About a year ago, Diversified Machine, manufacturer of Form 1 suppressor components, was raided and shut down by ATF and even their website was seized. They were one of a handful of solvent trap and Form 1 suppressor parts companies that suffered the same fate. Some, like Hawk Innovative Tech, were raided, shut down, and had all of their assets seized, yet no charges have been formally filed.

While it is 100% legal to manufacture your own suppressor, whether completely from scratch or by modifying existing components (washers, pipes, solvent traps, etc.) as I did HERE, our friends at the ATF would like you to know that you MUST file a Form 1 to register the silencer, pay your tax stamp, and receive approval on it, before you do any silencer-related manufacturing or modifying.

This letter was, as far as we can tell, just sent to every person who ever bought something from Diversified Machine . . .

In the case of my friend who tipped me off to this, he has built and registered a handful of Form 1 suppressors, machining most of the components himself from scratch. Some years ago he ordered spacers — short sections of metal tubing — from Diversified Machine to use inside of his own silencers.

This demonstrates a major flaw in this letter and in the ATF’s thinking, such as it is. While the letter asserts that the recipient bought components from Diversified Machine — and didn’t register them as silencers — the ATF has no idea if this is true or not.

When the purchaser files the Form 1, AKA the application to make a firearm, they themselves (or a trust they’ve created) are listed on the form as the manufacturer. There is no scenario in which any mention of “Diversified Machine” would appear on any Form 1 at all.

Furthermore, Diversified Machine’s primary business was selling innocuous components that could be (but don’t have to be) used or modified in the manufacturing of a Form 1 suppressor. As in my friend’s case, he did effectively register the parts he bought from Diversified when he registered the complete silencer in which those spacers were to be used.

Although the 1968 definition of “silencer” could be read to suggest that each individual sub component of a silencer is, itself, a silencer and requires registration, ATF has long-since and repeatedly made it clear that they cannot and will not interpret or enforce the law as such. Clearly.

Take a simple Form 1 scenario in which a person uses eight washers and seven spacers stacked inside a tube with a mount welded to one end and a cap welded to the other. Is this person supposed to separately register every individual washer, spacer, tube, mount, and cap? Should they then illegally obscure the serial numbers on all of the internal components when they’re welded inside of the tube? No. Clearly not.

Anyway, I suppose one takeaway here is that companies keep records and when the .gov raids them, the .gov gets those records. ATF has the names and addresses and purchase histories of everyone who ever bought from Diversified Machine. And they’re beginning to acting on it. Hide your dog.

 

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86 COMMENTS

    • The teeth ATF Krolczyk uses in his letter is the Gun Control Act…Since History clearly shows Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is rooted in racism and genocide it’s like receiving a letter from the Gun Control military wing of the democRat Party known as the kkk and a letter from the Fuhrer Adolph Hitler.

      A letter citing Gun Control is what happens when law abiding politically inept gun owners allowed Gun Control to be defined as something it is not. History clearly shows Gun Control is no different than slave shacks, nooses, cross burning, concentration camps, gas chambers, swastikas and the like. As long as Gun Control lives the evil inherent with Gun Control lives. My money says ATF Krolczyk knows the aforementioned to be true but proceeded anyway.

      • You are absolutely correct, Deb. They know EXACTLY what is right and wrong in our Constitutional environment specifically with regard to laws, or illegal laws and the convolutions therein. But when it comes down to it, BECAUSE THEY KNOW THEY WON’T BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE UNDER A MARXIST REGIME, they intentionally and carefully choose to enforce Constituionally illegal laws by masking the 2nd/A with similar State laws or intentionally misinterpreted Administrative Mand dates, or Fiat ‘interpretations’.

        A case in point is this very extremely important ‘Auto Key Card’ novelty item which prompted the arrest of Erwin, confiscation and shut down of his inventory, bank account
        , website, etc. and Eight months later he is still without bond awaiting trial. He, like others the G wants to intimidate to violate due process, like in the Jan 6, debacle, was Not a career criminal or flight risk.

