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New Form 4 Sent In 9/20/16


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Paperwork for the Reising is now in the hands of the ATF. It's been a few years since I sent in a form.

I started all the paperwork just a couple weeks before the change. Went to get my CLEO sign off and printed and the not so friendly gal behind the counter made up excuses to not do them. Basicly she had to stop doing her nails and work. So I waited a couple more weeks and refilled out the new form 4, reordered fingerprint cards (I had IMPD info on the card), got my new cards and went to another local PD and the gal was more than willing to help. In and out in 5 minutes. Got a Postal M.O. and express mailed the forms on Tuesday. Now, lets see how long it takes. My last form came back in 32 days! All others took 90 days almost to the exact day.

The CLEO copy is in the mail as well. Maybe they will just pitch it or save it, who knows. Can't wait to play with the Reising when I can. And the guy found another mag, so now I have 5 of the 12 round H&R mags.

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still waiting on my form 4 trust- check cashed 3-1-16

 

gun purchased 10-28-15

 

i wish you luck...i suspect once they get past the july 100,000 suppressors the wait time will skyrocket down like it has now skyrocked up.....for me it will most likely be 7.5 months....for you it could be a year

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  • 3 months later...

I have one received on 9/21/16, so we'll see how they compare time wise to process. Let me know when you receive your approval.

 

Robert

 

Yesterday (1/21/17) marked the four month point on my wait. I wonder how they are doing with the silencer backlog due to the rule changes.

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They told me the other day that its 8 months and looking at longer. I'm sorry but I am to the point that I find this unacceptable. I am sick of waiting. Yes I have another Form 4 ready to go in but there is no damn reason it should take this long anymore. My check was cashed July 28 and I am now at my 6 month mark come tomorrow. This is beyond ridiculous. Can't tell me that they can not hire more people to deal with the backlog or put a system in place that identifies your a current class 3 holder as soon as the check is cashed, allowing you to be automatically rubber stamped for approval.

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They had a backlog of 4,000 transfers, with the 10,000 transfers that SilencerCo sent in right before the 41f deadline, it's going to take a while. The lady I talked to at the NFA branch said they are estimating post 41f transfers will be 12 to 18 months. They said on the news that President Trump signed a moratorium on hiring more federal employees, so no additional staff.
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Some in the industry asked ATF for preferential treatment for dealer transfers a few years ago and at least for some time got it. Not sure if it's still there. I did not like it because no dealers I heard asking to go to front of the line presented any indication that collectors were OK with going to the back of the bus. You cannot rubber stamp anyone claiming an SOT. Some claim to have paid it and didn't, let their FFL expire, and/or try to get firearms banned by their state or play games with sample acquisitions. You can't even take a F-2 for granted because jokers try to register things that are not eligible like title I, barrels, "SBR receivers", "AOW holsters", etc.

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Preferential treatment for dealers is still alive. Form 4 to dealer recently (Nov.) cleared in 4 months ( I do all paperwork associated with my transfers since I have not dealt with anyone yet that can do it correctly for my situation....and I'm even wondering now if atf can process it all?) Similar transactions of like items (MG's) direct are/ were at 8 months as of last week when I got a couple in. Form 5 direct to me 2 months (last week). I was going to efile a form 1, but I see that's no longer an option for the moment......bummer! I can no longer even log in. I did one in summer and it was less than 8 weeks and was hoping for a repeat, yet we are regressing, and back to a paper submission of form 1 and 5?

 

I have mixed feelings about preferential treatment of some transfers for some people. If it were pre 86' and there were real actual factory MG dealers I'd be all in, but since it's all used collectibles I fail to see much difference between an 03 dealer and 03 C+R, same stuff, other than a bulk tax payment for one guy. If the suppressor bill passes, you'll see a LOT of guys dump their SOT status since that will no longer be necessary and the vast majority can't fund a machine gun business, nor is it viable if you have to hold inventory for a year or more. Fact is it really doesn't work now and is mostly a hobby.

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What cracks me up is everyone who bought suppressors that have trusts crying the blues because it would add extra paperwork to the process yet how many of them no longer need a trust since the CLEO signature was removed all together. Here in Ohio there were several CLEO's who refused to sign and even when the "shall sign" went into effect they still bucked at it, hence what made a trust a good idea. NOW, all of that is gone and all you have to do is notify them that your buying something and send in your forms. IMHO if there is a trust with 2-3 people on it and they all share an item then too bad that everyone has to take a little time and do multiple sets of paperwork for an item. Cost of doing business per say.

