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Many in our ranks as gun owners, shooters, hunters, and enthusiasts are nothing if not pessimistic — sometimes for good reason. After all, some of us are still trembling from multiple ammunition and component shortages in the past 20 years or staring in disbelief at $70 price tags on one-pound cans of powder which cost only $27 a few years back. At every potential opportunity, speculators spin yarns of the next crisis. I’m also among the guilty who’ve gone out and bought another case of this or that at the prospect it would disappear. One of the latest cataclysmic predictions has been around suppressors.
Doomsday Predictions for Suppressors
Since the elimination of the $200 tax fee was announced, scores of shooters — playing hooky from their jobs as self-taught stock, oil, and precious metal speculators — took to social media to prophesize about long NFA wait times as a result of the hordes rushing to buy their first suppressor. Here are a few of their crystal-ball assertions I saw circulating.
- It’s better to pay $200 and get your suppressor in a couple of days rather than waiting 6 to 9 months for it to clear due to all the backlog.
- Advice for suppressors: spend the extra $200 before Jan 01 so you don’t have to wait a year to get your can once the flood of tax stamps happens Jan 01.
- Tip No. 1: If you want it before late next year, you should’ve paid the extra $200 and bought it a couple weeks ago
- The wait will go back up to six to eight months
- What you need to know about ordering a suppressor after January 1st. You can’t.
- Make a mad rush for it and be ready to wait 2 years.
- So I save 200 bucks. BFD! Gonna be waiting months for the paperwork.
- The $200 tax is gone but we still have to submit a type 4 form along with a firearms purchase form. Mine processed and cleared as an individual in about 5 days with BATF. Get ready for application backlog times and prices increasing due to supply and demand.
- Watch these companies take the prices up 200 bucks. In their minds “if they can pay 200 bucks for the stamps, we can just get 200 more bucks for the suppressor.”
The good news is that NFA wait times are only a few days longer than they were in late 2025. The ATF’s website lists average wait times for Form 4 approvals at ten to eleven days. Most of my suppressors from 2025 were approved in two to four days, though some took up to two weeks. In recent weeks, applications have been getting approved in about one week — according to my local Class 3 dealer.
Real Hiccups and Delays
In the first few weeks of 2025, there were some delays, but those mostly involved the certification process. The best way to buy a suppressor, for most folks, is to use a brick-and-mortar or remote dealer that files eForms. Many local shops use Silencer Shop, while the most effective remote transfer service is Silencer Central. You can still file paper Form 4 paperwork, but it takes longer to approve. In recent years, the eForms system has been streamlined for much shorter wait times. The wait time on hard paperwork was around a year for several of my suppressors.
Part of the eForms process is certification, where your information is verified and then submitted to the ATF. There were some bugs for transfer services like Silencer Shop to figure out, but there have also been customers experiencing delays in the certification process due to their own errors. Before buying a suppressor, you set up an account with both the ATF eForms website and the transfer service. When you buy the suppressor, it’s assigned to you via the transfer service, then you must sign electronic documents before the transfer can be certified and submitted for approval. My local shop told me that the only real delays they’ve seen are due to errors or discrepancies between the information that the ATF and the transfer service have. This could even be a matter of different emails or spelling errors in street addresses. Bottom line, the ATF approval times really aren’t much longer than they were in 2025.
Price Gouging?
Another assertion was that companies would simply increase their prices by $200 — as if they were receiving the tax themselves. This is bunk. Prices for every suppressor I’ve checked are exactly what they were in 2025. One benefit has been the introduction of even more affordable suppressors from companies like Lyman — who aim to offer simple, more affordable suppressors. Most of their line is less than $300. We will likely see some struggle to keep products in stock for a while, and the rush of new manufacturers will sort itself out. It will still cost around $1,000 and up for a premium suppressor, but prices have yet to change in any dramatic fashion.
Read Next:Why Can’t We Pass Suppressor Deregulation?
We Agree, Suppressors Shouldn’t Require ATF Approval
While you’re picking the remainder of your Y2K rice out of your beard, take a moment to relax. We do agree that suppressors are overregulated, and don’t believe this is the ultimate fix. For the time being, though, it’s a step in the right direction.
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