Form 4..

[Theohazard]

So, if that’s the case, why then was my buddies submitted in January, approved in August, and submitted in March and approved in October?

Pdsmith505 is right, a person's previous forms have absolutely zero influence on their current forms. I have 7 approved Form 4s already, but when I eventually apply for my 8th I might as well be applying for the first time.

There are three major influences on Form 4 (and Form 1) wait times:

1: Backlog.
Depending on how many total forms they have in their system compared to how many examiners they have on staff, the wait time will go up or down. My last two Form 4s were submitted within 2 months of each other, the first came back in 4 months and the second came back in over 7 months. And that went along with the trend I saw at the shop I where worked at the time. So in just 2 months the backlog went up by about 3 months.

2: Trust vs. individual.
The ATF is currently processing forms submitted as individuals faster than forms submitted as trusts.

3: Random chance.
Sometimes paperwork gets shuffled around and some examiners are better than others. At the shop I used to work at, I saw more than one Form 4 that was signed and approved way before we got it back. That means it was approved and then sat on someone's desk for sometimes up to two months for no apparent reason.

 

[MCMXI]

Was your form 4 done as an individual or trust? Over on NFA tracker there seems to be a widening gap between trust and individual approval times, trusts coming in with check cashed dates from Sept. '16 while individual forms with dates as late as then end of Feb. '17 are being reported as approved.

I called today to check on the status of two Form 4s that I submitted for a coworker, one in January and one in June. The nice woman mentioned that they're currently working on trust Form 4s that were submitted in November and December of last year. My coworker might get one of his cans next month if he's lucky which would put the wait for trusts at around 11 months.

 

[MCMXI]

The Form 4 (Trust) for a coworker that was submitted in mid January came back this week so that took about 10-1/2 months.

 

[Gtscotty]

The wait times for individuals were dropping like a rock on NFA tracker for a while. Extrapolating the curve to my July 31 check cashed date, I thought I might get approved sometime in mid-November. That didn't happen, in fact reported individual approvals on the site seem to have hit a wall maybe 3 weeks ago, and I've only seen one July approval. Someone on the NFA tracker forum mentioned that someone at the ATF had told them that they had diverted most of the examiners that were working on individual submissions to trust submissions in an effort to knock down the backlog. Good for them, bad for me I guess. Still hoping to get my approval before the end of the year but....

 

[SuperDavealso]

Got the call today.
Form4 submitted 2/10/17
I pick it up tomorrow
Merry Christmas

 

[Theohazard]

Got the call today.
Form4 submitted 2/10/17
I pick it up tomorrow
Merry Christmas

Was your form submitted as a trust or an individual?

 

[SuperDavealso]

Trust

 

[Gtscotty]

I'm still waiting on my individual transfer at 147 days. I've seen a few late July check cash dates get their cans on NFA tracker in the last week, so hopefully I'll be approved in the next few weeks.

 

[Gtscotty]

The wait times for individuals were dropping like a rock on NFA tracker for a while. Extrapolating the curve to my July 31 check cashed date, I thought I might get approved sometime in mid-November. That didn't happen, in fact reported individual approvals on the site seem to have hit a wall maybe 3 weeks ago, and I've only seen one July approval. Someone on the NFA tracker forum mentioned that someone at the ATF had told them that they had diverted most of the examiners that were working on individual submissions to trust submissions in an effort to knock down the backlog. Good for them, bad for me I guess. Still hoping to get my approval before the end of the year but....

Called today, and the individual form 4 for my Liberty Sovereign was approved yesterday, 150 days on the nose from check cashed to approved.

Now we'll see how long it takes them to mail it out.

 

[pdsmith505]

150 days ain't too bad.

 

[Rudolph31]

150 days ain't too bad.

When a cop pulls you over he does a check on you that takes less than 5 minutes. There’s no excuse for the ATF to take any longer than that!

 

[Gtscotty]

Not bad from a historical perspective, but yeah, still pretty pathetic considering what's actually done.

The tracker shows F4s to trusts from February and March bring approved, so it looks like they are still running 5 - 6 months behind individual submissions.

 

[dogtown tom]

When a cop pulls you over he does a check on you that takes less than 5 minutes. There’s no excuse for the ATF to take any longer than that!

That cop ain't searching your entire criminal history if you have one, only for active warrants. It isn't remotely the same as a criminal background check.
That cop doesn't have hundreds of thousands of cars pulled over waiting their turn for "a check".
That cop isn't processing payment information.
That cop isn't doing data entry of a Form 1/4 with multiple pages of information.
That cop ain't reviewing your trust.
That cop ain't waiting on the FBI to return the result of your fingerprint check.....and if you have multiple members on your trust THEIR fingerprints and background checks.
That cop isn't researching the accuracy of your Form1/4 compared to the NFA Registry.

That said.......Congress could easily fix the wait by eliminating the fingerprint check requirement and allowing FFL's to use the FBI NICS for the background checks.
But they won't.

 

[Joshua M.]

Submitted another form 4 individual, was received 12/23/17...last one took 36? days, wander how long this one will take...