Coming from a guy who sells suppressed SBRs, yes, you’re welcome to take what I have to say with a grain of salt here. That said, it’s my strong opinion and advice that you should not wait until the elimination of the $200 NFA tax from the Big Beautiful Bill goes into effect on January 1st and you should, instead, buy your Form 4 stuff now.
The industry is looking forward to that $200 tax going away. It’ll be a big boon for sales of suppressors, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, etc. I’m sitting on a solid inventory of shorty barrels for bolt-action rifles and components to turn those into complete SBRs, not to mention lots of awesome 10/22-compatible Black Collar Arms Piglet parts that we love to build into sexy little SBRs like the ones seen above.
But…the industry is already struggling to play catch-up. Silencer production has been trailing way behind demand for nearly 18 months now since wait times for Form 4s dropped from 9 to 12 months to 1 to 8 days. Supply remains tight. Companies remain backordered a year or more into the future.
Come January, we all anticipate yet another spike in demand for these NFA items. Yes, new players are entering the market. Yes, existing companies have been scaling up to increase output where possible. Most are still behind, though, and don’t anticipate getting caught up by the end of the year, even if demand drops off a bit due to people delaying their purchases until the NFA tax elimination takes effect.
Oh and there’s always the good ol’ ATF. Will a spike in demand cause wait times to go back up? Imagine how many Form 1s are going to be filed once people can register and create their own SBRs and SBSs with zero taxes or fees. It’s brutally clear that the elimination of months-long wait times has had a huge effect on silencer demand. We know the elimination of the $200 tax will, too. But wait times going back up into the realm of multiple months — perhaps back to that 9 to 12-month timeframe that we were used to for at least the last decade-plus — is absolutely not a non-zero risk.
So my best advice to you, dear reader, is to strike while the striking is good. Get a suppressor order in now, whether it’s something that’s in-stock or on backorder. Get your name on something. On somethings. Secure the silencer or SBR that you want, even if it means paying an extra $200, in order to do it now while supply is semi-available and Form 4 approval times are super-fast. January is still five months away, and who knows what the market is going to look like in 2026.
My guess is that sales are going to go absolutely nuts at the end of the year with buyers planning on registering their new NFA items in January. I expect backorder times to be extremely long with supply very hard to get — allocated for dealers and pre-sold to long lists of customers. If you don’t want to go back to how it was — paying for something you won’t take possession of for ~10 months — my advice is, don’t wait. Get your NFA goodies now.
But Wait! There’s More!
To help convince everyone not to wait until January 1, many top brands are running promotions to, one way or another, save you that $200 now. For instance, Silencer Shop is covering your tax stamp cost on a whole bunch of different suppressors HERE. SilencerCo is running their $200 “Big Beatiful Credit” deal now through August 31st. And they ain’t the only ones. So look around, find yourself a deal, and secure your hush pickle now!
The unspoken elephant in this room is the fact that retail demand for NFA items has dropped somewhat since the signing of the BBB, slowing sales and leaving retailers and manufacturers sitting on inventory. I understand that some manufacturers are dropping prices by $200 to entice people to buy now.
Also unspoken – the smart manufacturers, who can afford it, are using the next few months to continue build up inventory in order to satisfy the Jan. 1 demand. And I can’t believe the ATF won’t gear up to handle the Jan. 1 spike.
Nope…not until they are removed from the NFA altogether
[California has entered the chat]
Doesn’t matter what the Feds allow…they will never be allowed here. Unless you’re LE, of course, because that’s what the Founders wanted…a Guv with arms they don’t allow The People to have. /Sarc
(clicks on ‘Post Comment’ button, rolls the dice to see if this will be one of those that make it past the moderation goblins)
“Doesn’t matter what the Feds allow…they will never be allowed here.”
That will change, Haz, lawsuits will cure this, just hang on.
Or, retire in a free state… 🙂
This! I hate seeing so many in the pro-2A, “Will not comply” crowd… comply.
I finally decided to jump through the onerous regulatory hoops last August to purchase two suppressors since the wait times had finally dropped down to about 4 weeks. Then I jumped through the very same onerous regulatory hoops again in late September when wait times were down to about 7 days and a local gun store ran a promotion with a 10% discount.
My point is that I finally decided to jump through the onerous and punitive hoops once the wait times shrank down. My view was simple: I refused to go through an onerous and punitive process, which is unconstitutional, costs $200 per item, AND entails an average wait time of 11 months. The long wait time was classic “insult to injury”. Once the wait times reduced to several days, the “insult” portion of “insult to injury” vanished, I held my nose, and I proceeded. I expect that 10s of thousands (and maybe even 100s of thousands) of people will do the same when the $200 tax stamp goes away. And that, my friends, could cause significant back orders and delays.
Pick your poison.
“My point is that I finally decided to jump through the onerous and punitive hoops once the wait times shrank down. My view was simple: I refused to go through an onerous and punitive process, which is unconstitutional, costs $200 per item, AND entails an average wait time of 11 months.”
So you were willing to do it ’cause ‘they’ [by actions] basically said “Good news! Now you can wait less time for us to infringe your constitutional right!” ?
🤣
.40 cal Booger,
The looming elections were a major factor in my decision as well. I was convinced that Democrats would somehow steal the election again and proceed to finish wrecking our economy and society for that matter. On top of that, I figured that a Harris/Walz administration would be so utterly incompetent and feckless that there was a definite possibility of a foreign nation starting some significant shenanigans in our homeland. Of course there was a significant probability that Democrats would make suppressors illegal going forward. When you consider all of that, it seemed wise to acquire suppressors.
There’s no wait time on a can you manufacture yourself, and with that costing ZERO come January, I’m planning at least two can builds come then, very basic builds that will cost next to nothing but be heavy as all hell…
That’s even more true when it comes to SBRs. No matter how scarce cans (or even factory SBRs, which have always been rare) get, the chances of barrel unavailability are infinitesimal.
Geoff PR,
While the tax stamp goes to $0 on January 1st, 2026, the requirement to get ATF approval remains which means that you still have to file the applicable form and get their approval before building. If a bazillion more people than normal do that all at once–which they probably will–approval times at the ATF could seriously balloon.
Jeremy, what I’d like to see from BCA and similar niche players are some integrally-suppressed SBR uppers.
But what I would REALLY like to see is an integrally-suppressed, magazine fed, short-barreled shotgun (e.g., modify a Mossberg 590M to be integrally-suppressed and chop about 4″ off the barrel). That would be the ideal home defense weapon
Given that a pump gun (even with box mags) has a tube to guide the forend, parallel and close to the barrel; and an integrally suppressed barrel has a big tube surrounding the barrel, I’m having trouble picturing how that would be set up.
someone will figure something out…
Integrally Suppressed Shotguns
Conversions or Purchases for all shotguns & Uses
https://www.suppressorsbyphoenix.com/shotguns
Phoenix Integrally Suppressed Shotguns.
https://www.phoenixweaponry.com/phoenix-integrally-suppressed-shotguns
Long ones like those are easy to envision, but I’m struggling with the fact that he specifically said “chop about 4″ off the barrel” – much less awkward for home defense, but seems to create the issue I described above.
ahhhhh…well, someone will figure it out I guess.
I’m not sick of winning.