebrained concept?