Author Topic: Montana now allows suppressors for hunting!  (Read 791 times)

41magsnub

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 7,579
  • Don't make me assume my ultimate form!
Montana now allows suppressors for hunting!
« on: April 24, 2015, 11:22:03 AM »
Signed into law yesterday!

We've had bills go through the legislature the last few sessions that either died on the floor, or were vetoed.  This year we just did a bill to clarify the language of the current law so as to ensure we are all correct in our assumption that varmint hunting and target shooting with suppressors were legal.  The old law was poorly written, everybody (including the FWP head of enforcement) assumed it was legal to do those things but if it went to court it would have been debatable.  

It passed both houses on a straight party line split and went to the (D) governor.  He sent it back to the legislature stating every western state except MT and CA allow suppressors for hunting and we should to.  It went through the legislature with the amendment and he signed it into law yesterday.  The standard folks opposed it, the police union, Bloomberg's goons, and some other random folks.  A few D's changed their vote to yes on the amended version.

This was totally unexpected and gratifying to see.  Honestly, it is the last state level gun law that was at all restrictive to me personally.  Now to figure out shotgun suppressors for upland hunting!   [ar15]

Looking at a Salvo 12.  The thing for me to figure out is mounting to a Beretta A400.  The suppressor weighs about 2 pounds and is a foot long.  It screws on using the choke tube threads.  Hanging that off the end of a 28" barrel is going to do bad things to the balance!  There are no factory shorter barrel options other than a 21" slug barrel and I haven't found anybody who has shortened an A400 yet.  There are no aftermarket barrels for this yet, and the factory barrels are around $800 so it would be an expensive experiment.  

I think the ideal would be to SBS the shotgun and do a 16" barrel so the overall length is back to 28".  16" is also the minimum length specified by Silencerco to not have to restrict to target  loads though a Salvo 12.

First World Problems...