How to buy from Precise Shooter

Thank you for your interest in Precise Shooter products!

If you are outside Seattle Metro area, please go here. Otherwise - read on!

Can I buy a firearm?

First things first. Firearms is a tricky, heavily regulated business, and our first and foremost concern is making sure that everything we do is within the law. Therefore...

To purchase a (non-semiautomatic) rifle, a shotgun, or rifle and shotgun ammunition you must be at least 18 years old. To purchase a pistol, a semi-automatic rifle, a frame, or a receiver, you must be at least 21 years old.

To purchase any firearm you have to be a US citizen, a permanent resident, or, if you are a non-immigrant alien (for example, you have H1B visa), you must have a Washington State Alien Firearm License. Also, if you are not a citizen, you will need your AR number (9 digits) or I9 number to fill out Form 4473, so bring your passport/green card along.

To purchase handguns and receivers you also must be a resident of Washington State. If you have just recently moved into the state, the easiest way to establish your residency is by getting your driver license.

In every case you need to be ORIGINAL PURCHASER of the firearm - specifically, you need to be buying it FOR YOU. This definition includes buying firearms as a gift to an immediate family member (husband, wife, parent, child, grandchild, grandparent), when you receive no compensation from the recipient of the gift.

Specifically, Supreme Court has ruled, in Abramski v/ United States (http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/abramski-v-united-states/) that you cannot buy the gun with the purpose of reselling it to someone else.

Where and when?

Our address is 18144 Woodinville-Snohomish Road, Woodinville, WA 98072.

It is open Tue-Fri 11am-7pm, and Sat 10am-6pm.

Call 206 489-4907 in case you get lost.

What to bring along

You must have a government-issued photo ID with your current address. If your photo ID does not show your current address, you must have a secondary government-issued ID that does. For example, if your driver license does not have your current address, you can use another government-issued document (CPL, car registration, voter registration) in addition to driver license, as long as it shows your current address.

If none of your government-issued documents match your current address, you can very quickly update your driver license on WA DOL's site, and the temporary ID issued by email will work for the purposes of purchasing firearms.

If you are buying a semiautomatic rifle, you will need to have completed firearms training. Free training is available on the Internet, for example, here.

Background check

To purchase a firearm, you will be undergoing a background check.

Please take a look at Form 4473. (But please do not bring the filled-out form to the store: we have a computer equivalent, and we'd rather do it here on the computer.)

You will need to be able to answer Question 11a positively, and questions 11b-k negatively.

If you are buying a long gun (excluding semiautomatic rifles) or a receiver, we perform the background check on the spot, using a government-mandated service called NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check Service).

The process should take roughly 10-20 minutes, including the time it takes you to do Form 4473 on a computer. The background check can return 3 possible responses: PROCEED, DELAY, DENY, and CANCEL. This usually happens in under 1 second, though sometimes computer algorithm refers the case to a human examiner, which can delay the response for up to 15 minutes.

• PROCEED means that you can pay and take the firearm home with you right away.
• DELAY means that your case was referred to an investigator for a more close examination that can be done algorithmically or on the spot. Delays are often confused with "waiting periods" - but this is incorrect, we do not have waiting periods in WA state or Federal laws. There is a maximum time (see below) for which you can be delayed, and the firearm can be transferred if NICS did not return the status before the time-out expiration.
• DENY means that you have been determined ineligible to possess the firearm. Please note that this can only happen if (a) you have supplied an incorrect information on Form 4473, a federal offense for which you can be prosecuted, or (b) you have been misidentified. To appeal a case of misidentification, please refer to this page. Please note that for the reasons of privacy, NICS gives us no information about what caused the DENY response. Only you can get this information. To communicate with NICS, you will need to supply them the NICS Transaction Number (NTN), which we will give you. For the reasons of privacy, we can only give it to you in person.
• CANCEL - this happens if you are in the US on a non-immigrant visa and have been in the country for less than 60 days.

If you are buying a handgun, a frame, or a receiver that will go on a handgun and needs to be registered as a pistol, or any semiautomatic rifle, the background check must be done by your local law enforcement agency. We fax a copy of Pistol Transfer Application to them, and they have certain maximum time to process it. Again, people often confuse this with waiting period - but it isn't. It's just the time that they use to do the background check. Some really nice police departments return application the following day, and sometimes the same day. Most take 3-5 days to process, however, semiautomatic rifles require a 10 days waiting period, so we cannot transfer them even if the police check has completed earlier.

NICS and WA state maximum processing delays

Initiative 594 is a WA state law that controls maximum time that state and federal agencies can spend processing the NICS check or a pistol transfer application. They depend on your residency status, and are as follows:

• If you are buying a firearm that is not a handgun (or a frame, or a receiver registered as a frame), it is 10 days.
• If you are buying a handgun (or a frame, or a receiver registered as a frame), and you have not been a WA state resident for previous 90 days, or do not have a valid WA state identification (state ID or a DL), this period extends to 60 days.

The time specified above is in business days - specifically, when the state and federal offices are open - and the period starts at the next business day after the NICS check/pistol transfer form has been received by the appropriate agency.

Quick facts about NICS

• NICS does not store your information. It does not know whether you did or did not buy another firearm recently, therefore it is not factored in the decision.
• NICS does not know who can legally buy firearms, only who cannot. Therefore your qualifications (possession of security clearance, CPL, etc) does not factor in the decision.
• Delays usually happen because someone who cannot possess firearms matches some of your characteristics (name, age, etc), not because you did something.
• Delays are more likely late at night, when there are not enough human investigators who can do on the spot research on duty.
• If you are not a US citizen, you will be ALWAYS and AUTOMATICALLY delayed. These delays usually clear within hours.

How do I pay?

We accept credit cards and cash for all transactions, except:

• Special orders for Freedom Arms revolvers
• Firearms transfers. We do accept cash or personal checks for this service.

Again, thank you for your interest in us, and we are looking forward to helping you with your firearms needs!