What is sold here, and what is not

The short answer

We sell parts — locks, springs, sights, screws, trigger guards, ramrod pipes, breech plugs — for flintlock, percussion, early cartridge-conversion and early repeating arms of a design that predates 1899. We do not sell firearms. We do not sell modern firearm parts. We do not sell ammunition, primers, powder, or anything that goes bang.

Why antique arms are treated differently

Under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(16), an “antique firearm” means a firearm manufactured in or before 1898, and replicas of such firearms that are not designed to use conventional centre-fire fixed ammunition. The Gun Control Act’s definition of “firearm” at § 921(a)(3) expressly excludes antique firearms. Antiques are therefore not subject to the federal licensing, background-check and interstate-transfer requirements that apply to modern firearms.

And why individual parts are a further step removed

Federal law regulates the frame or receiver of a firearm as the firearm itself. A frizzen, a mainspring, a butt plate or a rear sight is none of those things. It is a component, and a component for an arm that is outside the definition to begin with.

Both facts hold at once for everything in this catalogue, which is why it can be sold and posted the way any other antique or collectible is.

What we will not list, in any circumstances

• Complete firearms of any kind, antique or otherwise. Not a policy about legality — a decision about what this business is. We sell the parts nobody else stocks; there are plenty of places to buy a whole gun.
• Frames or receivers, and anything that federal law treats as one.
• Parts for modern firearms, including parts that fit both a pre-1899 design and a modern arm.
• Ammunition, primers, propellant, or projectiles.
• Anything that converts a firearm to a different mode of fire, or that is designed to.
• NFA-regulated items of any description.

Dealers selling through this marketplace agree to the same list. It is a condition of being approved, and a listing that breaches it is removed — see the terms.

Where you live still matters

Federal law is only one layer. A handful of states and cities regulate antique arms — and occasionally their parts — more tightly than federal law does, and a few treat replicas differently from originals. We post to addresses in the United States and we do not attempt to advise on local ordinances, because the honest answer for any given address is “check locally”.

If you are unsure whether a part can lawfully be sent to you, ask before ordering rather than after. Nobody here will be annoyed by the question, and it is a better use of everyone’s time than a return.

Age

Orders are accepted from adults. By placing one you confirm you are of legal age to buy antique arms components where you live, and that receiving the item does not breach any law that applies to you.

Export

Online checkout posts within the United States only. Components for antique arms cross borders under rules that vary sharply by country and by part, and a flat international shipping option would produce parcels that are wrong, expensive, or seized. For anywhere outside the US, get in touch and it will be looked at case by case.

Reporting a listing

If you believe something listed here breaches any of the above — including a listing from a third-party dealer — write to butch@butchsantiquegunparts.com with the link. It will be taken down while it is looked at, not after.

The research behind this page

The legal position summarised here was researched at length before this business was rebuilt, and the positioning follows from it rather than the other way round. Butch Schoeller has dealt in these arms and their parts for decades; the catalogue is what it is because that is what he knows, and the fact that it also sits outside firearms regulation is a consequence of the specialism, not the reason for it.