Serial number "relocated"

engraving vs stamping.
most mondern weapons built withen the last 5 years are lazer engraved, not roll stamped.
Wather, Smith@ Wesson, Remingtons to name a few,
the pistol shown above has both numbers engraved, not stamped.
the engraving proccess i use will look no different then a roll stamp, i can also set it to look lazer etched as well.
even with a jewlers lense you cant tell them apart.
i can set style, depth, ect.
if i can scan it, it can be dulplicated.
example,
my Springfield 1911 WW1 pistol, had been sanded and ground on by some yahoo,
serial was visable, but washed. USP markings long gone.
after straightening out the pistol and fixing the rounded edges and washed out holes, i restored the markings including the serial, and the SA bomb on the left side.
they came out perfect.

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Originally Posted by Emri

Once, when an old pistol with no number was present, I contacted the local ATF office for guidance. Their reply was "just put a number on it." "what number" I asked? "It doesn't matter, as long as it has a number." It was not a stolen gun like the one VI shooter showed.

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I'll bet that agent's supervisor would have given a different answer. Regs require the number to be unique. Manufacturers register blocks of SN's with the ATF these days to ensure lack of duplicates.

When I've called the ATF for advice, if the agent gives me an answer I think is wrong, I ask him to verify it with his super (or an agent too senior to get stuck on phone duty). The answer usually changes.

Example: I acquired from an estate a Rem 870 with spare barrels that included a riot barrel with a soldered-on extension that brought it up to the legal minimum of 18". I had read that hard soldering an extension on a too-short shotgun barrel could return it to legal status while a soft solder extension wouldn't. So I called the ATF and described my acquisition and asked my question. The junior agent who answered the phone said that once a barrel was cut too short nothing could make it legal again. I had him check with his super and he then confirmed that the hard soldering was a legal way to restore a short barrel (much to his stated surprise).

[QUOTE=Emri;77970]"Quite a few of those guns have numbers hard to read, illegible, possibly duplicate, or non-existant. When they import a batch of guns, they assign serial number blocks for them and all the guns are marked with a new number and the importer mark. It is probably easier to keep up with acquisition and disposition with new numbers."

I'm sure that new s/ns make it "easier" f/the importer, and the s/n problems may be true f/some firearms, but mine, a very nice 1943 Long Branch(Canadian) Enfield MK4 No.1*, has a perfectly good original s/n, 44L6367, cleanly and legibly stamped on the left side of the butt socket. It just seems pointless(also, kinda dumb) to me that this rifle will forever be identified, @ least for US gov't.purposes, by a fictional s/n. JMHO, of course.
Donzi

yup.
what was told to me, and just a week ago,
barrels to short to be legal.
under 16 for rifle, and under 18 for shotgun, can have a exention permentantly attached to the correct legal length, welded, and or hard solder.
they never did figure out of a rifle shotgun combo can be 16" like the book they sent me said, so ill be safe and make them 18 1/2 long.
however, and ecception.
if a shotgun was made, and sold by the manufacture as a AOW {any other weapon} and the serial is listed as such, AE military , police ect, it would always be a AOW weapon and need the tax tranfer as well, no matter what barrel it had attached. Remington, Winchester, and Mossberg all offer an AOW shotgun.
that doesnt make any since.
like the M1 and M2 carbine ruling..makes no since at all,
if you change the 2 to a 1 and the serial number isnt in the group the ATF has listed as a M2, then its legal...
several M1 carbines were made sans the 1 or 2 and left blank, so they could be stamped 1 for semi or 2 for full auto.
a guy could in therory remove said 2, and stamp a 1 in its place and the rifle would be legal.
not that i would ever think of doing such a thing..
the additude of the law is once a machine gun always a machinegun..no matter what..
so now, i see they have semi auto Sten tubes available, i was wondering how they fall on this..
it just gets more confusing.

As far as "Once a machine gun...." That only goes for the receiver. The Sten tube is the receiver, all the AK kits are former MG's without receivers. In WA state, mere possession of a part specifically for a MG only is a violation.

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Originally Posted by Donzi

Just out of curiosity, how does Century International's penchant for stamping entirely new s/ns on imported wepons figure into this?
Donzi

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Also keep in mind that ATF's interest in serial numbers is for accountability and traceing purposes.
If an imported firearm is stamped with the importers name they know where to go to find the records of ditribution.
If the importer has stamped a unique number then further tracing to wholesaler, retailer and consumer is simplified.
This is epecially true where the original markings may be in some foreign alphabet.

Regards,

Jim

Hey Guys: I hate to admit this and I'm hoping you can forgive me but yes...it's true 32 years ago I, in a moment of blind stupidity graduated from an unnamed liberal Ivy League Law School and passed the Bar. So my secrets out... I'm an Attorney, egads it hurts to evens say it! I hope you can all find it in your hearts to forgive me this one stupid, foolish mistake, when I struck out at the world in anger. That being said, several years ago I represented a middle aged gentleman who still delighted in making, what we in Georgia refer to as " NON-TAX PAID LIQUOR," you may refer to it as Moonshine. He could no longer own guns as a convicted felon and he offered me a small gun collection as payment. It really wasn't very much but I had to go the local ATF office to pick it up. While there I had a cup of coffee with the ATF agent and he told me something I found very interesting. He said regs like you are speaking about re: serial numbers etc. are of no interests to the everyday agent! He stated if you went in and turned yourself in for having a shotgun with too short a barrel, all they would do is take the shotgun, give you a receipt and tell you to go home pending notification that would never come. His statement was, the only time people got charged with these "chicken****" code sections, were when they were piling on all kinds of other serious Federal charges such as Bank Robbery, Kidnapping, etc. He had been with the ATF for 24 years and never investigated the kinds of cases we have been discussing, most of his firearms cases were importation of explosives, hand grenades, minutemen type stuff. In fact he told me he had never made a case on a gunsmith, and only a few on dealers and they were on massive ammo sales from outside the country with no import permit. So I came away from there thinking these guys were way to busy to run around with a tape measure checking barrel lengths, unless they were there because of the explosion in your Meth Lab. JMOFWIW :beerchug: Warmest Regards Jerry