        There is a very tight info hold on this case. This is because unlike other similar gun cases where they ‘pressure for a plea’ and most can be broken down after a few months in prison, and they get to continue with their Fiat law interpretations, this guy Erwin chose to go to trial set for April!(so far as we know) and as such creates the risk that the Court (especially a jury)
        would find that ‘the auto key card’ is in no stretch of a Marxist controlled agency’s assessment, amounts to even a firearm, let alone an MG part?

        And this might become the actual focus of the trial. Can a ‘part’ be construed by fiat or other assumption that a mere ‘part’ by itself, can ever amount to the definition of any firearm?! Which then includes stuff like silencer parts, make your own gun kits, etc.

        Of course, this court argument will blend into another category that has to do with the definition of a firearm itself. Especially the AR platforms. Apparently a couple cases recently where the court found that both the complete upper AND the complete AR lower, Separated by themselves, do not rise to the explicit definition of the law as a firearm? And the guv does not want this brought up. A good defense lawyer team like Matt @ Firearms Policy Coalition could destroy the prosecution’s case. I.e. If a judge didn’t see an AR lower-or upper- meet the definition of a firearm, how the motherfuck could a piece of flat metal stick with a drawing on it be a machinegun…except in the Acid corroded minds of Marxist police state Moe-Rons?

        An intelligent jury on top of dismissing the case with prejudice would likely be so outraged by this Kangaroo guv prosecution that they might exercise their sovereign power to Nullify the entire infamous ’68 GCA’?

        That’s why this is Auto-Key card case is so important and must make it to a jury trial. The G is working very hard and very discreetly to gain ‘pressure’ leverage and as of this writing, it’s still ‘up in the air’.

        I think Erwin’s go fund me for the case is still up and now’s the time to cough up a bit for the cause for all. And to urge all gun rights groups like TTAG here, and Ammoland, 2nd/A foundation, etc. etc. to spark a new interest in the case so it definitely goes to a well publicized trial.
        We can’t let them have the back-door advantage anymore. We must keep beating them in the courts. ‘Molon Labe’ talk just ain’t gonna cut it any’MO’. We must beat them at their own game.

        Thanks for the critical info update, Jeremy!

        • It’s now May, 2022, and the BATF has since published (in the Federal Register) their intent to claim that parts of a firearm are a firearm (including the slide of a Glock and the upper of an AR) and subject to all rules for same, including serialization and registration at the time of manufacture or assembly, and that all suppressor parts are in fact suppressors.

  2. Just tell this asshole Keith Krolczyk to screw himself and stop this BS. We all have 2nd Amendment unlimited rights to own possess and use whatever weapons we choose without ANY US government interference – NONE! Our Federal, state and local governments are prohibited from interfering with our 2nd Amendment Rights in any way, form or fashion!

    Keith needs to just STFU and quit harassing American Citizens!

    Perhaps Keith needs to be prosecuted and put in prison for his Anti-American Traitor actions?

    • it really should be that simple…especially for people that have never been arrested/convicted in their lives…but we know it is not
      even Trump let bump stocks be banned…and said he did not like suppressors, either…
      when are you running for office? lol

      • leigh…perhaps you can let this forum know if the choice was between bump stocks or allowing a knee jerk congress to take the wheel and include all sorts of other components to ban what choice would a potus leigh make? BTW…I don’t like your buttspew but that does not mean I want to ban you…does it? Answer or stfu and go enjoy the Gun Control democRat that you and your CNN hand holding ilk helped usher into the White House.

        • mike…So bozo you would have laid Binary Triggers and a laundry list of related products on the table against a knee jerk congress on a steam roll following a such a massacre? POTUS DJT defused that bomb you ungrateful politically inept twerp. Since you are stuck on stupid I suggest you ask Allen Gottlieb to explain it and then you should take up knitting.

        • Debbie, Congress could have NEVER overridden a veto. Trump let us down, although not near as much as the current faux president did in the first 15 minutes of his term.

