What’s going on guys? It’s Hai.
Back in April of 2022, I made a video detailing my experience with the ATF eForm 4 system that was re-released in December of 2021. When I made my video, I was just approved for my first suppressor. Well, today, I’m up to 4 suppressor approvals and I want to revisit the eForm 4 topic because a lot of things have changed.
When the ATF re-released eForm 4, the big appeal was that they were going to try and keep approval times to about 90 days in 2022. Then in 2023, they were going to bring that down to 30 days. This was mindblowing because up until then, it could easily take 6 months, a year, or even longer to get a Form 4 approval. There was no telling. It was a hurry-up, get your application in, and wait type of situation.
However, from the start, the 90 days was more of a “we’ll try”, not an absolute but a lot of people were upset because those wait times really slipped as time passed by. I’ve documented the wait times for all my Form 4’s so let’s go over that.
For suppressor #1, my Dead Air Wolfman, from the date of purchase to approval, it took 161 days. This was a bit longer but that’s more on Silencer Shop’s part. I explained the possible reasoning in my first video so watch that if you’re interested. In terms of ATF approval time though, it only took 95 days. That’s pretty close to the advertised 90 days so I wasn’t complaining.
For suppressor #2, my CGS Mod9 FS, the ATF approval time went up to 100 days. Again, pretty close to what’s advertised and much faster than paper filing so I’m still happy.
Then we move on to suppressor #3, my CGS Helios QD, and approval time jumped up to 259 days or about 8 and a half months.
Finally, suppressor #4, my Dead Air Nomad L, went up again to 266 days for approval.
As you can see, I spaced out my suppressor purchases and as the date of purchase moved forward, the wait times got longer, much, much longer, to the point that we’re basically back at the same wait times as before the reintroduction of eForm 4.
It’s hard to say why wait times are stretching out so long. Obviously, the political climate around firearms has never really been that good but has gotten significantly worse over the past few years. It seems like every day there are new proposed gun regulations and NFA items are definitely on the chopping block.
If you’re unaware, the ATF recently published its final ruling on pistol braces and it essentially outlaws them. An option that they are giving is for owners to file a Form 1 and register an SBR for free. I’m not here to argue the legitimacy or legality of that. I just want you to be aware that there will no doubt be a lot of people taking advantage of that offer. There are expected to be anywhere from 10-40 million pistol braces in the market. If any significant number of those pistols get converted to SBR’s and a bunch of Form 1’s are filed, all it means is the currently already slow system is going to slow even more to basically a standstill. What is now averaging 8-9 months for an approval, may drag out to years.
So what am I getting at? I don’t even really know. I kind of want to not recommend getting into the NFA game right now but if you don’t get started, then you’ll never get an approval, even if it takes forever to get an approval. It’s a double edge sword. You’re in a bad situation no matter what. I guess at this point, I’ve given you some of the information that I’ve gathered so you’ll have to come up with your own conclusions.
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