Okay, let's say your NFA Trust built a SBR from a pistol on a Form 1, but life happened and now you want to sell it.

1) If you sell it as a SBR, a) do you need to have the buyer go through a FFL who sells NFA items, and b) does the FFL hold the item through the buyer's whole (many months) Form 4 process?
2) I think you can separate the parts (pistol separate from stock) to restore the pistol status of the pistol (and then use a standard BGC), but would you have to sell the stock to a different person?
3) Does having been a SBR lower a pistol's value (e.g., because of the engraving)?
4) Anything else to take into account?

Thanks, o experienced ones.

1a) Yes.
1b) No, the seller would hold on to it.

2) Yes, you can send a letter to the ATF and tell them to take the item off of the NFA registry and then take it apart.

3) Good questions, don't know. I suspect you'd need to cross out the engraving or something (if you un-registered it).

4) I wouldn't ever sell an SBRed lower. If I needed the cash or something, I'd sell everything except the lower...the reality is, it would probably never sell as an SBR and selling it as just a standard lower (after taking it off the registry), seems like a waste of money.

It was my understanding that for #1, if it is instate you can do a "person to person" form 4. Out of state you have to go transfer to instate SOT, transfer to buyers SOT, that SOT transfers to buyer.

Course with 594 I believe the question was raised on whether all transactions had to go through a FFL for the background check portion (even though the ATF does one on the buyer). But I believe it was still a normal form 4 person to person then the actual taking possession had to go to a FFL just for the background check and the FFL didn't have to take possession or anything. But I would call an ffl before trying it.

But Im with Benja, keep the lower and sell everything else. Lowers are cheap anyways so strip it down to a lower minus trigger group (assuming you had a nice trigger) and then when things get back to being good in life just rebuild it and already have the engraved lower.

These are my thoughts as well.

But . . . the fact of the matter is that in WA we're still new to SBRs, and very few of us have ever sold one so the process is unknown to 99% of us. I'd be asking around to get some answers (as you are), and maybe even calling the ATF to ask.

My feeling is that you wouldn't need to mess with the engraving even if you "de-SBR" it, but I don't know that for sure.

No need to do anything to the engravings.
Person to person form 4 transfer.
Out of state can transfer to buyers SOT form 4.

And how do you handle 594?

I wonder if the new 41P/41F process will negate the need for a separate background check under WA law?

The ATF does not conduct a background check on Form 4 transfers if you use a trust (as most people do). The FFL/SOT does the NICS check when you - as a representative of the trust - come to pick it up.

Today . . . but for anything submitted after July, they will.

If you start with a Title I (non-NFA) firearm (in this case, a pistol), then convert it to a Title II (NFA) firearm (in this case, a SBR), you can restore it to a Title I configuration, which drops the firearm off the purview of the NFA, and therefore opens the door to a standard private party transfer, which obviously requires FFL involvement here in WA. That much I know for sure. I don't know if you're required to notify ATF that the firearm is no longer a NFA firearm, but I think it's a smart CYA move, required or not. It would really suck to have the buyer use the gun in a crime, then have ATF show up at your door asking why you illegally transferred your SBR.

As for selling the restored pistol to a private party, I think selling it in pistol form without the additional (but detached) stock hardware would be the wisest choice. However, I don't know that you're forbidden from selling the pistol along with the detached stock hardware. Personally, I wouldn't do it because I wouldn't want to open the door to accusations of my being a party to making an illegal SBR, however remote that risk might be. Sorry, that's not the solid yes or no you were looking for.

The pistol-to-rifle-back-to-pistol scenario reminds me a bit of the controversy surrounding the TC Contender carbine kits (pistols that were sold as pistols with additional hardware to convert them to carbines). Despite the ATF's assertion that this was a violation of the NFA, SCOTUS ruled in TC's favor and said as long as the firearm's receiver starts out as a pistol in its original configuration, and is converted into a rifle with a barrel length of >16" and OAL of >26", it can go back and forth between rifle and pistol without ever wading into NFA territory.

There is one critical distinction between the TC situation and your scenario, though - the barrel length. If you sold the assembled pistol (with a barrel <16") along with a detached stock assembly AND an additional 16"+ barrel (and the assembled rifle's OAL would be >26"), then I'd say you have nothing to worry about, because that mirrors the TC Contender carbine kit case. But if you sold the assembled pistol (with a barrel <16") and the stock assembly, but NOT an additional 16"+ barrel, I'd say you're wading into a gray area, and it might not be worth the risk.

Again, this is not the solid yes or no you are looking for, but I haven't done extensive research on this topic to be able to provide that. I just thought I'd share some considerations on point #2.

Thanks for the useful info, everybody!

Some posters were apparently thinking AR-style pistol as the basis (e.g., comments about lowers vs uppers), but I was thinking regular pistol such as this:


I can't see that there's any difference between the two that matters to this discussion, however. If I'm wrong about that, lemme no.

One of these days WA is going to need to come to terms with 594 VS Federal Law(C&R) and CPL's, etc.... One of those clarifying items will need to be respecting a 41F/P background check to serve as the required background check to clear 594 for a person-to-person or trust-to-trust SBR transfer. Now that SBR's will again become a thing, perhaps the collective firearm friendly legislative horsepower can (again) focus on a clarifying bill.

I think there is a limit regarding how long laws passed through the initiative process have to remain untouched by the legislature- could swear I read two years somewhere when the whole 594 thing was up for the vote. After that, it's a good bet they gut the whole thing, and in the meantime, I don't think there's a prosecutor in the state who would actually bring a case based on 594.

Don't get me wrong, the whole thing is still stupid. Just don't think it's worth worrying about.

It is 2 years.

Good so one year down, one to go and we can hope our law makers will start tearing down 594. With our encouragement of course!

My answers.

1) Person to Person ATF Form 4 between two WA state residents is the correct process. The new buyer files the Form 4 and pays for the $200 stamp. You forfeit your original $200 stamp on transfer. As for 594, once you have the approved Form 4 to the new buyer I would personally go down to a FFL/SOT and have them do a private party transfer for the SBR. For a suppressor don't worry about 594 as WA state doesn't view suppressors as firearms (feds do, but not the state).

2) If the firearm started as pistol you can remove the stock and return it to pistol (i.e. title I status), and then sell as normal through a private party transfer at any FFL per 594. As for selling the stock that was on the pistol to the new owner, well that is up for interruption. I personally don't have an issue, but some consider that "constructive possession". You can Google that and read for hours on other's opinion.

3) That is in the eyes of the buyer, but as a buyer myself I would absolutely devalue a lower that has another person's trust info engraved on it. In general I actually wouldn't be interested in buying any SBR someone else Form 1'd.

I think it's closer than that! 594 went into effect 12/4/2014, that means that on 12/4/2016 (THIS YEAR) then the leg can repeal and/or substantially change the RCW's that 594 created/modified.