I cannot believe this. My late father had two Form 1 silencers. After getting probate done and all the paperwork straight we sent off the Form 5's (and all the accompanying legal docs, and cover letter, I thought we needed) to have them transferred into my mothers name on July 5th.

Today I checked the mail (hadn't in a few days) and found a letter from ATF. Judging from the feel of the envelope I could tell that there were passport photo's in there so I figured they found a problem and were sending them back for correction. Didn't see the stamp attached but there was no cover letter explaining the problem. Further inspection showed the Approved box initialed and a signature at the bottom. Then I checked the serial numbers on the two Form 5's. This was not one application back for correction, but the returned copy of each silencer.

Now my brain shifted gears, I immediately thought they messed up because there was no stamp. But then it finally sunk in. There is no stamp because there was no tax paid. This was a tax free estate transfer. I'm flabbergasted at how fast this went through. . .

Sent on June 5th; stamped approved on July 8th = 35 days!!!!

Two interesting observations:
First, I sent the Form 5's in separate packets with cover letter and all the legal docs. They were returned in the same envelope signed by the same person dated the same day.

Second, the internal stamping at the top of the form is missing. As I understand it, when packets are opened they are immediately stamped at the top with some sort of code ATF uses. All my Form 1's have the black inked stamp (looks like an internally assigned serial number) at the top. There is no such stamping on these forms.

This leads me to think that estate transfers are processed a bit differently than normal Form 1/4s.