On June 23, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) Deputy Director Robert Cekada signed ATF Ruling 2025-1 and Ruling 2025-2. The documents reverse bans on importation for civilian use of “dual use” barrels and the non-lethal marking rounds often used for law enforcement and military force-on-force training exercises, respectively.
The barrel restriction was put in place in 2005. The marking cartridge ban followed in 2023. The reinterpretation of previous BATFE rulings does not require a 90-day public comment period, rendering the decision effective immediately.
Barrels
The so-called dual-use barrel restriction began when BATFE ruled they fell under the Gun Control Act’s (GCA) language that restricts importation of barrels that could be used in a “non-sporting” firearm. Those barrels—capable of firing standard and less-lethal, dye-carrying ammunition—are produced by companies specializing in force-on-force training products. The decision, in essence, halted importation for consumers because someone might find a use that violated GCA requirements.
In reinterpreting the rule Cekada wrote, “... a barrel may be lawfully imported if, at the time it is imported, there is an identified sporting firearm configuration for the barrel, regardless of whether that barrel had been previously configured on non-sporting, military surplus, or NFA firearms.”
Less-Lethal Cartridges
Only two years ago BATFE officials in the Biden Administration ruled the die-carrying, slower-moving rounds used so effectively by law enforcement and military personnel could not be imported for sale to consumers.
Cekada reversed that decision this month, with a limitation. “In sum,” he wrote, “the training rounds that fall within the scope of this ruling are designed to be used with either a training gun or a device using a conversion kit…”
He clarified later that, “…a fully assembled training round that is not designed for offensive of defensive combat (i.e. anti-personnel) and is not for use in a weapon that expels a projectile by the action of an explosive is not ammunition as defined by 18 USC 921(a)(17)(A).”
