Tax Stamps

I've made a short barrel rifle.  It's a clone of an XM177E2, a "submachine gun" based on the M16.  Mine's semi-auto (fuck you William J Hughes and fuck New Jersey for electing him) but it still needed to be registered with the BATFE.

Isn't she cute?  Her name is Sabrina.

What you get for your $200 is the original ATF Form 5320.1 (aka The Form 1) back with a little stamp attached to it.

You can see the stamp here, it's the little blue patch.  It's just like a lick and stick postage stamp!  I had not idea what it would be when I sent the forms in; I had it in my head that it was an ink stamp not a paper stamp.

I realized that I was already familiar with tax stamps.  The little sticker on my car's license plate is a tax stamp too!

The XM177E2 is just about my favorite AR variant.  It was not widely issued and it's time in combat was brief; but it was issued to the Cool Kids in Vietnam.

I'd known about "CAR-15's" for a long time.  I didn't know until I participated in the play test for Steve Jackson Games' "GURPS SEAL's in Vietnam" what the carbines were called.  In fact, I picked the XM177E2 partially because the character I made for the play test had one.

Yes, I am a geek.  A gamer geek.  A pen and paper role playing game geek.  I even made a 1/35 scale figure of my character... MR3 Wodaszak, SEAL Team 2, 8th Platoon (fictional).  Eventually I will get some lead foil and make a sling.

Also the XO of the platoon, Ensign Dietrich.  I am pretty proud of this shot.  A friend of mine taught me about cranking the F-Stop out to increase the depth of field which worked splendidly here.  Also I want to point out the hand crafted wire stock for the M-3 OSS and the H&R T223 I made from kit bashing parts from an H&K MP5, G3A4 and StG.44.  In the background you can see the rest of the squad waiting for paint.  Waiting for like three years since I tend to wait for my muse.