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Does the Make and Model of a MG Have to be on the Gun?


tricky9914
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Hey guys - although I am no newbie to machine guns, I do have a newbie question:

 

Does the make and model on a registered form 4 have to be present on the machine gun? For example, say you had a NESA BAR, it had been refinished, and during the buffing and polishing and reparking, the lettering on the receiver for the make and model became unreadable... Would that pose an issue so long as the serial were still legible? I am looking at an MG like this from a local seller.

 

Thank you for any help in answering my questions.

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Right. FWIW, my 1968 amnesty registered bnz 41 MP-40 lists "German military" as the maker. No original markings are referenced at all on the form 4 other than the serial number, and the letter suffix is omitted. This is undoubtedly how the owner listed it on the amnesty registration form. I bought the gun out of his estate. As long as this information doesn't change with a transfer, you should be good to go.

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No. Quite a few types of MGs have no model ID on the gun. Serial number is the defining, required information for registry, and other info is supplementary.

And in rare cases even a serial number is not present on a legal fully transferable machinegun. Instead an IRS number was engraved on the gun which serves as the de facto serial number. I have a NESA BAR like this.

 

Some 1968 amnesty registered machineguns had all the unique identifiers, including the serial number, ground off and the gun was then remarked in some way again now serving technically as the "serial number". Completely illegal but because they were amnesty registered are now legal.

 

Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons covered some of this in this video.

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>Some 1968 amnesty registered machineguns had all the unique identifiers, including the serial number, ground off and the gun was then remarked in some way again now serving technically as the "serial number". Completely illegal but because they were amnesty registered are now legal.<

 

Prior to the enactment of the GCA68 a maker's ID, serial number, etc was not required on a firearm and, although serials were almost universally applied during production for inventory, reference and other purposes, various guns were manufactured without serials.

Unregistered MGs could be registered with a call to the appropriate local treasury authority at no cost. In some cases a number found on the receiver which was not the serial number was used as the registration serial, and if no number could be determined as useful for the serial a made up number could be applied and used to identify an MG so it didn't matter if a new one was applied, for whatever reason, and used and it wasn't illegal to do that. TheTreasury department would provide a serial number if there wasn't one during registration and as a result, IRS numbers show up now and then on various MGs.

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>Some 1968 amnesty registered machineguns had all the unique identifiers, including the serial number, ground off and the gun was then remarked in some way again now serving technically as the "serial number". Completely illegal but because they were amnesty registered are now legal.<

 

Prior to the enactment of the GCA68 a maker's ID, serial number, etc was not required on a firearm and, although serials were almost universally applied during production for inventory, reference and other purposes, various guns were manufactured without serials.

Unregistered MGs could be registered with a call to the appropriate local treasury authority at no cost. In some cases a number found on the receiver which was not the serial number was used as the registration serial, and if no number could be determined as useful for the serial a made up number could be applied and used to identify an MG so it didn't matter if a new one was applied, for whatever reason, and used and it wasn't illegal to do that. TheTreasury department would provide a serial number if there wasn't one during registration and as a result, IRS numbers show up now and then on various MGs.

And I am a proud owner of a Thompson M1A1 with the left side nomenclature including the serial number grounded off along with US property behind the rabbit ears. But a big old IRS tax number is displayed right on top of the receiver. I think it is funny and would love the know the real story on who "took it home" from the military etc, etc. All I know it is an excellent shooter and in fantastic shape. I doubt it ever saw any action except in someone's duffel bag.

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