The Latest on ATF Approvals, Silencer Central, and You
May 29, 2024By Derrek Sigler
The Latest on ATF Approvals, Silencer Central, and You
Eric Poole, the Editor in Chief of Guns & Ammo Magazine, recently stopped by to chat with CEO Brandon Maddox about everything going on with Silencer Central. They had quite a bit to talk about, ranging from shipping and warehouse updates to new products, and the increase in approval times from the ATF. As always, we try to give you as much information as possible.
The Redesigned Silencer Central Warehouse
There has been a lot of talk lately about faster approval times from the ATF. This is great news for people wanting to get their hands on a suppressor, but there is one major thing that cannot be overlooked – Inventory! To start the approval process, there must be a silencer in stock with a serial number that can be assigned to you when you fill out your forms. There is no way around it.
To help make this work, Silencer Central has completely redesigned the warehouse facilities to do a couple of important things. For one, they have expanded the capacity that the warehouse can hold. The original goal was to be able to move 100,000 silencers a year, Maddox said, and with the warehouse redesign, the goal is now to handle 200,000 silencers per year and more. The expanded warehouse capability does that. This is a two-part process. The warehouse has expanded to have more in-stock inventory for you to buy from and has an expanded holding area where your silencer awaits ATF approval before it gets sent to your door. And now the approval process is going faster than ever. The improved warehouse facilities help get your silencer on the way to your door.
Another topic of discussion between Maddox and Poole was the recent release of the new BANISH Speed K Ti silencer. This new product is the titanium version of the Speed K, which came out at the end of 2023 as an Inconel silencer designed primarily for law enforcement. The new Speed K Ti takes the Speed K design but uses titanium instead of Inconel, making it lighter. This new product will appeal to a wider market range, as well as select law enforcement.
Faster ATF approvals
Faster ATF Approval time is a topic we talk about often because it is both important for you as a consumer to know what to expect with the approval process, and important for Silencer Central and the entire suppressor industry as a whole because of what it means to our business. Much of what has been learned came from Maddox’ meeting with the leadership of the ATF and NFA. Some of the highlights are quite interesting and exciting.
71% of approvals filed as an individual are being approved in real time.
Real time means as soon as the FBI background check – the same you do for a firearm purchase – comes back as clear, the ATF issues the approval that day
The ATF is working to speed up trust approval times, and they are getting there. One of the biggest factors in trust approvals is that the ATF recognizes trusts set up by the same process and works to approve them faster. They refer to this as swim lanes, where they work to approve trust applications faster due to the wording being the same from the same source. Silencer Central is the industry leader in this respect, with roughly 40% of trust applications coming from our team. The ATF assured Maddox that they are working toward getting trust approvals down to 2-3 weeks or less.
Batch approvals
Batch approvals are also an interesting topic. With a batch approval, if you have a Form 4 silencer purchase in the approval process, and you add additional silencers with the required Form 4 for each, the ATF will approve them all at the same time. This has been getting attention lately, especially from those who want to buy multiple suppressors. We can’t argue with that.
How does the approval process go from 6-8 months to three days?
This is a question on the minds of many these days when looking at how suddenly there is this rapid increase in approval times. The answer, as Maddox learned, is interesting. The ATF and NFA process for approvals has historically been based on paper forms. You must understand that the National Firearms Act was enacted on June 26, 1934. Even as the process slowly went digital, the approval process still relied on criteria that came from the original planning.
Maddox learned that Ben Hiller, the acting NFA branch leader, investigated the Form 4 approval process while working on approvals himself. Hiller found that many of the processes that were still being verified by individuals separately, were already done by the computer system. As much as 80% of the process that was being done manually was redundant. Making the process efficient has sped up the process to a very high degree.
Why haven’t you heard this? Inventory!
One thing to note is how faster approval times affect inventory planning. As said, you must have a physical silencer available to have a serial number assigned to your Form 4. If there isn’t inventory, you can’t start the approval process. Other manufacturers are rushing to meet the increased demand. Silencer Central sells many of the top brands, as well as our own BANISH line. While we may not have some of the other brands, we were able to forecast an increase in approval times and have stocked the warehouse with BANISH silencers ready to go.
Keep track of these developments right here at www.silencercentral.com/blog/. We always do our best to keep you informed of everything going on in the silencer industry.
Why haven’t you heard this? Inventory! 