Machine Gun Price Guide


	Price Guides last updated: July 2010 Articles: The Mechanics of Heckler & Koch NFA Conversions by Thomas T. Hoel A MAC History Lesson by William D. Ehringer

The machine gun market remains very soft, but the declines of the past quarters appear to be slowing. In a market that’s still much smaller than previous, the movers are priced right to sell. There have been some notable bargains in auction, meaning keeping a sharp eye can land a deal. Our Council of Economic Advisors stays the course and continues to advise go shooting and have some fun.

Economic recovery requires a large dose of confidence among businesses and consumers. Unfortunately our current government’s policies provide no level of confidence in that they don’t have an effective response to the economic downturn. Massive stimulus that aids only government, favorite bailouts and cash-for-whatever demand accelerators added to the uncertainty of tax increases assures more economic pain and unemployment.

The incompetence of the government was never more obvious than the response to the BP blowout. Moving at a snail’s pace, they refused to lift American flagged shipper restrictions or accept assistance from international experts. Restricting all oil operations in the gulf, throwing thousands more out of work was the extent of the response by the government’s deep thinkers . Can the ruling class be all inexperienced buffoons like their leader or is there treachery afoot? Not one for conspiracy theories, but it’s as improbable to get everything wrong as right and so far they’re batting 1.000 in the wrong column. Less than 100 days to November so use your vote to begin to get rid of these incompetent bastards.

The Machine Gun Price Guide contains price information for over 100 transferable automatic weapons. Navigate to the Price Guides to find a particular category and select a thumbnail for a full screen display of an easily understandable chart of average prices and trends in a high/low window over many years of history.

What’s a “Transferable Gun”?

The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) established a $200 tax on the transfer of Machine Guns, sawed-off shotguns, short barreled rifles and innocuous silencers. These things are now referred to as NFA items. This amounted to at least a 100% tax on NFA items and, more importantly, it established the first control over Machine Guns and their transfer by the Federal Government. Over 30 years later, the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA68) restricted the importation of surplus military weapons into the US. Ironically, gun manufacturers lobbied hard for GCA68 because they concluded that cheap military surplus was killing the market for their products. Little did they anticipate the full draconian measure of GCA68, but it effectively stopped all military surplus, including US models, from being (re)imported into the US. Obviously that included Machine Guns and all manner of automatic weapons. Machine Guns imported into the US after 1968 could only be owned by a Special Occupation Taxpayer (SOT) that we know as a Machine Gun Dealer and these Machine Guns became known as pre-86 or pre-May dealer samples for reasons that will soon be apparent. It took almost 20 years to correct many of the injustices of GCA68 through legislation known as The Firearms Owner’s Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA). But FOPA and its infamous late-night Hughes Amendment made all Machine Guns unlawful to be owned by individuals except those that were registered in the ATF’s National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record (NFRTR) before May 19, 1986. Those Machine Guns registered after that date are known as post-86 dealer samples and can also only be owned by a SOT but only for law enforcement or military demonstrations.

So, what’s a transferable gun??

The simple answer is, "It’s a NFA Machine Gun that an individual can own that is registered in the NFRTR as a transferable." Obviously it's more complex than that and the real question is, "How did a Machine Gun become registered in the NFRTR as transferable?"

Essentially there are 2 ways that a Machine Gun became transferable.

1. It was registered (often very reluctantly) by an individual between 1934 and the end of 1968 either by admitting to possessing an unregistered Machine Gun or the November 2, 1968 to December 1, 1968 registration amnesty permitted by GCA68. (The actuality is that voluntary registrations continued trickling into 1971. In the 1971 decision in US v. Freed, The Supremes interpreted the amended NFA of GCA68 and "compelling self-incrimination" implications and prohibited further voluntary registrations except by additional amnesty periods. ATF has not allowed any additional amnesty periods.)

2. It was made by a foreign manufacturer and registered prior to the end of 1968 or made and registered by a domestic manufacturer before May 19, 1986. Further the domestic manufacturer could have been anyone filing a Form 1 (Application to Make and Register a Firearm) and producing a complete automatic weapon or the conversion parts such as auto sears or bolts required to make one.


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