It should be another month (if it is 10 months total) if everything is on time. I bought them from you about year ago but the paperwork didn't go through until July 2019. I called and they said those two were assigned to an examiner (who are now working from home).
Make a suppressor vs buy a suppressor
- Thread starter WestKentucky
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It should be another month (if it is 10 months total) if everything is on time. I bought them from you about year ago but the paperwork didn't go through until July 2019. I called and they said those two were assigned to an examiner (who are now working from home).
Insignificant bill
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Yes
Paul R Zartman
Contributing Member
Make it, that way no one knows you have it but you...geezzz prbly shouldn't have posted to this thread...
MachIVshooter
Member
Make it, that way no one knows you have it but you...geezzz prbly shouldn't have posted to this thread...
I realize this is tongue-in-cheek (at least I hope so), but nevertheless, let's not even imply that someone should make NFA items without having an approved Form 1 in hand. Unregistered NFA weapons are a very serious offense that could cost a person tens of thousands of dollars, years in jail and loss of gun & voting rights for life, and ATF absolutely does watch these bulletin boards.
dogtown tom
Member
Is the savings on that "fuel filter" or solvent trap" (aka silencer without a bore drilled) worth a Federal felony?
I would never advise one of my customers to go down that road. Make your own, sure. But the two items you pictured are for all practical purposes silencers without a bore drilled through the baffles or that monocore.
All it takes is for one bored ATF agent to go "huh, look what's for sale on Wish, let's check their invoices and seize their customer list".
It happened to Ares Armor in 2014 with their supposed "80%" AR receivers that ATF determined were not 80%.
Tread carefully would be an understatement.
Elkins45
Member
I would’t risk my $200 tax stamp on a questionable piece of hardware like that regardless, but are you suggesting that someone with a legitimate approved Form 1 could get in trouble for buying a quality piece of similar hardware? If the ATF agent showed up at your door and asked to see your “fuel filter” and you showed him a completed silencer and the appropriate tax stamp what crime could you be charged with?
One of my Form 1 cans was made from a solvent trap tube. I made the baffles myself but the tube was ordered over the Internet. The thing I purchased was clearly not a silencer but I didn’t even order it until after my stamp came back. Are you suggesting I have something to worry about?
Elkins45
Member
LOL I did an image search to find those pictures and now I’m seeing ads for solvent trap kits and “modified fuel filters” on several web pages. ATF might not be tracking me but Google sure is!
Insignificant bill
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Form 1 and your suppressor marked properly good to go
dogtown tom
Member
The problem is..........what was it before you took possession.
If it was already close enough to be determined to be a silencer or silencer part, a Form 1 doesn't address that.
If the device is determined by ATF to in fact, "be a silencer or silencer part"......it wouldn't have the required markings or be registered by the manufacturer.
That would be up to ATF what they would charge you with, or whether you would be charged at all.
Again, if ATF Technical Branch determines that the "fuel filter" or "solvent trap" is actually a silencer or silencer part..........it's too late.
1. Can't legally be imported from China, etc
2. Wasn't manufactured or registered by a licensed manufacturer/SOT.
It's a risk I wouldn't take. As MachIVshooter wrote on page 1, there have been reports of ATF confiscating these and at least one retailer was shut down because he was selling parts for home built silencers.
Ordering a metal tube is not the issue. Ordering a metal tube with a monocore or baffles and an end cap included where the only thing needed to do is to drill out each baffle and the end cap? That in my mind is a 99% silencer. Whether ATF thinks the same may be why some are being confiscated.
The sellers? They're in China, they don't care.
OP
OP
WestKentucky
Member
So, In theory... if I wanted to do something awesome, I could get an approved form 1, buy a TNW aero 45 pistol with brace, integrally suppress the gun by using the barrel itself as the core, and then once I got the gun and started the form 1 suppressor work I could apply for another form 1 and SBR the pistol... just thinking out loud...
Elkins45
Member
Quote above edited for length.
What I have read from a few sources is that the thing that usually trips ATFs trigger is stuff being sold in kit form. If you buy a tube from Bob and some cones from Susie that’s OK, but if Bob sells you a tube with a stack of cones then that’s verboten. And yet Silencer Shop is currently selling (and even promoting) a quite pricy Form 1 kit and making no bones about it being a DIY silencer.
Not that my opinion matters in the least, but I see a distinction between the stack of baffles and the predrilled monocore in terms of % complete. The monocore requires the drilling of one hole thru the endcap to make it a silencer. The other one requires every baffle plus the endcap to be drilled correctly. Having recently built a functional handgun using a Polymer80 frame I can tell you from firsthand experience that it would take more work to drill those cones than it took to drill three holes and trim a bit of polymer with the help of an included jig. If a Polymer80 frame passes the 80% threshold then a stack of cones probably should too.
Like I said, I’m not wasting my stamp on a questionable hunk of recycled Pabst cans...but I approached the project with the intent of following the law. It would be interesting if we could somehow know what becomes of these things because obviously there’s a market for them. They pop up on eBay faster than they can whack them down.