        • Poor Deb. Still convinced that being stabbed in the back helps us not hurts us.

          Politician promises not to let you down, literally his words regarding gun rights, then within a year pressures the ATF to turn around and change their interpretation on the devices and poof, around a half million of those same people he made that promise to are either felons or dispossessed of their property, no alternatives.

          Your argument is a contradiction, but I guess that’s what being a good cheerleader means. It also means you make arguments based entirely on speculation…but but the bogeyman is gonna take everything…

          Only a complete capitulation, including by him would have resulted in that.

        • I’m standing with what Debbie said. President Trump actually stopped the momentum that was gaining. People around the country had strong opinions about Vegas and the Leftists were pounding their congress critters. The media was doing the same x10. Believe me I get it but you have to pick your battles carefully. No way in h3ll was “doing nothing” was going to stand. So he sacrificed Bump Stocks. Pick something else if you don’t like it, but something was going to get the axe.

        • Manse, isn’t that how every incident works out?

          Sandy hook looked the same, worse I think, but we held. We didn’t fold to the mounting pressure.

          The initial momentum is always on their side.
          It takes the pro 2a defense time to form up.

        • There was no crisis only in you Trump apologists minds. Your hero may of opened the door for all semi autos to be ban. This has been gone over in detail Trump hates guns. Making lies and excuses for him just makes you look worse.

    • The specific “Deprivation of our Constitutional Rights” Criminal Charge is 18 USCC 241-242 It is a serious felony prosecutable by a life sentence if, for instance, a murder victim who couldn’t get her hands on a firearm for a potential critical stalker self-defense issue in time because of the ‘waiting period’ in her particular anti-second/A Authoritarian Venue, the creators and enforcers of these ‘illegal laws’ could be found guilty of murder by intent to and actually depriving her of her right to ”uninfringeable’ firearms possession and face LIFE in prison.

      But for some ‘strange’ reason Prosecutors have a discretionary selective power mode of justice action to only arrest and prosecute cherry picked political agenda cases, currently focused on only a few Cops like Chauven in the Floyd case and a few others that would help their political agenda. But never in recent memory arresting the actual originators of the Deprivation of Rights Crimes?

      Oh, wait! it slipped my mind…That’s what ALL New Commie governments do as soon as possible. They steadily deprive you of your rights, without accountability, until you don’t have Rights anymore. And ‘they’ then can easily simply, easily, and effectively ‘enslave’ you.

      Not long until next November’s all important midterms. This is just a terrible ‘taste’ of what’s coming out next if we don’t get out the Anti-Marxist vote ‘they’ want to ‘restrict’ with this virus scam by limiting peoples’ access to each other to join political groups. While ‘they’ get away with more excuses to have corruptible mail-in ballots and so on.

      Hey it worked in 2020. And they appear to have gotten away with it so far.

      Why not try it again?

      Old Richie J. must by cha cha-ing in his Tomb.

    • Quote: “The NC Taxman December 29, 2021 At 11:12 We all have 2nd Amendment unlimited rights to own possess and use whatever weapons we choose without ANY US government interference – NONE! Our Federal, state and local governments are prohibited from interfering with our 2nd Amendment Rights in any way, form or fashion!”

      The problem with your statement is the current “resident” and everyone in his party ignore the Constitution today are working to overthrow the Constitution in fact so saying this mantra is less useful than spitting into the wind. Most everyone but the trolls here knows and understands the reason for the Bill of Rights.

      Until the left is deprived of power their violation of Constitutional rights will continue. The way things stand today, those violations are increasing at an exponential rate.

    • So I just got this letter today. I have a Diversified Machining solvent trap and acquired the proper Tax stamp to turn it in a suppressor. I am in complete compliance with state and federal law with documentation to prove so. My question is, what am I supposed to do about this letter? Call the ATF and explain my position? I don’t need a federal agent knocking on my door and I’m not the type to ignore federal letters. Please advise!
      Thanks everyone

      • Dom, you said, “I’m not the type to ignore federal letters. Please advise!”
        My gunm lawyer says we should ABSOLUTELY ignore this letter.
        As I said in my comment below, I received this exact same threatening letter from the BATF a couple days ago.
        I called my lawyer from US and Texas LawShield, who informed me the BATF is on a fishing expedition, setting a trap to see who takes the bait.

