biffj

I don't agree with Mike on the turkish ammo. I have seen and repaired some remarkable blowups in a variety of guns that were not related to the barrel but to the ammo itself. Its a lottery with that stuff. Some guys have fired tens of thousands of rounds and had no issues but many many others have run that ammo to their woe. We ran some chrono tests on it and found velocity varying from 1900 to 3600 fps. I don't believe the ammo is as the bolt action guys claim....Hot. I think its just been stored badly and some is ok while some rounds are really really bad. Same goes for the indian 308. Too many occurences of damage to make it just an oddball thing. One blowup might be the guns fault, 2 might be just the odd bad round 100s of blowups tell me its definitely ammo related. Between all the smiths and MG mechanics we find that there was an inordinate number of guns damaged by the turk stuff so Mike is welcome to all there is out there. I only bought a few thousand rounds to start with and it didn't work in my guns. Lots of sticky chambers, failures to eject, extract and such. Customers brought in guns that were damaged though and I dumped all the ammo I had left to the bolt action guys. On the other hand I believe the yugo issues were entirely barrel and chamber throat related. The only guns I ever saw issues with using the Yugo 50s dated 8mm were the brownings which tended to blow topcovers and the maxims which didn't have enough oomph in the firing pin to fire it reliably. Hard primers that were deep seated cause issues with them. I never saw a gun destroyed with this ammo and never really saw any damage beyond the bent topcovers. I've run it in MG42's, MG15's, MG81s, some maxims with strong firing pin springs, 1919's using barrels I made with proper chamber throats. For some this ammo has been tainted by the internet gurus who claim its bad but most of us who actually shoot MG's its good stuff. The 70s dated stuff is prettier and seems to have less issues with the deep seated primers. I like it all. Having said all that I'll also state that the romanian 8mm is some of the best surplus that has come in to the US. It is reliable and works with pretty much every gun I've ever fired it in. I have no idea if its got moa accuracy and I don't really care. It runs the guns even with its very light for 8mm 150gr bullets. It is a little sooty but what the hell, its machineguns we're shooting. They need to be cleaned. The bolt gun guys whine about cleaning corrosive ammo residue after shooting as much as 50rds in one sitting. We tend to shoot thousands at one sitting and cleaning is a must. So my opinion is that if you can get your hands on the Romanian buy it. If you can't than buy the Yugo. Don't buy turk even if its given to you. Have them send it to Mike. Just my thoughts base on the experience I've had with the stuff. Frank

Yes its perfectly legal to have a dummy barrel that is short and a receiver it fits in. It is most definitely not like the machineguns in that the receiver of a Short barreled rifle is not registered, the assembly is. The serial number is required by law to be on the receiver and this is found on the forms because they require a serial number so many think that the receiver is the registered part. It is not the case. The regs have a definition section which defines each catagory. For machineguns the receiver or conversion device are defined to be the registered part. For SBR and SBS the length of the barrel and existence of a shoulder stock(ever) define the NFA firearm. So if you don't have a short barrel (actual useable barrel) than you don't have a short barreled rifle. DD's are also defined as having a bore diameter of larger than .50 cal so a DD is not a registered receiver either, its a combination of a bore of larger than 50 cal on the receiver. Lots of misinformation and internet myth about these especially with comparison to machineguns. Frank

Price is something you'll have to work out with the owner. First things first however and the most important thing is to insure that what you're looking at buying is what is actually registered with NFA. With all the monkeyshines that have gone on swapping the serial numbers and models from cheap guns to more valuable ones it makes sense to do some background checking. What you really need to do is get the current owner to do an FOIA request on the firearm and suppressor which may or may not be registered separately. Since the suppressor was integral it is quite possible the gun was what they call a "one tax gun" with the can and gun on one form. Not sure they'll allow them to go that way anymore. In any case the original registration can give more information to help verify that its what you're looking at today. If it is and the gun is a proper original MKIIS sten my wild ass guess of value will be somewhere north of the value of a C&R original Sten obviously. From sales over the last few years a MkII sten seems to run in the $7500-11,000 range. Tube guns of course are much less though running around $4-6K. So guessing from there the value could be anywhere from $10-20K depending on condition and provenance. Some proof of origin and originality would jack the price up and lack of that would keep it lower. Keep in mind that the form the current owner has is fairly useless for determining anything other than current registered owner. Even if he has the original form 6 from import way back, a form 4467 for Amnesty registration or form 1 or 2 from prior to 68 used to register contraband guns, the information on it is possibly incorrect. At best its not very dependable. The most useful thing you'll get from the FOIA is type of original registration and date. Hope something there helps Frank

This is one of the reasons the ATF was so concerned about the trust, LLC and Corporation transfers and registrations. You can sell any of them without a transfer taking place and therefore allow the transfer of NFA without notifying NFA or getting any background checks done. The answer to your question (original poster) is likely that you could sell the corp to an individual with no transfer taking place. Its not intended to be legal according to the regs but the difference between corp (LLCs are corps for the purpose of NFA), trusts and normal individuals is something more regulated by the states than the NFA. A Corp is legally an individual so you're not really transferring anything other than an individual. I'm sure there is some legal basis for doing exactly what you suggested even though the regs clearly state that pre-may samples cannot be transferred to individuals, only to SOT holding FFLs. I believe there were sales of other NFA holding corps and trusts over the years when they became popular and no transfers through NFA branch. As an Corporate FFL holder you can legally sell and transfer the corporation to whoever you want but by law the FFL cannot be transferred to the new owners....they must obtain their own if they wish to continue. On the other hand there isn't such clear information available on the transfer of firearms held by Corps or trusts. Basic real answer for you is that you should really consult an attorney well versed in NFA and firearm law to get your answer. Asking us is great fun because it can create some interesting arguments and ideas but like any other free info its worth only what you paid for it. Good luck Frank

Do you have a case for it or just as pictured? Can you post a pic of the back side? Thanks Frank

The shorter belts are not a standard issue type thing. The 50rd segments were used in the 100rd cans for the PKM assault setup otherwise they used 250rd belts. The chinese used the 25rd segments but I haven't seen any of those for a long time. Your best bet if you want the shorter belts is to go to the RTG page linked above and make up your own. I'm not selling you any of my 100rd cans though you might check with Dave and see if he has any left. Frank

I would suggest that you not rely on internet boards for info like this when the manufacturer is still around and making cans. I'm sure its not an unreasonable question you're asking as the 45/70 is not a high pressure round nor particularly high volume. If its loaded to the low range 45/70 standards you're looking at 29,000psi so check with Gemtech and you'll get a good educated answer you can depend on. Hope that helps Frank

The bolt is for a Chattelerault Light Machinegun.....french thing that looks a little bren like with 2 triggers, one semi, one full. It shoots 7.5 French and is actually a nice piece. As for the first part....I have no idea what it is but it looks as though its intended for one directional rotation of something. Frank