Repairing firearms

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dirty dave

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Does buying and repairing firearms for yourself count in the ATF as being a gunsmith? Are pre 1900 guns counted?
 
But are you repairing them and then selling them? Are you practicing it as a trade? Or just personal tinkering?
 
ATF Web

As per the ATF web site, you only need a FFL if you are making an income from the gunsmith trade. If you are involved in occasional repair of your own guns and those of friends for non-profit, you do not need an FFL. The big problem would be purchasing serial numbered parts that require a FFL for delivery and parts at gunsmith cost.
 
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No, working on your own guns does not require any license. Working on your friends' guns might if you do it on a regular basis and take money or anything of monetary value. Note that you can get in trouble with another "alphabet agency", the IRS, if you take money for your work and "forget" it at income tax time.

Jim
 
I don't THINK so. I believe the main purpose of the ATF license is to allow the non-owner of a gun to show a trail of custody of any guns in their possession that belong to someone else and to give them to right to ship and receive guns even though they're not a licensed "gun dealer".

As a gun owner you're allowed to repair you own guns without any license but if you're a professional gun smith then you need a way to ship and receive and to hold guns that aren't your's. That's the purpose of the ATF gunsmith license.

FWIW a licensed gunsmith friend of mine said that you weren't required to have a license if you keep someone else's gun for less than 24 hours but were required to have it if you held it longer than 24 hours. That's FWIW. You should check with ATF if that might apply to you.

I'm not sure how "pre-1900" may play into this. If the gun is considered a non-firearm I wouldn't think that a gun smith license would be required but OTOH you may not be allowed to ship or receive it without an ATF license of some sort.

I expect that in some areas, local and/or state laws may well come into play if you're working on someone else's guns even if they are pre-1900 or a non-firearms according to ATF.

Oops, I just reread the OP's question. If you're buying guns to repair and you intend to resell them then that makes you a dealer and you need a dealer's license and not a gunsmith license. If you're buying them and keeping them for yourself then no federal license is needed and repairing or not really doesn't come into play.
 
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In the 1990s I haggled over and bought broken guns at pawn shops, fixed them with parts from Numrich gun parts corp, and sold them on consignment at another pawn shop, all in an effort to school myself in gunsmithing.

I am still not a gunsmith, but I can fix some of the broken old 22 rifles that can be bought for cheap.

Over the last 10 years I have sporterized dozens of Mausers, but I have kept all of them.

I am still not a gunsmith, but I can do a lot of sporterizing work.
 
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