British Police came to the conclusion about 10 years ago that smoke dischargers being under the permitted barrel length were in reality illeagal firearms.
To any one strictly applying gun law definitions this was always obvious but by this time hundreds of post-war AFV's had been sold on to the collectors market with live smoke dischargers.
Luckily no retrospective attempt has been made by the Police to persue vehicle owners, but where owners have attracted the unwelcome attention of the Police for other reasons, they have then insisted that the dischargers are officaly deactivated.
The problem with deactivating war-time Dischargers in the UK is that the barrels (tube) have to be permanently attached to the actions thereby preventing mounting where the action is inside the vehicle.
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