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Robert,

If you think it's bad now, they are working on early June right now. They haven't hit the pre-41f panic transfers. SilencerCo sent in 10,000 transfers in one shipment, no telling how many others were sent in before the deadline. It's going to have a major impact on the industry, who's going to drop the money on any NFA item knowing it's going to take a year or more for the paperwork?

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jlmg: I made a weak post - meant specifically tax paid transfers to dealers. Normally a F3 moves faster than a 4, but among the 4s people were asking for the ones bound for dealers to get processed ahead of those going to non-dealers. Everyone wants theirs done first and whatever is given to one group must be taken from another.

 

If suppressors would go, that's about 70% of the volume so you would see everything moving quicker after a few months. Every SI application in the system would still need to be handled in order to void and get a refund which is a bit cumbersome but after that was done life would get better. I still have a hard time seeing it happen, but it was also difficult to imagine corrupt federal bureaucrat managers getting fired until this past week so who knows.

 

DougStump: If history is any indicator, at least as many and likely more than today. In 2010 when the average F4 time hit 89 days plenty of people predicted the end of the entire NFA industry because no one - NO...ONE would wait 3 months to get a firearm but the opposite occurred. Likely most of those predictors had not experienced transfers during the DC days when I and the closest SOTs I knew considered a 4 month F3 or F5 a gift because we were used to 6 months. One of my friends waited 8+ on a F3.

Edited by The Lone Ranger
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Lone Ranger, yes tax paid to a dealer was 4 months instead of the current 8 for those in the back of the bus, so yes they are getting them quicker.

 

I recall transfer times back to 99 and they have varied greatly, though I would say no one ever waited 8 months on one form 3.....that was by your third submission since as some of us recall the fax machine was located next to the shredder. :blink: Once the machines got separated submissions went back to one each and times went down! The office was small, you got to know people, some guys sent candy and flowers, you generally got stuff done in 90 days yet still complained. Ah the good ole days, and I haven't even been in this that long? Still have some "crispy" forms from back in the anthrax days when you wondered if they just burned your forms and you'd never get a response?

 

Average over the years for form 4's seems to be about 90 days.

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My Thompson being my very first gun and NFA item I bought it early Feb 2013 and the F3 took about 3 months and then waited until early May 2014 to pick it up. I was not happy with how long it took, but in my mind set the bar so that anything less than a year from purchase to possession, I'm happy.

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jlmg: People get a bit insane after so many months on a F3. Reasonably so, the guy got suspicious that the seller was taking him for a ride (MG-74 not cheap even back then) ... We did not know about the flowers and candy routine so when he called asking about it he got zero information. In the years since I have gotten to know the seller - would not consider such a thought now but when you are in the sticks and green to the process it's different. That was back when KC was fun rather than routine, parts, ammo and good prices abound - and I missed the really good old days. When I got out of the SOT world and for the the first time lived in a state where you could own truly evil firearms without SOT was fortunate enough to know the assignment process at NFA and picked a transfer dealer based on which examiner it would go to. F-4 ran about 50-60 days then, it was just as the inbound volume was starting to grow. ATF posted an examiner announcement and scheduled to hire five for NFA in 2008. Someone flipped a switch and presto, not going to happen so the hiring list turned into a backfill list. A seemingly small decision with long term consequences. Not that five would have stemmed the tide, but would have slowed the descent as the applications piled up. Seven more were just on-boarded which does nothing in the short term. I don't think any of the guys posting on the net about how good they would be at the job were available so it will take time to get the outsiders up to speed.

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I do question what, if any, impact the wait time will have on sales. I see both sides of the argument, but now with the prices as they are, who wants to drop $10K-$50K and be told they have to wait a year to have their item. Dropping $1,000 and waiting a year is little easier to swallow. It also brings to bare the question of-how many dealers want to keep that kind of inventory on hand that is sitting there taking up room, for which they are responsible for, for up to a year? Suppressors are one thing but to sit on transferable guns could be totally different.

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Another problem for the gun shops, they have to keep the money available for a refund if the transfer is disapproved. The LGS I'm getting my can from has $25K worth of suppressors in their safe. That's a big chunk of money to have tied up and not available to buy new merchandise. With no new stuff, empty shelves, and very few sales they're having trouble paying the phone and light bills. I just hope my stamp comes through before they go out of business.

 

Just called the NFA branch, my form 4 is in "final review" so maybe I'm getting close.

Edited by DougStump
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Individual form 4, mailed 27 May 16, received 31 May 16, check cashed 2 June 16. I don't know what "final review" is, left a voicemail for my examiner, no call back yet. Maybe it means they finally opened the envelope. Edited by DougStump
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