Okay, so I did a thing. I’ve been thinking about this for a little while now. Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to shoot many firearms with this device on it, and it’s a huge difference maker. What is it, you ask? A suppressor. This year, I finally pulled the trigger, no pun intended, on buying my first suppressor. But why did I wait so long? I’ve been checking them out for years now. The answer’s simple: research and timing.
Reasoning Behind My First Suppressor
First, I’m a big-time researcher, especially when it comes to big purchases. I wanted to make sure I knew which firearm platform I was going to use it for. For instance, I wasn’t going to spend almost a thousand dollars on a suppressor and filing fees for a .22 LR suppressor if I wanted to also use it on a 5.56 carbine. I wanted it to be a multi-caliber use suppressor, to be able to go from my 300 Blackout to my 5.56 carbine and to a .308 precision rifle. After doing my research, I knew which suppressor would fit those specific needs.
The second reason for waiting so long was timing. A couple of years ago, the wait times for getting your ATF Form 4 approved for a suppressor were taking anywhere from several months to over a year. Also, before you can even get the ball rolling, you had to purchase your suppressor before submitting the Form 4 because the suppressor is linked to the Form 4 you’re submitting. So, this means you could spend a thousand dollars plus for your suppressor and then wait over a year before you could pick it up from the shop you purchased it from. That definitely wasn’t something I was a fan of back then.
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eForm Account
Fast forward to today, June 2025. The process is far quicker than it was a couple of years ago. Some gun shops have mastered the process of submitting everything needed to successfully achieve Form 4 approval with the ATF. Here, I’ll describe the process of how long it took me from the start of the process to getting my first suppressor.
The first thing I did was go to my local silencer dealer, East Valley Tactical (EVT), in Mesa, Arizona, and they helped me with the entire process. Starting with setting up my Silencer Shop profile. This involves entering your personal information, much like the process of buying a gun. Then they took my fingerprints as well as a passport-style photo of me. Finally, they helped me create an ATF eForms account. The process was pretty painless and took roughly 20-30 minutes from start to finish, mainly because I wasn’t the only one there going through the process.
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I didn’t end up buying a suppressor the same day I did my eForms account, mainly because at the time I went to EVT, I went down with a friend of mine. He was going to do his eForm account, so I tagged along and ended up doing mine the same day. Also, I hadn’t found the suppressor I wanted yet. I’d thought for some reason you had to purchase a suppressor before creating an eForms account, but that wasn’t the case. But, I will say, getting the eForms process done ahead of time made the actual process of submitting the ATF Form 4 a lot quicker, once I found the suppressor I want to buy.
Wait Times
According to Silencer Shop, the ATF eForm approval times for an individual are 1 to 25 days, with a median time of 20 days. If you’re thinking about putting it in a trust, which I didn’t, they are 1 to 27 days, with a median of 21 days. Keep in mind, adding your suppressor in a trust is a little more paperwork as well as an additional cost.
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So, in August I finally figured out which suppressor was going to be my first. The Dead Air Sandman X Xeno. This was the longest part of the process, the time it took from purchase to Dead Air shipping it to East Valley Tactical. Even then, the process was smooth and short.
From the time of purchase to the time EVT received it was 14 days, with three of those days being shipping. The day EVT received it, which was the Friday before Labor Day, they called me to finalize and submit the ATF Form 4. My Form 4 was submitted before I got off the phone. The phone call lasted about 10 minutes or so. I received the approval email the following Wednesday.
So, it technically took one business day for the ATF to process the Form 4 and email my approval. Keeping in mind, EVT submitted the Form 4 late Friday afternoon. Monday was Labor Day, a federal holiday, so Tuesday I assume is when the ATF processed it, before sending my approval email. The total time, in business days that it took from buying my suppressor to getting approval email from the ATF was fifteen days. Which I think was great, considering most of the time was from the ordering and shipping process.
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It’s Finally Here
I picked up my suppressor the first day I was available. All that I had left to do then was fill out the standard ATF Form 4473, the same form as when purchasing a new firearm. Took about five minutes, because I have a CCW Permit and this really sped up the process, because I wasn’t waiting for another background check. Then I paid my $200.00 tax stamp, plus bought a couple extra muzzle devices and I was done. Spent more time with the people in the guns shop hacking it up, than the time of actually picking up my suppressor.
Overall, the process of buying my suppressor was better than I expected, considering the cluster that the process was a couple of short years ago. With my first one in the bag, I’m on to researching the next one I’ll be getting.
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