        The letter is a trap, because if anyone who receives this letter follows its instructions to “Immediately contact your local ATF office within 30 days of receipt of this letter to coordinate the abandonment of any silencers,” they will be arrested. My lawyer pointed out that there is no legal procedure for turning in or “abandoning” silencers, so following the instructions on the BATF’s threatening letter will just get people arrested! My lawyer advises to ignore the letter, and if anyone from the BATF calls or stops by your house to have a “friendly chat” or shoot your dog, don’t talk to the BATF (just tell them to call your lawyer, who will tell them where they can shove their illegal fishing expedition).

  3. Just a blanket letter…it says you MAY be in violation… .
    Like receiving a letter from an airline if they discovered a passenger was sick…you MAY have been exposed.
    If they knock on your door and you have suppressors that you “forgot” to get a Form 1 for…nobody to blame but yourself. You got the warning letter.

      • Correct. The word Leigh refers to is in all caps, and is also underlined, which makes it different.

      • “I don’t see the word “may” anywhere in that letter.”

        Look closer at the top of that letter :

        “WARNING NOTICE

        YOU MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW”…

  9. Lol, flawed ATF thinking?
    Pretty sure they’ve always thought everyone is guilty until proven innocent whether a gun owner or not. Alphabet Agency Training 101.

    They’re doing you an altruistic favor by allowing you to walk around free because you’re surely guilty of something and given enough time and attention they’ll convince you of that fact so let’s all thank the ATF for their righteous leniency in ignoring our original sin…….for now.

    • “you’re surely guilty of something and given enough time and attention they’ll convince you of that fact”

      Hence the massive proposed funding increase for the IRS. If you think the ATF is a problem, you ain’t seen nuthin yet. Selectively enforced no doubt.

  10. Gonna have a hard time proving the parts were meant for suppressor manufacture.

    Just because someone, in theory, could doesn’t prove intention. It’s not like having a short barreled upper reciever.

    • Lance,

      While your statements are clearly in pursuit of noble ends, the courts often can and do operate differently.

      Spend a few minutes researching the legal doctrine of “constructive possession” and you will see that anyone who merely possess the parts that you could use to build a suppressor has significant legal risk exposure.

    • PROVE???

      The Dept of “Justice” has something over 90% “conviction” rate. The Stalinist SOBs will create a case with 3000lb of “manufactured evidence” that you were involved with everything from the grass knoll, to providing meth at Sandy Hook. And your woman, kids, and grandpa. “Sign here for this one little felony and the other 99 counts will go away”. 328years becomes only 31 years. Tally another win for the Harvard Gestapo.

  12. Prepaid credit card or a money order, use a business name as the buyer, and send to a ghost address.

  13. TWO SIDES TO THA COIN . OK HAVE RIGHTS , HOWEVER UNDERSTAND , SUPPRESSOR IS A TOOL, THAT IF IN WRONG HANDS , NOT OK . I WANT TO GET ONE SOME DAY AND WILL FOLLOW THE LAW . JUST AS DID IN GETTING LTC .
    COMPANY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER , AND FOLLOW THE LAW . THERE IS REASON FOR THE LAW . THE LAW IS LETTING US CONSUME WHAT WE WANT , SO DO THE PAPER WORK IT IS EASY .
    GO TO NORTH KOREA ,, THE LAW THERE IS DO AS YOU ARE TOLD .
    LOVE USA OR LEAVE IT .
    GOD BLESS USA AND OUR CONSTITUTION , PROTECT IT, ALL OF IT .

  14. The last paragraph of that letter gave me a chuckle:

    “Immediately contact your local ATF office at within 30 days of receipt of this letter to coordinate the abandonment of any silencers.”