Elkins45
Member
Here’s the thing Silencer Shop is selling.
For $90 they will even sell you a jig so you can drill it accurately.
For $90 they will even sell you a jig so you can drill it accurately.
dogtown tom
Member
Yeah, I'm a SS Powered By Dealer and was dumbfounded by that. For starters, it's a silencer kit and as pointed out the same things have been confiscated by ATF in the past.
Second, Silencer Shop encouraging Form 1's???? As a SS Powered By Dealer that rubs me the wrong way. Every one of those DIY silencer kits is one less opportunity for me to sell a silencer via Silencer Shop. You don't build dealer loyalty this way.
Really? If all that required is drilling 6-8 holes.......that's a silencer.
And thats whats scary........just because they appear on AliBaba, Wish, Ebay, etc doesn't make them legal.
Anyone remember the Glock FA switches from last year?
ATF even confiscated those from 07/SOT's.
Elkins45
Member
This is a mail-order Glock, yet ATF seems to be OK with it. Maybe mail-order NFA bad but mail-order handgun good?
OP
OP
WestKentucky
Member
It’s probably a very simple question of permission vs forgiveness. Ask permission and you get it... ask forgiveness and you get the screws. If they were up front with ATF and explained what was what then perhaps they are cool with it. Probably a deal where they can get sales records easily if they feel a need to and compare to form 1 applications. Allowing inspection and getting approval and having clear marketing is far from importing without inspection and selling under an intentionally false description, with no record.
And there are some really good looking ones that were once sold as muzzle devices. I started a thread about them a year or two ago when I was looking for a muzzle device for my kids 22.
And there are some really good looking ones that were once sold as muzzle devices. I started a thread about them a year or two ago when I was looking for a muzzle device for my kids 22.
dogtown tom
Member
Ares Armor was fine until raided by ATF.
Dark Side Defense, Solvent Traps, Etc., and SD Tactical Arms were all fine until ATF woke them up: https://www.thetrace.org/2017/05/solvent-trap-atf-silencer-suppressor/
Elkins45
Member
SD Tactical will still happily sell you a “barrel shroud” and an end cap to attach it to your muzzle. Or a “Maglite extender” just in case you need a flashlight that holds 8 D batteries all in a row. I bought my Form 1 tube from them.
MachIVshooter
Member
Depends on how it's marketed & sold. If it's marketed as a silencer kit, it's illegal, the parts being designed and intended for use in a firearm silencer. If it's a barrel shroud, solvent trap or filter, then it has other purposes, only becomes a silencer if converted into such.
There's a whole cottage industry for solvent traps, many players. Diversified Machine, SPC, Maverick Precision, Quell Tech, Quiet Bore, Hawk Innovative Tech, others. Some of them sell all the parts individually, some have kits with cones inside. As long as they are sold with a legitimate purpose other than being a firearm silencer and are not able to pass bullets through them, there's no problem, even if 99.999999% of the people purchasing them intend to convert them into silencers.
I make solvent traps to order in any diameter & length a customer wants
Now, the ones I manufacture don't have anything in them, but that's only because I have no interest in making blind cups/cones all day on manual machines.
Also, as I mentioned on the previous page, ATF doesn't care about the presence or absence of internal parts; what defines a silencer to them is that it was designed or redesigned for that purpose, and can be attached to the muzzle of a firearm to diminish the report, no matter how much or little, or if it even survives actual use.
What they have done with these policies, though, in creating a situation where the mere boring of the front cap on a solvent trap or other tube type implement that can attach to a muzzle qualifies as a silencer, is to also make it such that a form 1 maker doesn't have to do a whole lot themselves to have a form 1 silencer. Literally, all they have to do is bore that front cap after receiving their approved Form 1, and then it can be serviced just like any other, including recoring. And that's what so much of my day-to-day activity is; building cores for registered F1 silencers. Nobody is trying to circumvent any laws with this avenue, though, simply take advantage of the much faster approvals on eforms for F1. A F4 transfer is still 10-14 months, but they can file a form 1, have it approved in 4-6 weeks, poke the hole in their trap/filter/whatever, send it to me and have a professionally cored & enamel finished silencer with a warranty in another 6-8 weeks for about the same amount they'd pay on a production unit. As long as we reuse the original primary tube and don't change length or caliber, everything else is on the table.
These are some examples of recores done on the traps in the top image above after the F1 maker converted them by drilling the caps and sent them in for recore. The original primary tube section, the rear piece made of 17-4 stainless which bears the engraving, is retained. The forward section is discarded and replaced with a fully welded baffle stack. After heat treat but before applying moly resin:
A pair of the shorter ones belonging to the same customer before welding & heat treating
There have been a number of solvent trap & filter makers that did get in hot water with ATF, but in every case I know of, it wasn't the advertised product that caused them to be raided.
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