Just remember that the part with the serial number is the gun.

Ayup. I have three guns, too: my S&W Sigma (9VE). It’s no slam on Tam; it’s a slam on the JBT.

I know about the “Red’s fiasco.” I haven’t heard about anyone at ATF being suspended or anything related to that though. Can you provide more info?

Glocks (and many other europistols over the years): Yes, they have serial numbers in many places. The frame is the gun.

S&W Revos: Top-breaks and early hand-ejectors are numbered on the barrel, frame, and cylinder; the frame is the gun. Post-WWII to 1982ish, they are numbered on the butt of the frame; the frame is the gun. ‘82ish to the turn of the millennium, they are numbered on the frame behind the crane; the frame is the gun (the number on the crane itself is a build number and will not match the S/N). Post-MA Agreement, they are numbered on the frame behind the crane and on the butt of the frame; the frame is the gun.

Mosins: Yes, Mosins are numbered on the barrel and noplace else, but this only comes into play if the gun is rebarreled, in which case your smith will re-stamp the number on the receiver. Since Mosins are usually only rebarreled by people with more money than sense, this rarely comes into play. Incidentally, most High Powers are numbered on the frontstrap, and so if you get that checkered or stippled, the smith either has to relocate the S/N or stipple around it.

My wartime Czech Duo is numbered on the slide, but the frame is the gun. Theoretically, if I were to move the slide to a different frame, I should get the frame stamped.

Really, the “Which part is the gun?” rules are a lot less arcane and hard to figure out than most people think they are, an I react the way I do because I hear so many people speculate on something that seems so simple to me. I’m sure each and every one of you, in your various professions, has something that would seem baffling to outsiders and you would be left scratching your head if they made a fuss over it.

If the government is going to have laws about guns, they must first decide what the gun is. There must be a piece that is “The Gun”. You can’t just disassemble a gun into a pile of parts that magically lose all “gunness” until reassembled; there has to be an atom of gun, a part that is the non-reducable essence of the gun, and that is the part that is controlled. Don’t like it? Get rid of the gun laws. But as long as you have gun control laws, you have to have a gun to control.

Every one of them I have has the serial number on the barrel, not the receiver (or at least the most visible and complete one is on the barrel. I know my old, long-since-broken Type 56 was only numbered on the barrel…)

Note the date on the document … a few days after everyone above the rank of inspector got their authority suspended during the justice dept. investigation of the Red’s fiasco.

That’s why the ATF made HK change their 91/93/94 rifles to take a trigger group that used a pin at the rear and a “shelf” up front, so that the two-pin trigger groups from full-auto HKs wouldn’t just pop on and off of civvie models.

On a HK G3-type, the part that looks like a “lower” on an AR is just a “trigger group” that pops off with one or two pushpins and the tube with the barrel attached is the receiver.

yeah, but isn’t it that trigger group that also decides whether a HK rifle is fully auto capable? if i’m rightly informed about that, i think you could make a case that the HK trigger group is what should be serialized and considered a “firearm”, for the sake of NFA simplicity.

(and, actually, i was about to complain about the “AK upper” thing, too. the dustcover and gas tube, maybe?)

Didn’t mean that to come off as pompous-sounding as it looked on the re-read.

An AK doesn’t have an “upper receiver”.

True but I think most knew what I was getting at.

On a HK G3-type, the part that looks like a “lower” on an AR is just a “trigger group” that pops off with one or two pushpins and the tube with the barrel attached is the receiver.

Frankly, it’s the AR that’s the anomaly in the gun world, since the serialized part doesn’t really contain much in the way of the vital bullet-launching apparatus. This is part of what has fueled the modified AR craze. You wouldn’t see much in the way of 9mm/.22/.458 SOCOM/6.8SPC/.204 Ruger modifications if the barrel was permanently attached to the serialized part.

The savest rule of thumb with guns (and you have to stop thinking of just rifles: this goes to pistols, revolvers, and granpa’s side-by-side gauge, too) is to forget about “Upper” and “Lower” and stuff like that. Just remember that the part with the serial number is the gun.

On a Browning Buckmark, it’s the frame. On a Ruger Mk I/II/III, it’s the receiver/barrel combo. On a Beretta Neos, it’s the insignificant little widget that the barrel, grip, and bolt all attach to.