    In the tone and cadence of the Austin Powers movie character Doctor Evil, “Righhhhhhhttttttttttttttt.” Yes, let’s immediately contact our local ATF office and incriminate ourselves because we can trust our all-loving, compassionate, and benevolent government to treat us with kid gloves. After all, possessing such components was a simple oversight and no one got hurt, right?

  15. Having a Form 1 for the DM parts doesn’t mean your good. The ATF says you bought a silencer, and you can’t build a silencer from an existing silencer. You would of had to Form 4 to get the silencer.

  16. I don’t own one and never have but I would suggest ignoring the letter and let them run each and every case down. Apparently they have nothing better to do while they allowed firearms to cross the border illegally and then lost track of them resulting in hundreds of Mexican Deaths and one or two American officers as well. Also, maybe some of their energy could be better spent on helping our Border Patrol seal our borders from all the criminals crossing on a daily basis. Our Government just doesn’t seem to have any of their priorities in order, intentionally, and I think this action may result in a number of ATF agents being shot if they mess with some of the people making comments on here.

      • “you first,”

        Ohhh, look at the tough talk from a frightened little boy with nothing dangling between his legs.

        What a joke you are, ‘reckoning’… 😉

        • Geoff, I told you to get back to your group home to examine your life and then make the changes you so desperately require. What part of that order was unclear, boomer?

        • You’re not speaking to me, since I’m not a boomer.

          GenX to the bone… 😉

    • Well said, John Hall. And this is the secret to success.
      Enough people ignored Prohibition that it failed, catastrophically.
      I see this as no different.

  18. “…Hawk Innovative Tech, were raided, shut down, and had all of their assets seized, yet no charges have been formally filed.”

    Not necessary if ATF claims “civil asset forfeiture”.

  19. As California bans all suppressors anyway, those of you living there who bought parts from Diversified should hope the ATF did not cc the Cal DOJ.

  21. Ok…
    So why is this company keeping records of their customers this way?

    This is one of the problems with the whole https thing as it is no necessary for every website to keep detailed logs of everyone. You want to know why hackers are able to do what they do? This is part of it. There is no reason for the ATF or anyone else to even be capable of sending me anything at all if all I do is buy a washer from them. This is nuts.

    • Prndll,

      And you assume that the ATF needed records from the business to know who completed web-based purchases (and what exactly they purchased) because … ???

      Friendly tip: assume that everything you do with “high value” websites (such as a website which sells suppressor precursor components) is recorded–every mouse-click, every keystroke.

      • There are no assumptions here. This article plainly states that letter were sent to customers. Something that could not have happened without the customers information being recorded and then passed to the ATF.

        Do you really think I never knew or even as much thought about your tip? That tip is for people that honestly believe there is privacy to be found on the internet. It is for those that truly believe email is or ever has been private.

        If this business were legit then this article would not exist. I’m not a fan of the ATF but too many people have the wrong idea of what’s happening on the web. This is that flashing 12:00 that gets ignored.

  22. Am I the only one who finds it interesting that the BATFE used Federal Express to deliver these form letters and not the U.S. Postal Service?

    Someone of considerable authority had to authorize this expenditure which appears to be for convenience sake only.

    • Fedex will claim that they delivered the package. And the world mostly believes them. They no actual REAL proof of deliver to a particular address/location or individual.

      NO ONE believes ANYTHING the USPS says. Used their “tracking”?
      1. Received at _______
      2. In progress
      3. …..
      4.-99. ……
      100. delivered (maybe)

  23. I have’nt purchased any of the parts from the company in the article. However, I have an old hand mill, forge, dies, swedges, a drill press, and could, in theory build or manufacture any number of contrabanned devised. As could any number of home hobbist smiths or machinists. Anyone with even average DIY metalworking skills could do so. Going to arrest all of us because we happen to have what could be used to make a silencer? Metal tubing, a handful of washers, and a couple of hex fine thread hex nuts? Maybe arrest everyone who owns a welder as well.

