SilencerTalk

i paid for and sent my papers in 5 months ago for my m4 1000 and have heard nothing back. WTF.

I'm confused, are you waiting on your Form 4 or the suppressor itself? Was the suppressor in stock, or is this on order?

Maybe your forms were as confusing as your question is.

Called NFA yesterday and was told they are so backed up to expect a 4 month wait from when it went pending. Took 4 weeks from check cashed to pending. 5 months sounds about right. My dealer said NFA has 5 people out between absence and promotions so its crawling along

Congrats?

I am at 7 months on a form 4 now. Sorry I can't feel bad for you!

11 months for my first one. 9 for the second.

Keep waiting. Have patience. Take up knitting.

Any issues along the way with lost or missing info, etc?

13 months 12 days for my first one from the time I paid for it to the time the stamp was recieved, for a SCAR-H with no delays at the ATF.

It took AAC 11 months to manufacture it from the time I paid for it, for a can that was already on order and due "in 2 weeks" to Maj Malfunction.

If you are past three months file a constituant complaint with your congress critter. If they don't know about a problem they cannot fix it.

Well, to be honest, I believe what took so long with the first, was no one had any. Had to wait for manufacturer to make more. I'm not sure what happened with the 2nd one. But neither was anything on my end.

It's sounds as though, unless you are assigned to Shipman (who is restricted to low volume); you are now looking at increased wait times, as of late. While the average, error-free submission (35% are submitted with delay inducing errors, according to a recent article in SAR) seemed to be taking approximately 14 weeks around the end of Q1, I'm hearing that you can look at close to 5 months now, in many cases.

This is due primarily to the fact that some examiners and management level individuals at the NFA Branch have recently been promoted out and their positions have not been filled (yet). Also, some are out on leave (maternity, etc.). So, even though we are pouring in an increasingly large pile of cash to them, they aren't using it for the efficiency of their operations. It seems the money is being absconded by the .gov to fund "other things", most of which I'm sure we here would not agree with. Like most places they are funded from a specific budget allocation for each fiscal year. Whatever money they bring in, even if it far exceeds their operational budget, goes to the “parent company". In this case, the Imperial Federal Government.

Diomed is more than welcome to correct me or add anything to this prerogative.

Just that the number of examiners is slowly increasing. They have one new hire, and one who was out on long term disability came back. One will be retiring by the end of the year so there's that, but as things settle down times should stabilize and maybe even decrease a bit.

Barring any further significant changes, of course.

One other thing: I work for the Feds,(VA, not ATF). Funding for staffing/operating budgets is based on data from the last full fiscal year, so if there is a significant increase in workload, there is an almost 2 year lag before budget changes can reflect the increased workload. Ex: FY 2010 budget is based on FY 2008 numbers as they need time to "crunch" the numbers and interpret the data.
I don't know how this affects the BATFE but at the VA this is a major problem since we have a HUGE influx of new veterans returning from Iraq/Afghanistan but our budget reflects much lower numbers from 2 years ago.

So there's hope that the NFA Branch budget for staffing will be increased to provide adequate support for the workload at some point? I hope so, but this is the .gov we're talking about. In fact, the part of the .gov that exists at least partly to dissuade the average person from being involved in collecting such toys.

I think there's hope. Think about it. Govt. entities tend to get bigger rather than smaller. NFA branch is no exception. Govt. employees generally want to advance into management roles...which requires supervising employees...and the more employees one has, the more relative power/influence the manager has. Also, suppressors, in particular, are a domestically manufactured commercial good, which is win-win in a struggling economy when so much of our industry is outsourced to other countries. NFA stamps may not be a big source of Tax revenue, but it all adds up. I see NFA branch getting bigger and eventually, going to a algorhmic/computer based system....at least if it follows the template that most other govt. departments have.
On the other hand, if there is too much of a push to cut federal spending, this may be one of the first departments to get cut. May not be too wise to bitch about "big government" when said "big gubmint" includes enough staff to process our paperwork in an expeditious manner. Just sayin.'

Yeah, but the NFA Branch is not a welfare program. We're paying $200 a pop, so I'd say it more than self-funded.

Edit:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=61258&p=594591#p594591

That IS good news.