For the purposes of the National Firearms Act, the term Antique Firearms means any firearm not intended or redesigned for using rim fire or conventional center fire ignition with fixed ammunition and manufactured in or before 1898 (including any matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap or similar type of ignition system or replica thereof, whether actually manufactured before or after the year 1898) and also any firearm using fixed ammunition manufactured in or before 1898, for which ammunition is no longer manufactured in the United States and is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade.
I talked with my local ATF agent about "antiques" as he stated, if you can find the ammunition on the internet, that is considered "ordinary channels of commercial trade".
So if the ATF wanted to they could classify any ctg gun as a Non antique.
You can't blame an FFL holder for being overly cautious, for many of them their FFL is their livelihood.