    • Based on the materials you list, you are in “constructive” possession of an unregistered silencer.

      Same as Home Depot and Lowes.

      Grey Man, dude, Grey Man.

      • So why is the ATF not raiding and seizing assets at Home Depot and Lowes?
        (no need to answer– it’s a rhetorical question)

  24. “So why is the ATF not raiding and seizing assets at Home Depot and Lowes?”

    For the same reasons the IRS rarely goes after the very wealthy: too hard, and too little to show for it. The average troglodyte is easier to scare, and there are more examples to be made. Also, going after serfs and vassals removes any notion that government will not bother with “little people”; generates more voluntary compliance.

    Grey Man, dude, Grey Man

  25. I’m getting really tired of having to scroll down past thirty ads “Recommended For You”, especially since as today twenty-six of them were all the same thing.

    • “If a person is willing to register a silencer to acquire it then why not Register gunms too”

      I just hate it when you ask questions like that.

  27. Its called TYRANNY. The unlimited resources and power of a weaponized DOJ is being used not for the safety and general welfare of the people but to create fear and distress, financial harm, personal destruction, and overall destruction of health to those targeted.

    Just as Lois Lerner used the IRS to target conservatives

    Russiagate is another example

    And those confined in a stinking DC Gulag waiting to be charged for crimes they did not commit. Its TYRANNY

    This is the US Government. The home of the brave and land of the free. Tell that to those rotting in jail for crimes they did not commit.

    The US Government today is an oppressive communist regime. It will continue to increase in ruthlessness and violence against the people and elections will not change that. Its going to take much more.

  30. @JB
    “Is that not posession ?”

    Under one possible construct, yes. But HD and Lowes have attorneys and accountants and PR flacks, and lotsa law enforcement and government employees shop there.

    How long can Joey Baggadonuts tie-up the IRS/ATF in court? Govt. prefers the quick hits.

  33. I received this exact same threatening letter from the BATF a couple days ago.
    I called my lawyer from US and Texas LawShield, who informed me the BATF is on a fishing expedition, setting a trap to see who takes the bait.

    The letter is a total trap, because if anyone who receives this letter follows its instructions to “Immediately contact your local ATF office within 30 days of receipt of this letter to coordinate the abandonment of any silencers,” they will be immediately arrested. My lawyer pointed out that there is no legal procedure for turning in or “abandoning” silencers, so following the instructions on the BATF’s threatening letter will just get people arrested! My lawyer advised me to ignore the letter, and if anyone from the BATF calls or stops by the house to have a “friendly chat” and shoot the family dogs or cats, don’t talk to the BATF (tell them to call my lawyer).

    The really bizarre thing is that I don’t know why on Earth I received this threatening letter claiming that I’d “acquired, or attempted to acquire one or more silencer kits/silencers or silencer parts from Diversified Machine.” I’ve never done anything of the sort! I have never purchased or “attempted to acquire” silencers, silencer parts, or silencer kits from ANYBODY, and I’d never heard of Diversified Machine until I receive this threatening letter from the BATF. Why would I be looking for silencer parts, when I live in the People’s Republic of New Jersey, where silencers are not only banned, but double-plus-super-ultra banned? Even BB guns, pellet guns, and other air guns with “silencers” are banned in New Jersey!

    I’m still wondering how the hell I got on the BATF’s shitlist of people to send threatening letters to entrap, since I’ve never “attempted to acquire” any silencer parts or kits, and haven’t bought anything from Diversified Machine. I’ve bought from Match Grade Machine and from Witt Machine, but I’d never heard of Diversified Machine until I received this BATF threatening letter a couple days ago.

    Maybe I’d accidentally clicked on the Diversified Machines website sometime, but even if I did (and I don’t remember doing so), how would the BATF possibly know where I clicked, unless after the BATF took over the company’s website, the BATF started tracking the IP address of everyone who ever clicked on the company’s website! That’s the sort of thing the FBI does, so maybe the BATF is using FBI tactics and tracking IP addresses of everyone who clicks on a website that the BATF has secretly taken over.

