GunnSmokeer
Senior Member
Georgia now allows silencers for hunting.
But silencers are expensive, and with a lot of paperwork and hassle involved in buying or making them and registering them with BATF.
So here's a question:
If somebody builds a silencer onto the barrel of a blackpowder firearm that's either a muzzle-loader or breech loader that doesn't use self-contained cartridges in any sort of case, and the silencer can't be removed from the gun barrel except by cutting or torching it off, is it really a silencer?
Keep in mind, a "silencer" has to either be ON a firearm (using the federal definition of that term) or it has to be CAPABLE OF being put on a FIREARM. A silencer that is permanently welded onto a muzzle-loader's steel barrel isn't going to be capable of being used on any other gun, is it? And the gun it's on is legally not considered a firearm, is it?
JUST FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
Two problems I see right away:
1-- If you possess a silencer, or silencer parts, before you attach those to the gun, that's illegal. Even if you build the silencer at noon on a certain day and by 2 p.m. it's welded to the muzzle, and all the baffles sealed in the can and not removable or user-serviceable. You'd be breaking the law as soon as the UPS delivery guy brought you that silencer tube, or as soon as you made the first "baffle" in your basement workshop. (HOWEVER, maybe a factory could build the gun barrels with the silencer, all on the same assembly line, and get around this Catch-22 from the feds' rules.)
2--- Baffles would tend to collect paper or cloth patching material, plastic sabots, etc. I think this would only work with a gun that had projectiles that were a perfect fit to the bore and didn't need any patching.
But silencers are expensive, and with a lot of paperwork and hassle involved in buying or making them and registering them with BATF.
So here's a question:
If somebody builds a silencer onto the barrel of a blackpowder firearm that's either a muzzle-loader or breech loader that doesn't use self-contained cartridges in any sort of case, and the silencer can't be removed from the gun barrel except by cutting or torching it off, is it really a silencer?
Keep in mind, a "silencer" has to either be ON a firearm (using the federal definition of that term) or it has to be CAPABLE OF being put on a FIREARM. A silencer that is permanently welded onto a muzzle-loader's steel barrel isn't going to be capable of being used on any other gun, is it? And the gun it's on is legally not considered a firearm, is it?
JUST FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
Two problems I see right away:
1-- If you possess a silencer, or silencer parts, before you attach those to the gun, that's illegal. Even if you build the silencer at noon on a certain day and by 2 p.m. it's welded to the muzzle, and all the baffles sealed in the can and not removable or user-serviceable. You'd be breaking the law as soon as the UPS delivery guy brought you that silencer tube, or as soon as you made the first "baffle" in your basement workshop. (HOWEVER, maybe a factory could build the gun barrels with the silencer, all on the same assembly line, and get around this Catch-22 from the feds' rules.)
2--- Baffles would tend to collect paper or cloth patching material, plastic sabots, etc. I think this would only work with a gun that had projectiles that were a perfect fit to the bore and didn't need any patching.