Archive for July 28th, 2009
NFA Handbook 2007 text
NOTE: Any muzzle attachment such as a flash suppressor, compensator, muzzle break, etc., is not included in the barrel length measurement unless the attachment is permanently affixed to the barrel. Acceptable methods for permanently attaching a device to a rifle barrel are deep penetrating, full fusion, gas or electric steel seam welds of high temperature silver solder. Depending on the dimensions of a particular barrel it may also be possible to permanently affix a muzzle attachment by drilling a blind hole through the attachment and into the barrel wall. A steel pin that is flush with or below the outside diameter of the attachment is then inserted and the hole welded closed.
Mirror of 2007 NFA handbook (10 meg PDF)
Here is an example of a pin & weld on a 20″ barrel:
NFA handbook, part two
I wanted to bring forward two points (I edited the post below; depending on your feed reader, you might not get updates). One is that NFA items have two states (as far as you or I are concerned): tax paid or contraband. Items can go from tax paid to contraband, but not the other way. The ATFE cannot ‘grandfather’ anything in for you. Sorry. It literally taxes an act of Congress for this to happen.
You may argue that an item transferred on a Form 3 has no tax paid; on a per item basis, this is correct. However, Form 3 transfers are from Special Occupational Taxpayer (SOT) to SOT; they pay the tax in bulk every year, not per item.
The second point is that there is argument over the wording of the rifle section. It’s a straight copy/paste of the shotgun section; as such, people are arguing that the stricture stated is in error. This could be; are you willing to bet your ass on it?
