Questionable ppsh41

[akkalish 1]

An elder family member of mine has recently passed and while goin through his collection i found a war trophy from his time in korea. He had always told us the story of taking the rifle of a dead korean soldier but i had never seen it. To make a long story short it is an authentic North Korean open bolt Ppsh41 no importer stamps. I would like to get it to fully tranferable statis for obvious legal reasons and so we can keep it in the family with out buring it in the back yard.

 

Any help??????????

Any?

[KC913 324]

It is my understanding that old MG's can no longer be grandfathered in or registered after the grace period was up. Maybe someone else can correct me if I'm wrong. I would edit my post and not even bother looking into it.

[bohound 281]

What ppsh? That thing fell off the back of the boat pulling out of Seoul.

 

Bury it, Uncle Sugar's got his hands in too many cookie jars already.

 

This thread never happened, right?

 

wink wink

[beefcakeb99 572]

shit dude, lucky find, lets just say that now it is inoperable...and or demilled

[akkalish 1]

I doughbt the thing even works to the recycling center

[kresk 10,063]

Don't think there's any way to make it legal. 'Get rid' of it.

[Shandlanos 1,470]

Well, I'm assuming you found a parts kit with no receiver...

 

If you found one with an intact receiver, and then posted about it on a public forum, you've already figured out that it would be trivial for any interested federal authority to find out where and who you are. The sanest thing you can do now is write down the serial number and call the ATF, explain the situation and ask if that weapon exists in the registry, on the off chance that it was amnesty registered and he never bothered to tell anyone. If that is the case and you live in a state that allows machine guns, it might possibly be passed on to next of kin, tax-free (IIRC, on a form 5).

 

If it is not registered, it will be taken from you. I doubt you would have any criminal liability if you did this immediately upon finding the weapon - but I'm not a lawyer and just offering my friendly internet opinion. Waiting is certainly not a good idea. You're posting on a gun forum, so I'm guessing you like guns. If you're convicted of a felony (for example, possession of an unregistered MG), a lot of people in uniform will agree that you can't be allowed to own them anymore.

 

It'd be a nice family heirloom, hopefully you aren't too attached to it. I hope that there are other things he left behind that will serve to keep his memory alive.

 

Edited to add: It's a damned shame our federal laws are what they are. You should be able to legally keep that piece of family history in your family. I don't know for certain, but I recall having read somewhere that museums were allowed to possess otherwise illegal weapons. I could be completely wrong, it's just a thought bouncing around in the back of my head the source of which I can't recall. But it might be something you want to look into, in case it could be saved, intact, for display at a museum.

 

Best wishes,

-Shandlanos

Edited December 14, 2010 by Shandlanos

[BobAsh 582]

Nothing questionable about it; that gun is a felony waiting to happen.

 

You can escape punishment by pleading ignorance and turning it in, but at this point it's really your only recourse.

 

 

[BobAsh 582]

Actually, upon further reflection...you could probably destroy the receiver and build yourself a semi-auto gun using the resulting "parts kit".

 

Or even a FA on a papered receiver, I suppose.

 

But I'm no lawyer. Go to the subguns.com NFA forum and post over there. Good luck.

[csspecs 1,987]

FIRST. Confirm that it is in fact NOT already registered, heck he could have registered it and have the paper work around some place.. If so you have found gold.

 

If not read the ATF info on demilled receivers and torch cut the receiver as required.

 

Find a gunsmith that builds PPSH41 semi auto rifles. Have them build the parts kit into a new rifle that you will be able to enjoy.

 

I'd assume that it could be legal, and would not jump to destroy it until you know one way or another. Your family would be pissed if you destroyed the gun only to find the tax stamp later. If it has a war trophy stamp 'DEWAT' then it could be made fully functional again.

[rjrivero 50]

If the PPSH 41 is on the registry, wouldn't it have an "English" serial number with English letters and arabic numerals? (As opposed to Russian letters, or Cyrillic Alphabet?)

 

If it doesn't have any numbers, per se, then it would be REALLY difficult to check to see if it's on the NFA Registry.

 

If it does have a serial number, then call the ATF and ask for the status of a Form 4 on that item. If they can't find it, then you must have written the number down wrong and you can call back with the right number later.

[bigj480 203]

I know that semi-auto rifles can be built from the cut receivers of firearms that were previously machine guns. The receivers must be torch cut to certain specs to be legally considered a non-gun first. One can not tell if they were ever cut with the naked eye after they are made into a completed semi-auto clone. Also, new receivers that were never cut could be made for such a semi-auto clone and could be made to resemble a bring back.

Edited December 15, 2010 by bigj480

[Superhawk138 202]

One minor problem with rebuilding as a semi auto would be the barrel length unless you go the SBR route as the barrel is around 10 1/2" Lets just hope it made the registry and is granted amnesty.