US War Trophies

[Rucker61]

I'm in an online discussion with someone who claims "Machinegun war trophies were legal up until 1986 when the NFA registry was closed. Soldiers needed a commanding officer's approval and a "DD Form 603-1" filled out. Most of the transferable M16's that are stamped "Property of the United States Government were Vietnam bring backs."

Has anyone heard of the US releasing M-16s to returning soldiers to own?

[Irving]

Doesn't seem like an issued rifle is really a "trophy," but that's just semantics I suppose.

[ray1970]

Pretty sure an M16 wouldn?t qualify as ?non-lethal? under the form requirements.

I have no idea what the form looked like back in the late 60?s or early 70?s. But I?m going to call hogwash.

Plus, I think it was around 1969 before they really started pulling troops out of Vietnam so I imagine up until then they probably still wanted to pass that rifle on to the next grunt.

[ray1970]

Well, the old form definitely looked a bit different. I still don?t believe any soldier was allowed to take his M16 home as a souvenir.

[Lurch]

From the experts. The US Property marked M16 could be purchased from Colt or they where brought back. Also the DOE would purchase them and then sell them off for newer equipment.

[bczandm]

There needs to be a form DD603 for a firearm, the DD603-1 is not the correct form on it's own but it can be used in conjunction with the DD603. At one time the DD603 was enough evidence to legally register the war trophy firearm and get it added to the NFA registry but I am not sure where that stands today.

The M16 is not a war trophy, it is an issued firearm. I've heard of rare cases where a issued firearm was taken by the enemy and captured back by our troops and returned home on a DD603 but I am not sure as to the possibility of getting it added to the NFA registry thus legally possessing it.

Most every US Property marked M16 is a reweld (Norell or Stemple), some very well done but given some inspection time the reweld can be found. If the NFA paperwork shows the manufacturer of the machine gun as someone other than the markings on the lower (Colt lower but XXX Company as the manufacturer) it's a reweld. Note that some companies that were doing rewelds listed the original manufacturer as the manufacturer on the NFA paperwork and while that is technically wrong many were applied for and approved that way. Documentation and paperwork can be very tricky on these.

To be sure the M16 and the paperwork would need to be inspected. While not impossible I'd highly doubt the story about returning GI's bringing home M16's.