Comment on FR Doc # 2026-09163

Comment of B&T USA, LLC on RIN 1140-AA96, "Importing Dual-Use Frames, Receivers, or Barrels," Docket No. ATF-2026-0070; ATF No. 2025R-09P; 91 FR 25192 (May 8, 2026) B&T USA, LLC is a federal firearms licensee in Herriman, Utah, holding a Type 10 license (manufacturer) and a Type 11 license (importer) and qualified as a special (occupational) taxpayer. It manufactures and imports firearms, including NFA firearms, for U.S. Government, law enforcement, and commercial customers, and files approximately 200 to 300 ATF Form 5330.3A applications each year, most involving a frame, receiver, or barrel. B&T USA supports the proposed rule and urges ATF to finalize it. Its full comment is attached as a PDF and supplies the operating data ATF requested at 91 FR 25195 and 25197. WHY ATF CANNOT MEASURE THIS RULE'S BENEFIT FROM ITS OWN RECORDS The dominant effect of the prior interpretation was not denial but non-application. A licensee facing a probable denial, an adjudication delay, and thousands of dollars in counsel fees to obtain agency engagement does not file and lose -- it does not file. Over roughly ten years B&T USA declined to pursue an estimated 100 to 200 product configurations on that basis, representing approximately $50 million in cumulative foregone gross revenue. None of it appears in ATF's permit records, because those applications were never initiated. Denial statistics therefore understate the rule's benefit by an unknown but large factor. B&T USA does not offer its figure for extrapolation across the industry; the attached comment describes how ATF can build a supported estimate from the importers it can identify in its own records. EFFECT ON DOMESTIC MANUFACTURING B&T USA machines components in Utah and also imports; the rule is capacity relief, not displacement. More significantly, ATF treats imported components only as substitutes for domestic ones and so understates the benefits. A frame, receiver, or barrel is not a usable firearm. Each one imported must be completed with trigger assemblies, bolts, springs, furniture, muzzle devices, sights, magazines, and assembly labor that are overwhelmingly domestic, and each completed firearm generates sustained aftermarket demand for replacement and upgrade parts. This rule should increase demand for U.S.-manufactured components, and ATF should account for that derived demand. RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Define "dual-use frame, receiver, or barrel" in Section 478.11 and use the defined term. The phrase appears in this rule's title, summary, and preamble and in ATF Ruling 2025-1, but nowhere in the regulatory text, which repeats a forty-word formulation four times. 2. Confirm that 26 U.S.C. 5844 is not implicated where an item is imported as a frame, receiver, or barrel that is not itself an NFA firearm and NFA status attaches only on later domestic assembly under Section 478.39(d). 3. Address the "surplus military firearms" clause of 18 U.S.C. 925(d)(3) directly. It is the rule's most likely point of legal challenge and is answerable on the statute's text. 4. Make the stated burden reduction accurate. Proposed Section 478.112(b)(1)(vii)(F) expands the sporting-purposes explanation from handgun barrels alone to every frame, receiver, and barrel. If that requires an individualized narrative, burden increases and ATF's PRA analysis states the opposite. Under Recommendation 1 the increment is one to two minutes per electronically filed application, incurred only on items that could not lawfully be imported at all before. 5. Extend Section 478.114(a)(2) to barrels; as drafted it reaches frames and receivers only, with no stated reason. 6. Include Type 09, 10, and 11 licensees in the analysis. ATF quantifies 1,666 Type 08 importers and 21,499 Type 07 manufacturers, and its PRA respondent figure of 23,165 is the exact sum of those counts -- indicating the population was assembled from license-type totals rather than from the class the rule governs. B&T USA manufactures under a Type 10 and imports under a Type 11, holds neither a Type 07 nor a Type 08, and appears in neither count though the rule reaches it in both capacities. 7. State the disposition of ATF Ruling 2025-1 on finalization, and make the rule effective on publication. No transition period is needed for a rule that lifts a restriction. 8. Conform ATF Form 5330.3A, its eForms fields, and its instructions before the effective date. 9. Correct the technical and amendatory errors identified in the attached comment, including amendatory instruction 6, which directs revision of Section 478.14 rather than Section 478.114. B&T USA confirms from operating experience ATF's determination under Executive Order 14192 that this rule would impose total costs less than zero, and supports ATF's decision to proceed by regulation rather than guidance. The attached PDF contains the full comment, including complete responses to ATF's enumerated requests and the supporting analysis for each recommendation above.