ATF raids EP Armory
KERO:
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched a business and Bakersfield home Friday.
EP Armory is owned by Chris Cook. The business opened a storefront March 1 on District Boulevard near Gosford Road.
The store was closed today while agents searched it.
A home belonging to Chris Cook on Holabird Avenue was also searched.
“Obviously when somebody is going through all of your personal things it’s pretty unnerving,” said EP Armory owner Chris Cook.
The ATF was not able to provide information on the on-going investigation.(of course – ed.)
EP makes 80% polymer AR lowers. In Cali. The store is open again.
March 10th, 2014 at 6:29 pm
Seems they are mostly sold out… Guess the feds got there in time to realize the cat is out of the bag.
March 10th, 2014 at 9:12 pm
The ATF really has it in for polymer lower receivers.
This is the third time I have heard of raids on manufacturers of polymer lowers – first one was Cavalry Arms, nest one was the company that bought their molds and tooling (name escapes me) and was producing the one-piece lower, and now these guys.
The thing is, poly lowers are CHEAP! Back in the day, Cav Arms were a hundred bucks complete – with internal parts and integral pistol grip and stock. You couldn’t fit them with a collapsible stock, but they worked just fine. If you bought them without internals and with a bit of casting/molding/welding flash on them, they were even less.
I suspect that the major players in the AR-15 industry are a little pissed at the upstarts who are undercutting their prices so much. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they were dropping a dime on their competition, and counting on the enthusiasm of the ATF to find something, anything, that would shut the competition down. Of course, anybody who wants to keep guns expensive and unavailable could do the same thing.
March 10th, 2014 at 11:24 pm
Guy around here is making lowers without numbers on them.
LEO’s are buying most of ’em.
March 11th, 2014 at 3:21 pm
Skip — then he (and they) are committing felonies.
You can build your own receiver with no serial number, as long as it isn’t for an NFA gun.
You can even SELL your homemade receiver. (Yes, Virginia, you may — and ATF will even tell you HOW to do it legally — basically, you have to have built it with the INTENT that it was for personal use, and BEFORE you transfer it to someone else, you must serialize it and add other identifying information using exactly the same markings you would use if you were building a registered Form 1 NFA receiver.)
But if you are building them with the INTENT to sell them, you’re a “manufacturer”, and need the appropriate FFL (or FFL/SOT, for NFA builds).
And, even if you built them with the bona fide INTENT that they were for personal use, and later decided you didn’t want them anymore, the original MAKER (that’s you) _MUST_ apply the appropriate markings BEFORE you give or sell them to someone else.
March 11th, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Chilling effect.
March 12th, 2014 at 3:36 am
Didn’t say it was legal, just said it was being done.
March 13th, 2014 at 12:20 pm
EP did nothing wrong. If they had someone would have been arrested and that didn’t happen. ATF can do what it wants because there is no concrete definition on what an 80% is. So they can change their mind if they want to.
March 14th, 2014 at 11:55 am
I imagine that the ATF wanted the customer list so they can cross reference it for persons of interest and felons…if they find any “terrorist” customers, it will give the anti-gun movement some “ammo” to use in making a case to ban 80% polymer lowers, or make it a law they must be registered. Food for thought.