Nevada-based Franklin Armory has won a lengthy legal battle with federal regulators over its no-stamp-required Reformation firearm that includes both a stock and a short barrel.

Franklin teased the Reformation in early 2018 as a new gun type that was neither rifle nor shotgun, the curious clarification due to an innovative barrel design that imparts stabilization without traditional rifling. 

We caught up with the company at SHOT '18 and got a closer look at the design, which uses a barrel with straight-cut lands and grooves and a standard chamber. 

Then the ATF came in and reversed its initial finding that the Reformation was a simple firearm and NFA rules applied. The same went for Franklin's follow-on Antithesis-- which could use both shotshells and cartridges. This set up a legal challenge by the company, allied with the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, or FRAC. 

That challenge saw the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota grant summary judgment this week in favor of FRAC and Franklin Armory, ordering the ATF to create procedures for transferring certain firearms as the Regard and Antithesis under the Gun Control Act within six months. 

U.S. District Judge Daniel M. Traynor, a 2020 appointment to the federal bench by President Trump, said the ATF overreached when it labeled the innovative new firearms as being NFA items. 

"Congress gave ATF the ability to enforce the law, not change it," said Traynor in his 28-page ruling. "Franklin Armory created a weapon that doesn’t fit into the round holes made by Congress, but that does not give ATF authority to change the shape or size of the hole to make the Reformation fit. The separation of powers 'is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty.' Administrative agencies need to remember they are in the executive branch and leave legislating to Congress."

With the recent departure of the ATF's avowedly anti-gun leadership and an Executive Order from Trump for newly-confirmed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to evaluate "the positions taken by the United States in any and all ongoing and potential litigation that affects or could affect the ability of Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights," it remains unsure if the government will seek further appeal of the case. 

"We spent years trying to reason with ATF leadership as they failed to classify firearms correctly," said Franklin Armory President Jay Jacobson in a statement. "We hope that future agency leaders will stick to the law as passed by Congress. All we ever wanted was a good referee, not someone to throw the game."