    • You’re right, it is a scam, the BATF started to send these letters on December 2021 after I filed a Federal Question 1331 turned into a Coram Nobis Petition on September 21, 2021 in the Federal Court in Los Angeles, CA in front of my trial judge, Ronald Lew, who as repeatedly refused to answer the legality of machinegun and silencer kits. I also sent a letter to Acting FBI Director, Kristie Johnson to investigate the corruption of the federal judiciary, FBI and BATF who had given to me catalogues that sell these kits. On March 22, 2022 the BATF sent out a similar letter on machinegun kits. See, US Supreme Court case # 22-1124, cert. denied.

  35. “This sounds like grounds for one heck of a class action lawsuit.”

    Requires specific acts, leading to specific damages. ATF can simply claim a “mistake” in a mailout address group. Unless, of course, someone is arrested. Then it gets fun.

  36. In addition to “silencer parts and kits”, apparently Diversified Machine sold solvent traps.

    Maybe the reason I received the letter is because sometime between five to nine years ago I bought thread adapters (perfectly legal), which can be used to make solvent traps (also perfectly legal). Solvent traps are perfectly legal, as they are simply used for clean, environmentally responsible gun cleaning without making a mess of your home. If you drill an extra hole in an oil filter, then it becomes an illegal silencer, but without drilling a hole in the end, it is a solvent trap, which is only useful for collecting toxic and flammable cleaning fluid for safe disposal, to avoid making a mess in your house. If you use a used oil filter as a solvent trap, or the moment you dirty a new oil filter by using it for a solvent trap, it becomes impossible to convert to a silencer, because the used oil or used cleaning fluid is flammable, and YouTube videos (before YouTube banned this type of videos!) show that if you fire a gun through a used oil filter, it will catch on fire, damaging the gun.

    But I never even bought a solvent trap, only thread adapters (perfectly legal multi-purpose devices) that could be used to make solvent traps (also perfectly legal). Thread adapters can also be used for other perfectly legal devices, such as muzzle brakes or blast shields to install over muzzle brakes. Blast shields don’t lower the decibel volume of shots, they only direct it forward so as not to annoy, anger, or even injure people shooting next to you at the gun range.

    I was originally planning on using the thread adapters (legal) to make solvent traps (also legal), but then I discovered a better gun cleaning invention (RamRodz gun cleaning swabs, which won’t work with a solvent trap), so I threw out my thread adapters years ago!

    • “…so I threw out my thread adapters years ago!”

      Can you prove it? Do you have receipts (buy and dispose), video, audio recording, EPA and OSHA certification of proper disposal, sworn witness statements, a listing of parts you didn’t acquire for potential use in making a silencer, and a partridge in a pear tree?

  39. Are solvent traps legal?
    Yes. The ATF has classified solvent trap as “firearm accessories.” That means it is not a controlled item under any federal gun law. But a solvent trap with drilled cups may be considered a silencer and you will be in big trouble.

    Do I need an FFL or paperwork to buy a solvent trap?
    No. Since the ATF has classified solvent traps as accessories, purchasing a kit is no different than buying any other commercial product online.

    Do I need paperwork to Build a solvent trap Suppressor?
    Yes. A suppressor is a controlled item also an NFA (National Firearms Act) item. Federal law requires that anyone who does so still register the device, and submit it to a background check before construction.

    • Solvent traps with undrilled cups don’t collect solvent, and hence aren’t solvent traps at all.
      Solvent traps with a drilled exit hole in the bottom, on the other hand, are supp_ress_ors.

      The Hawk Tactical guy sued to get his illegally seized assets back (civil forfeiture without any charges seldom flies once it gets to a judge…it’s punishment without a crime). I haven’t heard if it has gone to court yet. I hope he is successful.
      TD Tactical went through the same thing in 2017, sued, and won. They’re back in business.

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