Appreciate the replies guys, thank you.
POOPERS, felons working in a barrel making company, wow, but then again, I suppose the security must be good huh.!
LONGTOM, well yes, you pretty much have the idea there, but still, the export laws still seem a bit ridiculous. I will explain more….
Old Syko, well the thing is, the customs guys here don’t have the issue with barrel blanks, they would see them as tubes of metal, not gun parts (they aren’t gun parts as they don’t fit a gun, and are not able to chamber a round etc…
Anyway, my gunsmithing supplies outfit in the states, they tell me that if I order anything that could be part of a gun, ie trigger screws, trigger springs, back sights etc, then as long as the parts are not main parts, ie NOT frame, receiver or barrel, then no export licence is required, AS LONG as the total invoice doesn’t exceed $100 US. So that means that I can order “bits” but have to either keep the order small, or split into multiple orders, which makes little sense to me, as I still get the goods, but have to pay more in postage. The problem is, if any one item tips the $100 mark, then it cannot be sent without the export licence….
I know, this is all academic for you lucky guys living in the US, but my oh my, is it frustrating for those of us who don’t.
The bloody thing is, “we” can all see the nonsense here, and the injustice if you like, but not a lot we can do, other than work within the system. That’s why I was trying to find out when a part becomes a “part”.
To take things further, if a street hood made a one shot gun with a sawn off stool leg, some duct tape and a hammer, then the leg could have been said to be a makeshift barrel…. But up till some point, it is just a chair leg or a piece of tube.
If it is said that the person intended it to be a barrel, hence it was a barrel, then if you gave someone a block of steel and said this is intended for you to make a receiver from, then does that constitute a gun part?
As I understood it, if the item (like a Razor Receiver) still needs an amount of work doing to it before it can be used for its intended purpose, then it isn’t classed as a “part”. But unlike said receiver, a barrel blank is little more than a useless piece of tube until it has had considerable skilled work done to it, by someone who knows how to chamber, thread and fit the thing, else surely it is as useless as the chair leg until that point.
I know this all sounds a bit of a moan, but these are exactly the things that stop ordinary folk from going about their daily business and trying to make an honest buck. There are too many rules, too many hoops and hurdles to jump through, little or no common sense.