What’s going on guys? It’s Hai and I recently got the approval for my first suppressor, a Dead Air Wolfman, and it was through the use of SilencerShop’s eForms submission system. In this post, I want to talk to you about the process for me and some impressions of the process from someone who’s completed it.
First off, let’s get some background information. In late November of 2021, word around the internet was that the ATF was going to reintroduce eForms for Form 4 applications. A Form 4 is essentially a transfer of ownership of a completed NFA item from one party to another. So it would be you buying a fully functional SBR, suppressor, whatever NFA item from a dealer, and they transfer that item to your legal possession. Prior to the recent reintroduction of eForms, buying an NFA item was done with paper printouts, shipped from one party to another. As you can imagine this takes time and it’s hard to keep track of what’s going on. With eForms, they are essentially digitalizing this process and allowing various paperwork to be sent online. In the past, the wait for a paper Form 4 can largely be a guess. It could be a few months, a year, maybe even more. No one really knows. Well with eForms, the ATF is saying that they will try to keep the time frame down to 90 days in 2022 and possibly 30 days in 2023.
I was always in the mindset of “I’m not going to blow about a thousand dollars and not even see what I bought for a year.” Well, with eForms I decided that maybe now was the time. 3 months is a lot more doable.
What’s funny is that when I purchased this Wolfman on November 16, 2021. I don’t believe the relaunch of eForms was announced yet because I definitely didn’t know about it. The announcement was made a week or two later with the official eForms launch being set for December 23, 2021. Silencershop said that all suppressor paperwork expected to be completed through them from December 4th (something like that) would be held and be done with eForms when it launched a few weeks later because that would be so much faster than just going through with paper form. Everything received prior would be done via paper form. I was pretty frustrated because again, I purchased the Wolfman before the initial eForms announcement. I thought I missed out so I thought I might as well buy another suppressor and see how fast eForms really is, so I did.
However, something was very weird about my paperwork in the background. I was just waiting and waiting to get a call about the Wolfman and about a month after purchasing, I decided to make some calls and it turns out, whoever did not do the paper form and my Wolfman was being held for eForms. I was surprised but absolutely fine with this because it would work out in my favor.
Now we get into the meat of it. My suppressor is at my FFL and we’re waiting to certify the paperwork but it turns out that Silencershop or the ATF didn’t have the system properly worked out and it was super buggy. They also didn’t launch it to all dealers at once and my FFL did not have the green light. All we could do was wait.
Over two months after the initial purchase, it is January 21, 2022. I got the email saying that my suppressor was ready to certify. I called up my FFL to get things started and we run into more troubles. Well, it turns out the system is still buggy and Silencershop didn’t really give any training so my FFL didn’t really know what to do. They had to call Silencershop but it turns out their dealer hotline is not all that fast and still required them to wait about 40 minutes to get ahold of someone, just like me. So, both the guy from my FFL and myself are calling SIlencershop, waiting 40 minutes, talking to separate people, and eventually, we figured out what to do. For my FFL, I was literally the first person to do eForms so it was a learning experience. At the end of the day, the Wolfman was certified and the official wait started.
Again, the ATF is advertising a 90-day turnaround time. I set my calendar notifications and just tried to forget about the suppressor. Well, about a month and a half or so later, Silencershop started making updates saying that eForms is working and showed customer testimonies. Some people were getting approvals in like a week or two. Some people who were getting approvals submitted the same day as I did so I was a bit excited. Well, it turned out that all the fast approvals are for those who filed as an individual whereas I filed through a trust via Silencershop’s Single Shot Trust. If you don’t know the difference between filing as an individual or trust, I’d advise you to research that because it is kind of a big aspect of NFA ownership. But just know that filing as an individual is generally the faster route, it just has fewer benefits depending on your needs.
So for me, it was back to waiting. The 90-day mark came and went. Once that happened, I didn’t know what to think. Maybe it was any day now. Maybe it’s just as long as the paper form. No one knows. But luckily for me, on the 95th day, I woke up to an email from the ATF with my tax stamp approval. I went and picked up my Wolfman that same day and I’m now officially a suppressor owner.
Okay so let’s backtrack. I purchased my suppressor on 11/16/21 and because of the various eForms issues, I actually didn’t certify my suppressor until 1/21/22 and got the approval on 4/26/22. From start to finish for the Wolfman, it was 161 days but to get the suppressor certified, it only took 95 days.
Again, the situation here is a bit weird but that’s something that you got to be okay with when buying NFA items because you are at the mercy of various entities. You have little power when the train starts rolling. It’s a hurry-up so you can sit and wait type of scenario. All you can do is get your paperwork done and hope that everything else goes right. In my case, it took 95 days to get the approval once the paperwork was sent. Not 90 as advertised but pretty close and much better than going the paper route.
However, there is something that I want to bring up. This whole time I’ve been talking about Form 4s. For those unaware, there are a bunch of other forms that can be filed. When buying a completed NFA item though, you’re likely also going to have to deal with Form 3s. This isn’t something that you’ll likely even be told about but it’s a point of frustration for many people. Form 3 is essentially asking for permission to move the NFA item, prior to someone officially owning it. In my scenario, I purchased the Wolfman from Silencershop which is located in Texas. I live in Washington State. So to move the suppressor from Texas to Washington, a Form 3 approval was needed. Form 3 approval is a complete crapshoot because there’s no telling how long it can take for approval. It can take a week, a month, however long the ATF wants it to take. At this point, I’ve purchased 4 suppressors. I’ve seen Form 3s getting approved in 1 week, 2 weeks, and a month. That’s partially why I think this Wolfman got held for eForms because even though I purchased it in November, It didn’t get to my FFL until mid-December. So again, Form 3s are just one of those things that you may have to deal with that can add unknown amounts of time to the process.
But that’s kind of the entire theme when working with the ATF, you just don’t know. You don't have much say in any part of the process. All I can say is, just put your paperwork in and try to forget about it. Don’t expect anything. It can be a week. It can be a year. Don’t stress too much about it. The faster you put the paperwork in, the sooner you’ll get an NFA item.
