How Long Does It Take To Get Approved For A Suppressor?
As you gear up for this coming elk season, you should seriously consider adding a silencer, like the Banish Backcountry from Silencer Central to your firearm. If you’ve considered it in the past but were unsure about how long the process actually takes – and historically it has been a long time – you may have put off the purchase. Well, the current approval times from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) to get your eForm 4 through the approval process, get your Federal Tax Stamp issued and get your suppressor are at historically low times.
Why the wait?
Silencers were included in the National Firearms Act of 1934, and therefore require a Federal Tax Stamp and an approval. Until December 2022, the approval process was still based on the paper application process from 1936. Yes, you read that right. The current head of the NFA branch of the ATF saw just how outdated the system was when he started working the approval process himself. With the process moving to digital and with the built-in redundancies being ironed out, the process is getting faster all the time.
Silencer Central works hand-in-hand with the ATF leadership and has a handle on the process. Currently, the average wait times for approvals is getting better every month. Here are Silencer Central’s current average approval times:
- Approval for eForm 4 for a trust filing: 119 days
- Approval for eForm 4 individual filing: 3 days
Keep in mind that these are averages and your results may vary.
Trust vs Individual
Silencer Central is in favor of the trust application due to the flexibility and peace of mind it gives you with how you use, allow others to use, and how you pass your silencer to the next generation. This feeling is so strong that Silencer Central offers the setup of a legal trust as a free option to its customers.
Individual filing has been popular as of late for the main reason you might have guessed – you can get it much faster. In fact, the ATF informed Silencer Central CEO Brandon Maddox that some individual approvals were happening in real time!
Another factor to consider is batch approvals, which the ATF now does as well. A batch approval means that if you have an application in the approval process, and you decide to buy another suppressor, which will require another application, the ATF recognizes that you have multiple applications in the pipeline, and when one application is approved, any other application you may have in the process will be approved at the same time. This means that not only is it a great time to buy a silencer, but it is also a great time to buy additional suppressors if you are planning to.
Approvals are happening faster than ever.
What does this all mean for you?
If you’ve been considering adding a silencer to your firearm, it is a great time. You can add a hearing protection device to your firearm, enjoy increased accuracy, and lower felt recoil. You stand a good chance of getting on int time for hunting season, too.
For more information, go to https://www.silencercentral.com/shop/silencers/ for more information. Happy hunting!