News Brief – 12/13

Those wanting to transfer or make a suppressor or short-barreled rifle/shotgun or other NFA (aka “Class III”) items, must fill out a Form 1 or Form 4 with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Besides the complicated nature of the form, if you have never been through the process, along with the tax stamp which can run $200 (yes, it is a postage-stamp style stamp!), the waiting period to get all this red tape processed can take as long as a year, which is a super bummer for those who want to legally own such items.

It is this wait, rather than the cost or paperwork, which turns off a lot of folks when it comes to NFA items. After all, who wants to buy something, then wait a year to take it home?

Well, that *could* change as the ATF announced the launch of a new electronic system for NFA transfers sometime in the last two weeks of the year. Known as the eForms system, this long-needed modernization will allow the public to submit both ATF Forms 1 and 4 electronically, hopefully resulting in a significant decrease in transfer times when compared to traditional paper Forms.

Hopefully.

NFTs or “non-fungible tokens” are one of those hip new things that kind of separate those under 40 from those over 40. They can technically contain almost anything digital, including drawings, GIFs, songs, or even items in video games. Well, Barrett Firearms, the guys who wish casted the .50 cal rifle for consumers into exsistance, is taking the NFT plunge. The gunmaker has teamed up with Digital Arms (they made the $HNTR token cryptocurrency) to make Barrett-branded NFTs.

Sure, it sounds silly, but with Barretts being so popular in anime and gaming over the past 20 years, it makes a lot of sense. 

Remington’s ammo biz, now run by Federal, is doing a bit of obvious nostalgia mining by running a throwback line of paper (not a misprint) hulled shotgun shells. The Peters Premier Blue series recalls the pre-plastic days when your shells could turn into a sloppy, unusable mess if they got wet, but hey, they look cool.

“Tuned for the modern trap, skeet and sporting clay shooter, the paper hulls reduce felt recoil for a more enjoyable day at the range. Enjoy the sweet smell of paper…and victory,” says the ad copy on this one.

In all seriousness, if you have ever been to public lands and seen how many plastic hulls are stacked deep in the dirt with no chance of biodegrading, the paper may make you feel better about the environment.

However, as they still have a plastic wad and brass head, you are probably better off just picking them up and packing them back out.

Don’t expect to see these in California, though, as they are good old-fashioned traditional (lead) shot.

Last year, Savage debuted their 110 Precision series of nice long-range rifles, complete with a fully-adjustable skeletonized stock, adjustable trigger, and MDT LSS XL chassis, in four calibers: 308 Win, .300 Win Mag, .338 Lapua, and 6.5 Creedmoor.

Upping the ante, they recently added two new options to the series, the ability to get them with a left-hand throw bolt, and a chambering in 6.5 PRC, the latter often described as essentially a magnum version of the 6.5 Creedmoor ideal for hunting West of the Mississippi. Cost: $1,595.

We’ve covered Sig Sauer’s propensity for releasing new variants of their existing guns on almost a weekly basis and last week did not disappoint.

The latest flash from Sig is a limited run of P320s done with the company’s AXG Equinox package. It looks nice, is optics-ready, and carries a brushed nickel finish on the controls as well as a two-tone polished slide.

Sorry, no pricing, because that is also a Sig thing.

Springfield Armory did a thing. With so many modular 5.56 black rifles these days– think FN SCAR, Bushmaster ACR, CZ BREN M2, etc.– having a one-piece monolithic lower machined from 6061 T6 aluminum, Springer has decided to catch up.

Their version, the “Accurized Tactical Chassis,” or ATC, is all-AR up top including a direct impingement mid-length gas system and M16 BCG along with a GI-style charging handle and a carbine “H” heavy tungsten buffer.

However, the 1:7 twist barrel runs a .223 Wylde chamber and the company guarantees sub-MOA accuracy.

They should, as the MSRP starts at $1,549 for the basic black model and jogs up to almost $2K for the FDE which also has a Larue Tactical trigger and better stock.

A lot of folks have recognized that the ATC looks a whole lot like HKs despised SL8 but with more cowbell. However, in Springfield’s defense, the SL8 also has a reputation for extreme accuracy.

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