Curios and Relics

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Enablers!

September 28, 2023 by 7 Comments

I must have quite a number of enablers among my friends and acquaintances.

First, I was pondering whether to renew my Curios and Relics FFL. I’ve held the license since 1996 and it due for renewal. The pro’s and the con’s made renewing it a toss-up.

On the plus side, while the flood of milsurps from the 90s and early 2000s has dried up, more and more sporting rifles are becoming eligible. The FFL allows me to have eligible firearms shipped directly to my home and I don’t have to pay a transfer fee to an 01 FFL. Further, if I decide to thin out the herd, it will facilitate shipping the firearm to a new owner. Finally, as the Complementary Spouse reminded me, it is only $30 for three years. One argument against renewal meant I could destroy my A&D Bound Book. Unlike a regular dealer, I don’t have to submit my records to the ATF. The other was that I just don’t use it that much anymore.

I put a note up on the C&R FFL mailing list and did get some good advice. The first argument for renewal was that the cost of just one transfer fee paid for the license. The second, from someone who had let his license lapse and then reapplied for it, was that it was harder for the ATF to deny a renewal than to deny a new application. I think this given the Biden Administration’s hold on the ATF is what really convinced me. Thus, my renewal application as well as my notification letter to my local chief LEO went in the mail this morning.

Second, I was undecided if I could make the SHOT Show work in my schedule. While I am now retired from day job and don’t have to worry about missing work, the schedule can still get crowded. I have already planned to attend the Dallas Safari Club Convention and the Safari Club International Convention. The former is being held January 11th-14th while the latter is January 31st- February 3rd. The Complementary Spouse and I had planned to drive to Dallas for the DSC Convention which is a 2-day drive each way. The SHOT Show, if you include Industry Day at the Range, runs from January 22nd through January 26th. I would barely be back from Las Vegas before we hit the road for Nashville and the SCI Convention.

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

I’m not sure my next move was the smartest thing to do but I posted a query on Facebook asking for advice. And advice I got!

Yehuda reminded me that Southwest was having a sale on airfares. Amanda said I’d have FOMO (fear of missing out) if I didn’t come. Ace asked if I was kidding. Rob said it was the social event of the season. Kat wondered why anyone would want to go to Industry Day (it can be a zoo). And Michael was more interested in the fact that I was going to South Africa next June.

The bottom line is that I booked my flight on Southwest (which will disappoint my brother-in-law who is a retired Delta captain) and it was the cheapest I’ve ever seen it. I booked a room at the Flamingo at what seemed an Off the Strip price.

Going or not going was never an issue of cost but getting these bargains certainly helped make my decision. I think missing the Gun Rights Policy Conference this fall and having to miss the NRA Annual Meeting next May also weighed on me. I’ve made a lot of great friends over the years in the gun culture and I like seeing them face to face at events.

All I can say now is that January 2024 is going to be one busy month but it will be worth it.

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Don’t Be A Bubba

November 20, 2022 by 6 Comments

When surplus firearms were really plentiful, it was not unusual for a “home gunsmith” to convert one into a more sporting configuration. Usually it involved cutting down and reshaping the stock along with maybe a little metal work. There were even books on how to do it along with articles on it in gun rags. Now I am not talking about custom rifles where a professional gunsmith might use a surplus action as the basis for the custom rifle. I have a couple of Eddystone 1917 Enfields that formed the basis for magnum rifles. I also have a period correct Eddystone 1917 rifle with the protective leaves on the rear sight.

Given that you can now get a Savage Axis or a Ruger American centerfire rifle for a fraction of the price of an original Mauser that will be more accurate, it just does not make sense to destroy a piece of history for a hunting rifle. I don’t have a problem taking something that have been “bubba’ed” and reworking it but using a period correct, matching numbers Mauser of German or Swedish origin is almost a sin.

Reddit has a sub-reddit called Gun Memes. I saw this today and it was spot on.

When SKS carbines sold for $100 or less, they were a cheap way to get a deer rifle with almost .30-30 ballistics. Now if you want a Chinese or Russian SKS carbine, expect to pay $450 or more. Even the formerly ubiquitous Yugoslav SKS carbines are selling for $300 plus.

Respect that piece of military history and don’t be a “bubba”.

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ATF Threat To Curios And Relics

May 19, 2022 by 3 Comments

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has released a new report entitled National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment: Firearms in Commerce. It was released May 5th and has received some attention in the media. That attention is concentrated primarily on privately made firearms and the increase in production of all firearms since the year 2000.

As they say, the devil is in the details and this 308-page report touches on a lot more than the increase in production and privately made firearms. While I may get into depth on other parts of the report and the BATFE’s recommendation in later posts, today I want to concentrate on what they have to say about curios and relics.

