Guns w/o serial numbers

[Onward Allusion]

So I recently got my C&R and now I'm broke...

In any event, how does one record a gun without a serial number? I picked up a really old H&R and it doesn't have a SN. Nowhere to be found... Not even under the grips.

Way back when, I remember my FFL telling me that if he transferred a gun w/o a serial, he would have had to create a SN on the gun in order to transfer it to me. I really do not want to do that to this particular piece...

 

[dogtown tom]

Onward Allusion .....how does one record a gun without a serial number? I picked up a really old H&R and it doesn't have a SN. Nowhere to be found... Not even under the grips.

Serial numbers were not required until the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Simply write "No Serial Number" or "NSN" for that entry in your bound book.

Way back when, I remember my FFL telling me that if he transferred a gun w/o a serial, he would have had to create a SN on the gun in order to transfer it to me.

If the gun was pre '68, he invented his own law or regulation because there is no such requirement in Federal law. As a matter of fact he might be violating Federal law by marking it differently than original.

Firearms manufactured after 1968 are required to have a serial number.

 

[230RN]

I've got a couple of pre-GCA68 guns with no serial number. It was fairly common in shotguns and inexpensive rifles and .22s before then. Numbers were optionally put on by manufacturers --presumably to track defects and for inventory control. Sort of like the serial number on your refrigerator.

I got stopped by a Game Warden (fully commissioned peace officer) and on inspection of my .22, he asked where the serial number was. I told him they were not required before the 1968 Gun Control Act and he didn't believe me. Had to hike back to his truck to radio HQ to verify that. Took all of about twenty minutes for HQ to look it up.

A lot of 6.5 Carcanos are still running around the US without serial numbers, which, when they were present, were on the barrel instead of the receiver, and a lot of them were rebarreled overseas before being imported to the US.

For a while, this fact contributed to a couple of the conspiracy theories surrounding the Carcano that Lee Harvey Oswald used.

My understanding is that nowadays, if guns are imported, they have to have an importer's serial number engraved on them even if they were already numbered overseas. My Mosin-Nagant therefore has two serial numbers.

I guess that makes up for one of my un-numbered ones.

Right?

Terry, 230RN

REF:

http://www.oocities.org/whiskey99a/carcano.html

So it was that Luciano Riva accepted the contract from Adam Consolidated, repaired, renovated and restored the Carcano rifles entrusted to him and removed all the unique identifying marks, including serial numbers, replacing these with the simple legend "Made in Italy". By reputation, Luciano Riva was a proud and dedicated craftsman who would produce workmanship of the very highest standard for his new benefactors.

 

[deadin]

The one "quirk" not yet mentioned is that if it was made before 1968 but did have a serial number (even if not required) and that serial has been removed, the gun is considered contraband and illegal to own.

 

[230RN]

Lotsa quirks in that law and the regs surrounding it. Like removing a bayonet from a C&R (Curio and Relic) SKS suddenly makes it more dangerous, since that operation takes it out of the C&R category.

Oh, give me the goode olde dayes when you could do almost anything you wanted to with a surplus rifle which you could buy through the mail to make a sporter out of it. Short of cutting the barrel to less than 16.0000001 inches.

Lord only knows how many people learned to hunt deer with what are now known as "Bubba-ed" old milsurps.

And how many nowadays are discouraged from hunting and learning the shooting sports because you have to spend at least $700 to get a deer rifle?

 

[tyeo098]

Like removing a bayonet from a C&R (Curio and Relic) SKS suddenly makes it more dangerous, since that operation takes it out of the C&R category.

Its no longer a Curio or Relic, AKA, without the bayonet, its no longer a collectors item and intelligible for all the perks that come with a collectors FFL03.

Not more dangerous, just less desirable.

 

[Murphy4570]

And how many nowadays are discouraged from hunting and learning the shooting sports because you have to spend at least $700 to get a deer rifle?

Huh? What's wrong with using an old military rifle? That's what I plan to use if I ever go deer hunting out of state. I never liked "hunting" rifles, myself.

