If they repealed the NFA, and other laws. Prices?

[HankB]

Most NFA stuff would drop like a rock - look at the current prices, and just move the decimal point to the left one place. (Except for the true rarities.)

Same with suppressors - everyone and his brother with a lathe would be cranking them out in basements and garages all across America.

More ranges would open to FA . . . provided you bought your ammo from them.  

In any case, the chance of most NFA stuff being deregulated is astronomical . . . except maybe, just maybe, suppressors.

And even there it's a long shot.

[MechAg94]

Most gun ranges are run by or have a majority of fudds in their membership who think that full autos are illegal, even those who do acknowledge that FAs are legal are plenty content to make the FA owners sit at the back of the bus when they aren't actively throwing them under the bus to try to appease their liberal friends.

Having the number of full autos in circulation increase by a factor of 10, 100, or 1000 would greatly increase the demand for ranges that allow full auto fire.


As far as ammo goes- there is vast warehouses full of surplus ammo out there in the world available for pennies/round, its just that its banned from import because arbitrary rulings banning 'non-sporting' and 'cop-killer' ammo.

For the range I belong to, that is not the reason.  Their berms only go so high and they don't want rounds flying a few miles down range when someone lets it get out of control.  I figure that would happen to me at least the first time I tried to shoot one if I wasn't at the short range berm.  I think there is also the issue of shooting up the target boards and stands.  

They recently had to take down the shotgun patterning plate as someone shot it up with a rifle.  They also have had issues with people using flag poles and target board support posts as targets.

It is a more or less unsupervised range.  They put up some cameras recently, but that was mostly due to theft. 

[MechAg94]

Where I hope to see suppressors changing is in R&D.  More sales should allow makers to work on better designs.  I was hoping they might also come up with ways to incorporate them into hunting rifles and such other than just screwing a big can onto the end.  There are only so many ways to do it, but you never know.

[brimic]

For the range I belong to, that is not the reason.  Their berms only go so high and they don't want rounds flying a few miles down range when someone lets it get out of control.  I figure that would happen to me at least the first time I tried to shoot one if I wasn't at the short range berm.  I think there is also the issue of shooting up the target boards and stands.  

They recently had to take down the shotgun patterning plate as someone shot it up with a rifle.  They also have had issues with people using flag poles and target board support posts as targets.

It is a more or less unsupervised range.  They put up some cameras recently, but that was mostly due to theft. 

Same issues at the range I'm a member at.
Some a-hole miles away, sprinkled .45 ammo on his lawn and threatened to sue. The club built bigger, massive berms to prevent any future claims in case someone who isn't a complete moron makes a claim in the future.
That being said, most of the members are there for sporting clays/trap. There are maybe 100 people in total that shoot in organized rifle/pistol competitions, and the club's voting mass tried to shut down the bullseye pistol, highpower rifle/CMP and even the F-class matches because people were 'firing more than 1 shot per minute.'
I used to belong to a club that was exclusively a R&P club, and people who made such proposals would be laughed at, if not kick out of the club. FA shooters were not only welcome, it was almost expected of them to bring enough fun for everyone.

[MikeB]

I think a lot of the perceived fun comes from the novelty of it, and the forbidden fruit aspect. Take that away, and I don't think people will get quite the same charge out of it.

Yes and no. I've owned a number of items with giggle switches for a number of years. It is still a lot of fun to blow through a few mags on full auto. That doesn't really go away per se. Yes though, the novelty is not the same as the first time.

[lupinus]

I would expect it to get cheaper. The regulations and low volume are a big part of the high cost on a decent suppressor. Sure, a high quality example wont be sitting on the shelf for 30 bucks, but IMO wouldn't be nearly the same premium commanded now. Between lower regulatory costs, competition, and volume prices should come down decently.

I think a big one would be the short barreled stuff. That's already very popular between tax stamps and "pistols". And there's not a dime of extra cost involved once you take away the regulation premium and tax stamp costs. I'd expect to see a *expletive deleted*it load of short barreled AR's and other stuff, with an actual stock, at the range almost overnight.