As things stand now, a C&R is defined by Title 27 Code of Federal Regulations §478.26. They can be a) firearms manufactured more than 50 years prior to today; b) firearms certified by the curator of a municipal, State, or Federal museum that exhibits firearms to be of museum interest; or c) any other firearm that gets a substantial part of its value from being “novel, rare, bizarre, or because of their association with some historical figure, period, or event.” Thus, a curio and relic could be any firearm ranging from a Ruger Model 77 made in April 1972 to Gen. George Patton’s personal handguns. In my own collection of curios and relics is a Winchester Model 50 semi-auto shotgun. It qualified under the 50 year rule and its only real claim to fame for me is that it was manufactured in 1957 which is the year of birth.

The report devotes parts of two pages to curios and relics as well as C&R FFLs. As I have held this FFL since 1997, this was of particular interest. First they note that the number of 03 FFLs has increased by 148% since 2000 with there being 59,457 currently. Those of us with this license now compose 40% of all FFLs. Much is that proportional increase is a result of the decrease in numbers of 01 FFLs due to increased regulations and the anti-gun policies of the Obama and Biden administrations. Second they note while they do have a list of all firearms classified as curios and relics since 1972, they do not have a data system that tracks information on these firearms, museums that certify museum interest, etc. They then note their data analysis questions the 50-year rule. Therein lies the rub.

Here are their recommendations (Page 162):

1. ATF should receive funding to develop a data system that tracks the history of each C&R firearm on the list to include: full description of the firearm, the date the firearm is added to the C&R list, identification of the criteria met to add the firearm to the C&R list, the person making the request, what museum stated the firearm was of historical interest, and who stated the firearm was rare, novel, or collectible. The three criteria for approving a firearm to be added to the C&R list are found in 27 C.F.R. §478. As possible, this information should be catalogued for ATFs current list C&R List -January 1972 through April 2018.

2. DOJ should review the C&R criteria in 27 C.F.R. §478 to determine if the “more than 50 years old” factor is still valid in determining that a firearm is truly a curio or relic. The C&R provisions were enacted in 1968 and firearms more than 50 years old at that time were manufactured prior to 1918. Today, firearms that are more than 50 years old were manufactured prior to 1972 and this now includes a wide variety of modem firearms to include some AR-15 type rifles, AK-47 type rifles, SKS rifles, and semi-automatic handguns. Importation, transfer, and background check regulations are different for firearms on the
C&R list and holders of a Type 03 FFL.

As I see it, these recommendations boil down to two things. First, BATFE says we want money to fund what we should have already been doing with existing funding. Second, BATFE is saying Springfield 1903s we were cool with but those icky ARs, AKs, SKSs, and semi-auto handguns give us the vapors.

Unfortunately, the Gun Control Act of 1968 gives the Attorney General the authority to define a curio or relic by regulation. Given the anti-gun, anti-rights bias of both Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden, this is a real problem. I could foresee them categorically removing the 50-year rule from what constitutes a curio and relic and limiting them to what is on the list. January 20. 2025 as well as January 2023 cannot get here soon enough.

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Video Tour Of AIM Surplus

August 10, 2020 by

When I got started collecting curios and relics in the 1990s, there were a few places that you always checked out. These included Century International, Southern Ohio Guns (SOG), Samco Global Arms, and AIM Surplus. There were other places, of course, but these are the ones I remember the most. The golden days of Conex boxes full of WW2 surplus arms and ammo arriving on our shores constantly have come to an end. Samco and SOG are now gone. Century International is more Caniks and AKs than anything else. That leaves AIM Surplus which, while it still sells some curios and relics, seems to have made the transition to more modern arms and parts earlier than the others.

I came across this video tour of AIM Surplus while cruising Arfcom this afternoon. Having purchased everything from Schmidt-Rubin K31s to PMags from them over the years, I found this guided tour of their operations very interesting.

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Ken Hackathorn On The M1 Carbine

May 15, 2018 by

Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons just published an interview with the legendary Ken Hackathorn. It is a quite interesting interview dealing with the myth versus the reality of the firearm. Ken said the WWII and Korean War veterans who actually used the M1 Carbine in combat generally liked it. They did acknowledge that the magazines were flimsy and they made a conscious effort to replace them on a regular basis.

I have an IBM-made M1 Carbine and love it. It is light and accurate. However, Hackathorn notes that many of the manufacturers had quality control problems in making these firearms. While the most common, the Inland Division of GM made carbines tended to be the most reliable. That somewhat surprised me.

The interview runs about 19 minutes and is really interesting especially if you like old US military firearms like I do. Now if I could only find a RockOla-made M1 Carbine with an Elmer Keith inspected cartouche like the one Hackathorn has, I’d be set.

