How to SBR a rifle?

Fill out your ATF paperwork, complete with CLEO signature and fingerprints they won't use. Send that along with your $200 to the ATF. While you are waiting, you can engrave the required info on the gun, but you can't do anything else.
Once your papers are cleared and returned in proper order in about 4 months, you can then take the gun to a 'smith or the garage and have the barrel cut down.

Fill out your ATF paperwork, complete with CLEO signature and fingerprints they won't use. Send that along with your $200 to the ATF. While you are waiting, you can engrave the required info on the gun, but you can't do anything else.
Once your papers are cleared and returned in proper order in about 4 months, you can then take the gun to a 'smith or the garage and have the barrel cut down.

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Get the engraving done before sending in the Form 1. While rare, engravers do mess up, and you don't want a lower with "Aethelstan, My City, VA" engraved on it when the form shows it as "AethelstanAegen, My City, VA".

Fill out your ATF paperwork, complete with CLEO signature and fingerprints they won't use.

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Hmmm. I've read of folks who have had delays or have had to resubmit fingerprint cards due to problems with smeared ink. From what I understand the FBI is either running or storing the fingerprint cards, or both.

Bubbles said:

Get the engraving done before sending in the Form 1. While rare, engravers do mess up, and you don't want a lower with "Aethelstan, My City, VA" engraved on it when the form shows it as "AethelstanAegen, My City, VA".

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ATF has told me the exact opposite.

As the approved form approves making, engraving before is making it before approval. In the event the Form 1 is rejected (Which has happened for various reasons) you've already made alterations.

No, if I want to engrave my name on a rifle I may do so whether I get a tax stamp or not. Engraving your name doesn't "make" an NFA firearm. People custom engrave guns all the time.

If someone at ATF told you that they are clueless.

No, if I want to engrave my name on a rifle I may do so whether I get a tax stamp or not. Engraving your name doesn't "make" an NFA firearm. People custom engrave guns all the time.

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I agree. In my case, I sent in my Form 1, and while I was waiting, I had the receiver engraved with my trust name, city and state. The gun was back in my posession well before the tax stamp. At that point, the gun still had 16" attached to it. It didn't become an SBR until after it was approved and therefore added to the NFA registry.

Looking at it the other way, if you wait until after the form is approved, you are now shipping a Title II firearm, and if it gets damaged or stolen during this process you now have a completely different set of worries to square away (notifying ATF, Police reports, replacing the firearm, paying another tax stamp). Of course, this scenario assumes you are shipping the firearm out for engraving.

I'm awaiting my ATF letter from 2010 about that, but I'm curious to see what they say because I've heard of the engraving issue going both ways.

I'm awaiting my ATF letter from 2010 about that, but I'm curious to see what they say because I've heard of the engraving issue going both ways.

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I don't understand why there can be any question about this.

Today, on any AR I own, any Title 1 firearm really, I can have my name and city engraved on them if I wish. I can do it to a 1911, a shotgun, anything I want. As long as I don't obliterate the markings that are already there.

So why then would I not be able to put my name and city on an AR that I eventually planned on putting on a Form 1?

That makes no sense at all. What is the legal argument that this is somehow a problem?

Yea, I don't understand it either.

If I wanted to engrave a rifle with "My Butt Loves ATV LLC, Wrigley Field, Illinois", nothing can stop me.

Agreed.

It's the shortening of the barrel that's prohibited by law. Engraving is not prohibited or regulated in any way.

The only thing that legally constitutes "making" is... well, making. In the case of a short barrel rifle, it's shortening the barrel.

On the other hand, in the case of a silencer, well, a tube is just a tube. But if you, as a manufacturer, engrave the tube with the relevant serial number, etc, then I could see the ATF arguing that the silencer is made even if the baffles haven't been installed. Maybe that's where your info originated?

Aaron

An engraved lower is just an engraved lower. It's not an SBR until a short barrel is attached.

Also, once the barrel is removed and destroyed it's no longer a Title II firearm - see Sec 2.5 at http://www.atf.gov/publications/download/p/atf-p-5320-8/atf-p-5320-8-chapter-2.pdf

boricua9mm said:

Hmmm. I've read of folks who have had delays or have had to resubmit fingerprint cards due to problems with smeared ink. From what I understand the FBI is either running or storing the fingerprint cards, or both.

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My county SD and the bigger city PD's don't even use ink for finger prints anymore. they got those new fancy finger scanners that work with water.

Either way, though, my fingerprints have been in the federal database for well over a decade, so I'm not bothered by it either way.

Avoid the LEO and fingerprint hassle. Get a trust done first. Then do the SBR paperwork. It will save time and set you up for future purchases. Plus any trustee can possess the item.

I went the trust route as well, super easy and has only been 2 max 3 month wait for me.