once a machine gun always a machine gun

[Dan Wilson]

Actually Jim, the jigs and conversion parts for the Bren's and several other demilled machine guns have already been through approval from the ATF and are now in common commercial use.

There are lots of Brens out there but you will also find MG-34's, MG-42/53's, Stens, Sterlings, Thompsons and all kinds of commie stuff that has been through the wringer with the ATF. Most of them come with the approval letter from the ATF that approved the design.

Its rather a PITA to get through the process as they wont tell you crap usually if they dont consider it a gun but if you are close enough to a workable design they will give you what you need to finish for approval.

Normally you will find the original designer with be a 07/SOT, and from there it will flow out to the small potatoes guys like us.


Dan

[Jim K]

No problem, then, I assume, but all the MG type semi guns I have seen advertised new receivers, which I took to mean newly made in reality, not just legally. At one time, ATTD took the position that if a receiver was cut, it was scrap, and anyone could salvage the pieces and make a working semi-auto in the same way they could make it out of a piece of scrap railroad rail.

Then came 1968 and they said that under the new law, an MG receiver did not become scrap as long as its "identity" as a machinegun remained. If it was a "weapon", meaning that it would fire at all, it was still a machinegun. Some folks got by with grinding off the markings (the identity) and re-marking the semi-auto receiver as a new model.

As you say, they never want to make things easy, always fearful that someone will take a "scrapped" MG, make it work, then use it a mass crime or show it firing full auto hour after hour on MSNBC. They are like any other group of bureaucrats; their purpose is not really to enforce the law, it is to cover their fannies.

Jim

[Tom in N.J.]

I had one of those rifles, M1 Type 7, they called it. It was built on a US M1 rifle receiver, a welded one, that had been opened up for a magazine. I also have the modified M1 bayonet, large muzzle ring and serial number added (matching scabbard). You note there were no pictures of the receiver markings. Old Sacramento Armoury sold them years ago.

[Larry McLarty]

I might know an 81 year old gunsmith, who bought a well known M14 action that was and is semi-automatic only. He built an M14 with all military parts and a USGI stock. He might have said, "I can maki it full auto if I want to" Then he might have proceeded to do so with no metal alteration to the receiver, any metal on the rifle, and no alteration to the trigger group.

If a person were to own such an item, What could it become? Could you apply for a Cl. 3 permit and possess it?

Could you sell the secret mfg. process?

[Ramboueille]

If a person were to own such an item, What could it become?

Ten years in Leavenworth.

[Larry McLarty]

Ten years in Leavenworth.

WHY?

There has been no metal alteration. The item never was a MG.

[Dan Wilson]

Yeah CYA is a bureaucratic disease for sure.

All the Brens that have been retailed have been built on restructured original receivers, some other guns are about 50/50 new/old, and as to what they call a machine gun I guess it depends on who you talk to and if he has managed to take a dump lately (anal a**'s).
Now I dont know if they were scubbing all the data, serial number and other markings off the receivers or not, I havent managed to pick up a Bren Kit yet (sooner or later hopefully).

Dan

[Sunray]

"Once a machine gun, always a machine gun" is an ATF regulation they've made into a law. Call your elected representative and ask why a government agency is allowed to make laws.

[BrianQ]

A government agency didn't make that law. The 73rd Congress did in 1934 when they wrote "The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon..." in the definition of a machinegun.