[Hutch]

I'd want two FA's.  One would be some sort of 9mm buzz gun/pdw (Maybe an MP5 pr MP5k), and the other, some sort of war relic belt fed .30, preferably water cooled, like a 1917.  And a slot on the Knob Creek range for showing them off.

Sigh.  The heaviest two words in our language..."If only"...,

[RevDisk]

I agree there would be a boom in cheap suppressors only work well for rimfire and pistol calibers, or very low volume shooting. They're also heavy. And they're also long/large.

A good suppressor that can withstand years of use, or high volume of fire, or high heat in rifle calibers, there's a lot of work that goes into them. And they're made out of stuff like Iconel and titanium which is a bitch to machine. They also pay attention to things like avoiding galling on their threads and parts with dissimilar metals, or similar metals, as the case may be. And other higher-end stuff like monocores isn't just done on a lathe.  Then there's the issue if you want rapid attachments, flash-hider adapters instead of simple threading.

A basic.. "it works... for a while" suppressor made out of a mag-lite tube and some K-baffles, yeah, that's easy. But a good suppressor, there's reasons they cost four figures. And additional volume with over the counter status won't drive the savings you think they will.

With internet knowledge educating people on the NFA process, and trusts driving volume already, good suppressors, I don't see them coming down in price too much.

A Baer 1911 Ultimate Master Combat Pistol is $3140. A perfectly serviceable ATI 1911 can run only $400-500. Both would do you fine for normal range usage. Perhaps not for competitions or whatnot, but that's always the case. Super high end accuracy or tolerance competition gear would indeed be four figures easily, I completely agree. Obviously a M2 .50 cal suppressor routinely used for full auto needs to be strong as hell. For 5.56 or 9mm? Hardly.

I do expect to see entirely serviceable cans for regular AR15's to be had for $300 if the Hearing Protection Act passes. I likewise expect titanium or unobtainium cans to go for four digits, even upper four digits for crew served weapons.   

[Firethorn]

There would also be a lot of shooting ranges that wouldn't allow full auto.  I know the range I belong to does not allow it now. 

This will continue, but consider that with full auto prices being reasonable, there would be a lot more people wanting to be able to shoot full auto, and thus there will be serious pushes to open ranges up to full auto.  Right now it's easy to ban when Joe is the only dude in the area with one.

[Viking]

I assume that many of the desirable old guns (MG-42, Lewis guns, what have you) would be put back into production by someone...but only after it had been made clear that the repeals were likely to last, because no one wants to tool up for an ancient design only for MGs to become banned/restricted once again shortly after, making it more difficult to recoup their costs of tooling, testing etc.

[just Warren]

I don't want a new-made MG42. I want one with history.

[Frank Castle]

My concern ............

The dunking monkeys making the new FA and suppressors. Remember the slanted front sights on some AK's.

[Fly320s]

My concern ............

The dunking monkeys making the new FA and suppressors. Remember the slanted front sights on some AK's.

The market would shake out the low quality manufacturers soon enough.  Those cockeyed AKs aren't around anymore.

[freakazoid]

I don't want a new-made MG42. I want one with history.

This. If all the laws were repealed they would be able to import them again, I wonder how many of these and other WW2, ect. FAs there are out there? Plus parts kit rebuilds would be able to be done.

[erictank]

I think a lot of the perceived fun comes from the novelty of it, and the forbidden fruit aspect. Take that away, and I don't think people will get quite the same charge out of it.

Yeah, but you could have a semi-suto-only AR/AK/whatever for $X, or a select-fire AR/AK/whatever for $X+... not much.  Why not spend the extra not much, if it's extra at all?

Just because you CAN do a mag dump in 2.5 seconds sustained fire doesn't mean you HAVE to.  And you've got that capability if you ever need it, or just want to convert a lot of money into noise and smoke really quickly on a range day.

For stuff like that (AR/AK/whatever), I'd prefer the (non-NFA) select-fire example to the SAO version, simply because it has more capabilities.  Whether I ever need those capabilities or not.