 

[230RN]

Its no longer a Curio or Relic, AKA, without the bayonet, its no longer a collectors item and intelligible for all the perks that come with a collectors FFL03.

My information comes from this:

In order for a firearm to qualify for C&R status, it must be in the "original military configuration." Cut down the stock, saw off the barrel, gold plate the receiver, whatever, as soon as you make any irreversible alteration from its GI specs it quits being a C&R weapon and is no longer legal.

And therefore as soon as I took the bayonet off my SKS, it was no longer in "original military configuration", yet it still incorporated officially designated Evil Features, to wit the grenade launcher and the night sights.

You see the wondrous symmetry of it all? Our Federal authorities in their wisdom and concern for the public safety decide that a bayonet is a bad thing to have on a gun, and then they make it illegal to take it off!

Source:

http://www.sff.net/people/sanders/mysks.html

Argue with him, not with me.

Huh? What's wrong with using an old military rifle? That's what I plan to use if I ever go deer hunting out of state. I never liked "hunting" rifles, myself.

Nuthin'. But I guarantee you carrying a 9, 9-1/2 lb rifle up and down and up and down and up and down the mountains around here makes it gain weight. Lots of it. By the end of the day, it will weigh 30 lbs. Give or take a 1/2 lb.

That's why all those old milsurps you could get for $69.00 through the mail were usually bubba-ed down to 6 or 7 lbs with arn sights.

'Course, all those mail-order guns were infinitely deadly and were banned from the mail back in '68.

 

[Jim Watson]

Short of cutting the barrel to less than 16.0000001 inches.

A little known quirk of the law and bureaucratic regulations is that once upon a time, both shotgun AND rifle barrels were required to be 18 inches long. You can still find discussions of 1894 Swedish Mauser carbines with extensions on their 17.7" (450mm) barrels to make them legal to import into the USA. And catalogs for 1903 Mannlicher Schoenauers with 18" barrels (really 18.25" to be sure) for US sales and that same 17.7" (450mm) in the rest of the world.

The minimum barrel length for rifles only was reduced to 16"; some say in 1954, some say 1960.

 

[hirundo82]

I've heard that the law regarding legal Title I rifle length was changed because the government, via the CMP, sold off a bunch of surplus M1 carbines with barrels just below the legal limit (at the time 18"). Rather than admit they made a mistake, they changed the law instead. Not sure of the truth of that, but it sounds like typical politician logic.

 

[jonnyc]

I thought for a gun to lose its C&R status a permanent change had to be made; removal of a bayonet, change of stock, swapping of sights, etc., did not change the status as long as those parts could readily be put back on. I could be wrong, but I have seen that interpretation given in the past.

 

[M-Cameron]

I thought for a gun to lose its C&R status a permanent change had to be made; removal of a bayonet, change of stock, swapping of sights, etc., did not change the status as long as those parts could readily be put back on. I could be wrong, but I have seen that interpretation given in the past.

if im not mistaken....it only qualifies for C&R if it is in its original condition.........

if you take a 91/30 and put it in an ATI plastic stock......that is not C&R eligible....

but if you take the same rifle, and put it back into its original stock, in original condition.....it can now be transferred via C&R.

 

[Shadow 7D]

Bayonet LUG with or without the bayonet is defiantly a modification...
or in the case of the MN M44, removal of the PERMANENTLY affixed bayonet, such as the Yugo 59/66 SKS, which makes it NO longer a C&R

if you take a 91/30 and put it in an ATI plastic stock......that is not C&R eligible....
but if you take the same rifle, and put it back into its original stock, in original condition.....it can now be transferred via C&R.

Are you sure???
wouldn't this be similar as a Pistol converted to a carbine/rifle configuration then converting it back,
Which IS possible to do Legally, just it's now a Title 1 SBR.
While it may be POSSIBLE, it also may not be LEGAL.

 

[Art Eatman]

Sorta wandered away from the serial number question...