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Interesting Japanese Conversion Of A M1 Garand

March 29, 2016 by 4 Comments

Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons Blog always comes up with the most interesting old guns. In the video below, he discusses the Japanese Type 4 Garand.

Garand? Japanese Garand? Yep!

Partway through 1944, the Japanese Imperial Navy began a program to provide their infantry units with better firepower than was afforded by the bolt action Arisaka rifles. The initial experimentation was based on rechambering captured US M1 Garand rifles for the 7.7 Japanese cartridge, but an incompatibility of American en bloc clips with the Japanese cartridge hamstrung the project. In response, the M1 was reverse engineered, and the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal began to manufacture a copy of the rifle which would use a 10-round fixed magazine fed by two standard stripper clips.


This rifle was designated the Type 4 (2604/1944), although it is often referred to today as the Type 5. In total, parts for 200 rifles were manufactured, but only about 125 had been actually assembled into functional guns by the time the war ended.

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A Really Cool View

November 12, 2013 by

Thanks to The Firearm Blog, I came across a really interesting website today. It is dedicated to Curios and Relics. The website is called C&Rsenal and they are out of Charleston, SC.

They have a project going in which they take photos from the point of view of a shooter looking through the sights. The photos are of both common and rather rare firearms. They have everything from a Springfield 1903A3 to a Danish Madsen (Portuguese Contract) to a French Chauchat Mle.1915.

You can see some of them in the photo below:

C&Rsenal also has a number of prints of various firearms stripped down to the individual component level. These are also really cool.

If you have an interest in old firearms, I’d suggest checking them out. You won’t be disappointed.

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Obama’s Proposals Attack Crufflers Directly

January 17, 2013 by 2 Comments

The Obama Adminstration’s blueprint for gun control, Now Is The Time, directly targets those of us affectionately known as Crufflers. Crufflers are those of use who hold Curios and Relics Federal Firearms Licenses for the purpose of collecting older firearms. Many who collect these firearms do so out of an interest in military history.

Our ability to collect weapons from overseas that have a military connection such as the M-1 Garands and M-1 carbines in South Korea are directly impacted by Obama’s proposals.

From page 7 of Now Is The Time:

Eliminate restrictions that force the ATF to authorize importation of dangerous
weapons simply because of their age:

ATF is required to authorize the importation of
certain “curio or relic” firearms, and outdated regulations include all firearms manufactured more
than 50 years ago in the definition of “curio or relic.” But today, firearms manufactured more than
50 years ago include large numbers of semiautomatic military-surplus rifles, some of which are
easily convertible into machine guns or otherwise appealing for use in crime. Congress should
get rid of restrictions that prevent ATF from changing this definition, enabling ATF to ensure
that firearms imported as curios or relics are actually of interest as collectibles, rather than letting
these rules be used as a way to acquire fully functional and powerful military weapons.

So if you have a collection of SKS carbines with examples from the Soviet Union, China, Yugoslavia, and other Eastern European countries and need just to get the Albanian variant to complete your collection, Obama says no unless it is in the country already.

Say your tastes are a bit more esoteric and expensive and you want either a FN-49 in 7mm from Venezuela or a AG-42 Ljungmann from Sweden, you can forget it because they both are semi-automatic military-surplus rifles.

I wonder if someone in the Administration can explain just how screwing collectors is going to stop crime in the streets. For some reason, I don’t think so.

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I Prefer To Think Of It As Cruffler Heaven

November 21, 2011 by

SayUncle linked to the Forgotten Weapons Blog this morning. He said you could lose a whole morning there. He is absolutely correct!

However, given the number of old and odd weapons that they examine in detail, I think they should rename the site – Cruffler Heaven. It is that good. I mean where else are you likely to find a video disassembly guide to the Bergmann-Bayard M1910 as well as articles on the manufacturing process for the P.08 Luger. They even have manuals for the French MAS 49/56 which was one of my early C&R purchases. Now if I could only read French.

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At Least One Thing At ATF Works The Way It Should

November 3, 2011 by 5 Comments

I have held a Curios and Relics FFL since the 1990s and was due to renew it for another 3-year period. I sent in my renewal application on October 17th and received my new license on November 2nd. To be quite frank, I was amazed that ATF’s Federal Firearms Licensing Center turned this renewal around so quickly.

I have criticized the ATF strongly over Project Gunwalker and the agency’s management. However, I believe in giving kudos where they are due and the Federal Firearms Licensing Center turned my renewal application around in record time.

On a side note, if you have an interest in older military firearms or in historic firearms, you really should investigate getting a Curios and Relics FFL. It costs $30 for a 3-year period and allows you to receive eligible firearms directly. The golden days of being a cruffler may be fading but there are still some good deals to be had. Moreover, companies like Midway USA and Brownells will give you a dealer discount on purchases which pays for the C&R FFL if you order just a few things. It is something to think about.