thetruthaboutguns.com Nick Leghorn March 20, 2017
And here we though the ATF under Donald Trump would be much more Pro-2A than previous administrations. Word comes from Dead Air Silencers that the ATF has made the unprecedented decision to consider silencer wipes as a silencer part, making them just as regulated as the rest of the silencer itself. Why is this an issue and what the hell is a wipe? Let me break it down for you.
Early silencer designs were pretty crude. Lacking the precision manufacturing that we have available to us today, early designers made their metal baffle stack openings excessively wide to avoid any baffle strikes from the bullet passing through. One way some silencer manufacturers tried to make a tighter and quieter can was to add a “wipe” or a series of wipes to the bullet’s path. These plastic discs were designed so that the bullet would rub against them as it flew through the can, providing a much narrower passage while not harming the internal components of the silencer.
The problem with bullet wipes in silencers is twofold. First, the fact that something is rubbing against the bullet has a tendency to throw the trajectory way off course and make the firearm massively inaccurate. Second, the bullet wipes would wear out quickly and need to be replaced.
Replacing bullet wipes should be a simple operation — just keep a bunch in your pocket and swap them out as you go — except that the ATF has an issue with this whole “constructive possession” thing. According to the ATF silencer parts are in and of themselves silencers. You can see this lunacy taken to its logical and extreme conclusion when the ATF declared that pot scrubbers were regulated silencer parts. Ownership of pot scrubbers by a silencer owner constituted intent to construct another unregulated silencer and was punishable under the law.
More:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2017/03/foghorn/breaking-atf-re-classifies-silencer-wipes-baffles-may-make-old-designs-illegal/
