I went to buy a pistol today and left empty handed after an hour and a half was spent in store waiting.. A c ouple people were at the counter when I arrived so it took 15-20 to talk to salesman. Then he said he would be with after processing them . He told them it would take 5-20 minutes to get the background check done. After what seemed like 30 minutes, he told them their check had been delayed and to leave their phone number and he would call as soon as it cleared. I wondered what might have come up in their check. Oh well, mine would go quickly since I have as clean a record that has ever been sent to them and when I bought a gun a few months ago at.another location it took about five minutes. WRONG. After twenty minutes of waiting, he told me my check had been delayed and would call when it was cleared. This was around 5:00 5:30 in the afternoon. Do y’all think it was the time of day causing the problem or something else?

I think its the volume of checks. I had a friend who bought one 2 days ago and it still hasn't cleared.

There are a lot of delays right now. It is due to the huge volume of sales the last several months.

last week in the gun store we were getting batches of 10 or so delays then the next few would go through. I think the NICS system is set up so they when so many are waiting they all get delayed until the volume drops. Should be better as dealers run out of inventory.

I’ve picked up 3 in the past 2 weeks and the longest I was in the gunshop was 15min and that’s only because my buddy is running for mayor and we had something to talk about.

Go early in the week and early in the day is what I’m being told. Same as bc said 10-15

Bought a rifle 20 something years ago and the check was delayed, guy asked me if I was former military,. He said that was why??

the end of the month tends to have a greater number of delays. you can get delayed if you have a high security clearance, military, off shore workers, and even law enforcement officer's. i have about seen it all. the major reason is someone with the same name, that has a record. they have to do a deeper check, delayed.

I’m delayed every damn time.

Me too, I was delayed for a 22 cricket. My wife buys more than me and is never delayed.

I have never been delayed once, knock on wood

I've got 3 on a delay a we speak.
I processed 3 checks a couple days ago, all within 5 minutes of each other.
The 1st and 3rd were both delayed. The 2nd was an instant approval.
I don't do a lot of transfers and have only had a handful of delays in 13+ years I've had an FFL.
Even those were for the same person.

When checks are done, there are two levels.
Normally if the first level can't approve a transfer, they kick it up to the second for a more thorough review.
FFLs got a email a couple months ago stating due to the high volume they will no longer do the second level review.
They just return a "delay" response and tell you to transfer it in 3 business days. And provide a date you can transfer the weapon on.

Could be a myriad of things. Volume, common names, or as I found out your address changed but you haven’t updated your drivers license. Went to buy a S&W AR15-22 when all the Covid crap started because I figured there’d be a run on guns and I had been eyeing that gun as something fun to plunk with. Got delayed when I put in my current address vs the one on my DL. Three days later got the call and went to pick it up. Will be updating my DL once I get moved into the house I’m building but figured I wouldn’t go through the hassle over the new apt I moved into for the time being.

It's the volume. In June, more than 3.9 million checks were done. That's a record for the program. Doesn't mean all those were buys or attempted purchases. Some states, like Illinois, do checks for things like its registration program.

But the NICS has seen 3M+ checks in three of the last four months and the other month in there it was 2.9 million.

Delays are inevitable, unfortunately.

I be one of those three!

I dont buy guns or ammo. They are scary. If I were to too, I think I would use the toilet paper mentality. Buy in bulk and often. You dont buy TP when you are about to drop a deuce.

Never buy a gun from anywhere (or anyone) who fills out a paper.

I made a purchase and the background check took 26 seconds last week. The guy behind the counter said it was almost his fastest check to date. It was in the middle afternoon timeframe too. I guess I was either lucky, or the goberment system actually worked that day.

This. Everyone's buying guns right now. I wonder why? It is also the luck of the draw for some reason. I bought a shotgun a few weeks ago and got delayed for a week. A week ago I bought a MR-15 and had it in 10 minutes. When I bought the shotgun there was a stack of paperwork about 6 inches high of delays.

Just called the store 22 hours after my delay to see if it had cleared. Was told it would probably be Monday or Tuesday before they heard anything, possibly sooner. So much for surprising my wife on her July 4th birthday.😡