Clauses · DFARS · Supply chain and sourcing
DFARS 252.225-7038 Reserved (printed on acquisition.gov as '252.225-7038 Reserved.'; formerly Restriction on Acquisition of Air Circuit Breakers)
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
No mandate, and nothing to flow down. The clause is cited in four corpus documents — AAR (Nov 2023, 'All Orders'), the executed Elmet BlueForge PO (2025, applicability 'All'), and two General Dynamics Mission Systems templates dated 2026-07-20 — all of them imposing a number that was removed from the DFARS on 2024-05-30. The 2026 GDMS templates are the sharpest instance: a flow-down list rebuilt and dated more than two years after the removal still carries it, which is direct evidence that prime flow-down matrices are maintained by accretion rather than reconciled against the codified DFARS.
A clause can reach your subcontract without a mandate. Once it is in your document, it is a contract term all the same. The missing mandate is a fact about the regulation. It is not a ruling on your order.
Checked against acquisition.gov on 2026-08-05 · edition n/a — the number carries no text and no date designation at the DFARS change level dated 2026-05-07. Corpus templates cite conflicting historical designators (Elmet PO 2025: 'Dec-18'; AAR Nov 2023: 'JUL 2023'); the pre-removal date designation is (unconfirmed) · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
One item for your checklist.
There is no clause at this number
The number points at a section with no text in it, so there is nothing to follow and nothing to send.
A line on the order's clause list pointing at a section with no text in it — the air circuit breaker restriction was struck from the statute by section 845 of the FY 2021 NDAA and removed from the supplement on 2024-05-30
DFARS 252.225-7038
When it is used
Never applies. The number is Reserved in the codified DFARS, and its prescribing section, DFARS 225.7006 (Restriction on air circuit breakers for naval vessels), is Reserved as well — both read on acquisition.gov on 2026-08-05 at the change level dated 2026-05-07. There is no text, no threshold, no exception structure, and nothing to test. Any verdict other than 'not applicable — clause removed' is wrong, and a matrix that scores it 'applies to all orders' (as the AAR and Elmet documents do) is propagating a dead obligation.
Read closely
a citation by reference to a Reserved number brings in an empty section, so there is no origin restriction behind it and no record to keep. The date the number was removed is a fact the reader can hand back to whoever built the list, and it is also the reason to read the rest of that list closely — a number removed two years ago is still on it.
The 3 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, DFARS 252.225-7038 (Reserved), DFARS 225.7006 (Reserved), DFARS 252.225-7037 (Reserved) and DFARS 212.301 (verified 2026-08-05); removal traced to DFARS Case 2021-D022, final rule published 2024-05-30
This is research, not legal advice. It states what the regulation says about this clause and cites the paragraph behind it. It does not rule on your order, and it does not rule on whether a prime's markings are correct.