Exactly.  I get to meet with them once a year at an annual import/export conference and talking with them, you can tell how frustrated they are.  At the conference in August they started their portion of the meeting with saying, "If you don't already have a gun in for approval we cannot guarantee you that it will be approved before Shot Show 2016.  We don't have anyone to answer the phone if you call us.  We have 2 more people that we are bringing on but they most likely can't start until sometime next year.  Sorry."  And then they went into the new stuff happening in their branch.  Can't knock 'em though, they only enforce the policies in the regs, they don't make them.

Still waiting.  8 more days and we're at exactly 6 months since it got there.

sigh.  Shot is right around the corner too.

Well, according to the tech doing the review, she finished it and sent it to the chief for signing about 2 weeks ago.  I asked her if it passed or failed and she told me she was not permitted to tell me and that we would receive the letter from FATD once the chief signed it.  Still nothing.  I have emailed the chief directly because I have his contact info but he has not replied.

Holy epic FATD approval time Batman!

So, the chief of the ATF FATD emailed me today.  He let me know that he signed the letter.  

PASSED!

I don't physically have the letter yet of course, because they don't send them electronically, so I have to wait for snail mail to put my eyes on it and really truly believe it.  And then I'm going to frame it and hang it on the wall in my office.

Its like we're celebrating winning the Super Bowl in here (Hey, Bills fans gotta do it when we can, right?)


Ok, so here's whats next gang.  We're over the biggest hurdle but we still have a ways to go.  Here's the details on that:

1 - Now that it is approved, GSG & ATI will do the money stuff to obtain the factory tooling and parts for manufacturing
2 - Once in place, GSG will then do the first production run
3 - ATI will obtain a small set of production units to put through the ringer for QC and function etc.
4 - If needed, design tweaks that do not affect the factoring criteria met by ATF will be made
5 - Full production will begin
6 - First shipment will sail by boat from Germany
7 - ATI will ship the guns to our distributors
7a - Chris posts in this thread
8 - Distributors will ship them to gun stores
9 - Gun stores sell them to you!

Theoretically, that should run about 6 months barring any catastrophes.  While I know that feels like forever, its still shorter than the ATF approval time, so we got that going for us.  Of course, nothing is real to me until I physically see the stuff here.

Other things while we're all here:

a - ATI sells primarily to distributors/wholesalers, so there is no waiting list for these guns for the general public.  If you call CS and ask them they will tell you the same thing because they get their instructions from me
b - Our website is going to be out of stock for a very long time because our wholesalers are going to eat these up.  Our website only has items in stock that are essentially overstock sitting on our shelves, which these will not for a while
c - Hi Cap Mag is 30 rounds, all metal!  Receiver is all metal.  Sucker weighs about 9lbs.  I'll get the actual weight when ATF sends me back my gun.  Which I will then shoot.
d - It is coming in the wood crate.  We have a freaking boat load of those crates to use still
e - MSRP is $649.95 in a wood crate w/ 1 mag
f - Don't know what extra mags will cost yet.  We will have a 10 round mag as well.  We will not be making a 15 round mag.

If you have any questions I didn't answer here, let 'em rip!



And guys......High Five!

7a added to original post.

no, the mag is designed specifically to this gun so I do not foresee it working for anything else.  GSG prefers all their mags be proprietary.

I also do not foresee a 15 round mag unless more than just CO & NJ require them.  We tried 15 round mags w/ the 522 back in the day and unfortunately they sold so poorly and were more money than the standard that once we were out of them we never went back.  So, realistically, unless someone could guarantee that they'd buy like 10,000 15 rnd mags, its probably not going to happen.

OH!  and I forgot but as soon as the working gun comes back from ATF our R&D guy is going to be all over it to design a stock accessory that will sell separately from the gun for those of you who want to shell out another 200 bucks and SBR it.  Still, $849 plus whatever we end up selling the stock at for an SBR 9mm MP-40 sounds pretty sweet.

GSG MP-40 9mm Factory 30rnd Mag - Metal.  This is what will be mass produced for this gun.  Original MP-40 mags will not function in it.

No idea at this time

I got the official letter in the mail yesterday for the MP40 from ATF.  We typically do not post our ATF docs as a company policy but I'll share some of the data with you.

Of the minimum 75 points required for a pistol to be sporting, the GSG-MP40P scored a whopping 233 points!  Most of these came from the length and weight.  You get 1 point for every 1/4" over 6" in overall length and 1 point for each ounce.  Overall length is 24.5" and weight is 126 ounces so yeah...

I can see too from the images they included why the testing probably took so long.  There are comparisons between the GSG-MP40P and a real MP-40 SMG showing the differences in the design of the receiver and bolt, showcasing that the gun cannot use original MP-40 SMG parts and be converted.  That is the big deal too because if ATF felt at all that the gun could be retro-fitted with machine gun parts they would have failed it.

Pretty neat stuff.

Highly doubtful, I gave an estimated timeline in my PASSED post.

We have yet to even receive the gun back from ATF (Takes about 3 weeks usually from approval time) and then our R&D guy has to get into its guts to take a look at what we will need to do in the US to make a 922r SBR stock kit.  It will require more than just adding a stock.  Once we know that, then we will be able to see how feasible a SBR aftermarket kit will be.  So its not going to be overnight.

After multiple conversations with the Germans, I would call it end of the year.  We'd really like the first ones around Oct/Nov but at this point the production timeline is completely on Germany from here.

MSRP we've put out there for our customers is $649.95.

Guess what I just got to shoot!!!!!

We're doing some videos tomorrow at the local range.  Should have some photos of the working proto up for you sometime today.