Why no affordable competitors to the Hi-Point and Kel-Tec pistol caliber carbines?

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cluttonfred

cluttonfred

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Hi-Point certainly seems to have sold a bunch of their carbines and this is not/not/not a thread for or against them. The Hi-Points go for $250-300 or so without extras. The closest competitor appears to be the Ke-Tec Sub 2000 at $350-400 or so but those seem rarer than hen's teeth. After that the price jumps up to $600-700 and more for the options from Masterpiece Arms, JRC, Taurus, Beretta, etc.

I am just wondering why no other manufacturer seems to be offering an affordable pistol caliber carbine? I would think that there would be a market for a simple, light carbine using commonly available pistol magazines and there would be plenty of manufacturers capable of putting something like that together for $300 or so. But nobody but Hi-Point and Kel-Tec even seem to be in that market. What am I missing?

Cheers,

Matthew
 
Remember old saying...

You get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get. At least that's whai I've learned thru the years.
 
Kel Tec is barely even in that market. I think I've seen exactly one Sub2K at a gun show, which puts it even with the number of KSGs and RFBs I've seen.

Maybe it's because no one else is really interested in producing a low end PCC. Don't get me wrong, I loved my Hi Point 995 and its pie plate accuracy at 100 yards with bulk fmj.

You ask a good question, one I don't have an answer for. I wish companies like Ruger or S&W would produce an inexpensive PCC. Heck, even the Taurus one probably won't sell well at it's current price point. I'd love to see them drop the price on that to about $400 or so, develop some high cap mags (which is the major downfall of the Hi Points).
 
The HP is one of the true "value" guns on the market, carbine or pistol. Their semi pistols are extremely reliable (I have 4 in 9mm and 45) and are about the ugliest, heaviest, clunkiest guns ever built. I really don't think there is another manufacturer that can compare to them in price for a decent quality gun. The 9mm carbine I have is similar in that it is clunky, ugly and dead on reliable with everything I have run through it. We actually put about 300 rounds through it yesterday without a single hiccup.
Maybe Ruger will follow up their value AR with a value pistol carbine? I agree completely on the higher capacity magazine though. I can't think of a single reason that HP couldn't develop something (but I am not in the firearm business).
 
No reason the big American gun manufacturers using modern manufacturing techniques (CNC and stuff) can't produce, say, a $450.00 pistol caliber carbine. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the AR-15 world because it became such a lucrative market, but at base, they are still mainly into super-expensive bolt-action hunting rifles for rich people to hunt with.
 
The Kel-Tec and Hi-Point carbines ARE the affordable competition. There are several pistol caliber carbines out there from Beretta, Colt, JRC, Olympic Arms, Taurus, et al.
It is a small, niche market that is well represented from the entry level price point up to several thousand dollars. Ruger and Marlin both made mid-priced PCC's which never sold well enough to keep them in production.
 
Agree with it being a niche market. Why bother designing/building a new PCC when you can just put your rollmark on a generic AR? Look at Taurus's attempt at getting into the pistol carbine game, the Taurus CTG29 . You know they lost on that one. Pistol carbines are a tough sell, when AK's are available in the $500 region and ammo is the same price as 9mm.
 
they are still mainly into super-expensive bolt-action hunting rifles for rich people to hunt with.
Click to expand...

Oh PULLLEEEAASE, let's not go down the "rich folks" stuff again; there are plenty of inexpensive hunting rifles everywhere from every mass marketer of guns

If you want expensive, then look at Hofer, Ollendorf, Hartmann & Weiss, etc.

Remington, Browning, Ruger all make affordable guns for the "everyman" group that most of us fall into

My 700BDL I bought new in 1980 @ $300 would cost $859.77 today (using an inflation calculator) While MSRP is a little more, actual street price is right about that mark
 
The one that gets me is revolvers. They make long barrels, but never bother to make one a touch longer with a shoulder stock. Taurus finally did but they are naming their price as it has no competition.
 
I think you're missing the fact that an AR carbine does everything these guns do, but better.
 
They must sell pretty well because I've been looking for a HiPoint Carbine at a couple LGS's in our area and have yet to find one in stock. I would like to hold it and form an opinion because the people I know who own them really love them.

I would also like to see a aftermarket HiCap mag. I figure a company like Promag would jump on that kind of money.
 
Well, I for one am not at all enamored with ARs and AKs or the whole "black" or "paramilitary" rifle thing. They just don't float my boat. I fired an AR and an AK at a brief training session and neither really did it for me. An SKS is about as far as I would go and I regret not getting a good Russian one when they were common.

As I think I said before in an old thread, personally, I'd love to see a light, cheap, simple carbine about the size of an M1 Carbine but with a 16" barrel and chambered in popular pistol calibers and maybe .30 carbine and 5.7 x 28mm. With modern manufacturing, the shorter barrel and a light plastic stock, maybe even a plastic receiver with rails like a modern polymer pistol, it ought to possible to drop the weight down from the original carbine's 5.2 lb (2.4 kg) empty/5.8 lb (2.6 kg) loaded w/sling to under 5 lb (2.3 kg) loaded. Now that would be handy and more than enough for home defense, plinking, truck gun use, etc.
 
