Supressor Buying for Dummies (me) - BR or NO area

First thing I recommend is creating a trust. I used nationalguntrusts.com and they were easy to deal with. There are several roles within the trust, and different people should be named within those roles. They have an explanation of everything on their website. It’s the cheaper option. You can also have a lawyer create a gun trust for you and they can figure out who needs to be in which role. The trust document will need to be signed and notarized with all relevant parties being present.

As far as letting other people use it…

They have to be named on your trust to be able to possess it without you being present. Depending on their role, they may need fingerprints, passport photo, and background check taken when suppressors are purchased and registered. You can’t just let a random buddy from work borrow it one afternoon without you being with him at all times unless he is named in the trust and has the aforementioned…. infringements on file.

From there, the easiest option is to go to a gun store and buy a suppressor. Have a PDF saved on your phone and hard copy of the signed and notarized trust with you when you go. They should be able to handle the photos and fingerprints there.

If you buy a suppressor before Jan 1 2026, you will pay: 1. The price of the suppressor 2. Sales tax 3. A $200 tax to the ATF. After Jan 1 2026, the $200 tax is no more. You will have to wait for the ATF to approve your purchase. The wait times are very short now, like a few days to a week, because lots of people are waiting to for the tax to fall off. If you don’t want to wait and have an extra $200 to spend, buy it now, if you want to save the $200 and will tolerate a potential much longer wait time, then wait til next year. I think that come Jan 1, ATF is going to be hit with thousands of requests all at once and there will be delays.

A second option is to buy a suppressor from Capital Armory. This is the route I would take. They are registered in every state that is legal to own a suppressor in. They sell the suppressors and complete all necessary paperwork with the ATF, collect the $200 tax if applicable, and ship the suppressor to your door. You will send them your signed and notarized trust, take selfies with your phone and send that, they will send you fingerprint cards for all “responsible parties” named in the trust, and you mail the cards back. They handle everything from there. I haven’t purchased anything from them myself, but it seems like this is a convenient option if they have what you want.

The third option is to buy from a site online. Lots of places sell suppressors and often at discounted prices. They ship to your local gun store, and everything is handled by the local store. Stores often charge a fee for processing the paperwork on their end, in the $75-$100 range is typical. So make sure the sale price is worth it, or else you aren’t saving any money and have to deal with multiple entities handling payments and paperwork.

It sounds like a lot, and it is, until you’ve gone through it a few times. The trust is one and done, unless you amend to add or remove individuals. Once the local gun store or CA has your info on file, it goes smoother for subsequent purchases.

Feel free to ask more questions and I’ll help if I can!

Some great information in here. I guess I have more homework to do than I was anticipating!

Bluemoons is an attorney and he says don’t get the trust.

I guess the government will need to open before you can get the silencer.

My advice is, whatever route you decide to go down, get the ball rolling on this ASAP. As others have stated, the $200 tax stamp is going away at the end of the year, and many expect an increase in demand and a decrease in supply.
On top of that, with the government shutdown, the ATF is not processing any forms. The backlog will continue to build until the shutdown ends and they can try to catch back up. So get your forms submitted as soon as you can to claim your place in line.

though. They donated $50k to block the provision to remove the $200 tax stamp from the big beautiful bill[/quote]

1) Why would they do that?
2) That sucks, they seem to have the easiest turn-key solution from the little bit of looking I've done so far.
3) They don't carry they one I want, so frick em.

I'll probably be waiting till after the beginning of the year to save the $200 anyway, and I'm sure the wait times will be absurd by then. I think I just want to do the trust setup stuff now and order the can after the stamp cost goes down.

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I’ll say frick capital armory though. They donated $50k to block the provision to remove the $200 tax stamp from the big beautiful bill.

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Are you mistaking them for Silencer Central? I’ve never read anything negative about Capitol Armory.

as the other guy said, go to Bowie they’ll do everything for you in the store then you just wait. There are ways to complicate it and there’s an easy way. Take the easy way

Yeah I read Silencer Central fought to keep silencers heavily regulated bc they made money from gun trusts and also they don’t want to have to compete against places like Academy or basspro