Would it be too difficult for Ruger to make a Mini-14 style carbine in 9 or 45?

I just don't know how many folks would actually buy it? Not sure what their numbers have been on the M77 .357 and .44 bolt action sales.
 
I think a big factor is that there may not be a huge market for the pistol caliber carbines because a lot of people decide they if they are going to use a rifle sized firearm, they might as well get something with rifle performance, like a .223 a 7.62x39.

That being said, I think if one of the other companies like Ruger wanted to get into the PCC game, they could score pretty big with one that was either:
-similar in design (or just outward appearance) to an AR, but with the receiver shortened to an apropriate length for the caliber. You don't need the 3 inches of bolt travel on an AR if you are trying to chamber a round that is aprox. 19mm long*

Or

- offered a PCC in one of the more "hard hitting" pistol rounds that would give it a little better ballistics than the more traditional round.** Something like a 10mm, .357sig, or .460 Rowland could be an interesting carbine.

*im aware that the 9mm after being loaded is longer than 19mm, I was just trying to make a point about the comparative length of pistol and rifle cartridges and that we could make the overal length of the firearm shorter by designing it for a pistol caliber from the ground up.

** I haven't crunched any numbers or done the gell testing to see the external and terminal ballistics of "standard" pistol rounds (9x19, 45ACP, 40S&W) compare to "high speed" pistol rounds (.38 super, 460 Rowland, 357sig) or actual rifle rounds, but I would imagine that you would get better performance from the faster handgun rounds than the "standards" although less than the rifle rounds.
 
Quote:
I think you're missing the fact that an AR carbine does everything these guns do, but better
Oh please. Do we really need to educate people on the merits of a PCC again?
Click to expand...

If you want to preach, I'll listen ;)
 
Interestingly, when it comes to maximum short-range firepower, some of the loads for the new wonder calibers are not far off from hot pistol calibers. For example the subsonic load for .300 Blackout as used in the AAC Honey Badger PDW is a 220 gr (14 g) bullet running at 1,010 ft/s (310 m/s) for 498 ft·lbf (675 J) at the muzzle. That's quite comparable to the .45 ACP +P Federal Hydra-Shok load of a 230 gr (15 g) bullet running at 900 ft/s (270 m/s) for 414 ft·lbf (561 J) at the muzzle. That seems more than enough for the short-range uses I described above.
 
I think there are a lot of things going on in the market that make R&D Dollars better spent elsewhere.
Some of those variables being the price of quality AR's at the moment. As long as Colts are going for under 1K, who wants to take the risk?
A widely available and reliable magazine in 9mm and .45 acp. The people who own those magazines (Glock) for the moment not going that direction.
The poor record of sales of carbines in pistol calibers. It would seem you might as well take the money out and burn it rather than put something on the market like this.
 
CornCod said:
No reason the big American gun manufacturers using modern manufacturing techniques (CNC and stuff) can't produce, say, a $450.00 pistol caliber carbine. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the AR-15 world because it became such a lucrative market, but at base, they are still mainly into super-expensive bolt-action hunting rifles for rich people to hunt with.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I'm not producing guns and paying massive liability insurance for $450 per rifle. Can make more money than that by opening up a small grocery store.

And an AR, even a really nice one, is under $900 right now. That's also why the AK market is in the tank. Someone wanted $800 for an AK at the last show I was at. Was a good chuckle. "good luck with that" :D
 
oneounceload said:
Oh PULLLEEEAASE, let's not go down the "rich folks" stuff again; there are plenty of inexpensive hunting rifles everywhere from every mass marketer of guns
Click to expand...

Agreed. The market is flooded with inexpensive bolt rifles that can be bought for $400 or less.

I'm a little concerned that the trend will eventually kill off the mid range market (rifles priced $800 to $2000) and we'll be left with a choice of either cheap plastic stuff on one end of the spectrum and five figure or higher custom guns on the other end of the spectrum.
 
kayak-man said:
That being said, I think if one of the other companies like Ruger wanted to get into the PCC game, they could score pretty big with one that was either:
-similar in design (or just outward appearance) to an AR, but with the receiver shortened to an apropriate length for the caliber. You don't need the 3 inches of bolt travel on an AR if you are trying to chamber a round that is aprox. 19mm long*

Or

- offered a PCC in one of the more "hard hitting" pistol rounds that would give it a little better ballistics than the more traditional round.** Something like a 10mm, .357sig, or .460 Rowland could be an interesting carbine.
Click to expand...

Ruger did offer their PC Carbine in 9 mm and .40 S&W for quite a while. The market just isn't there.

Most people, for whatever reason, don't appreciate the advantages PCCs have over ARs and AKs.
 
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