Shootrite Katana

Ok, let me get this straight.... He is building a flat top, with no forward assist, pencil barrel and a new grip?

Other than the new grip, what is new about this? I can get no forward assist uppers, pencil barrels now.

It has carbon fiber on it? wowie kapowie.....

I guess it makes it lighter. Im pretty sure I could do the same thing given a couple of phone calls. Unless this comes in at a shockingly low price point, I won't be buying it just because it has a cool sounding ninja name on it.

Other rejected names:

Get 'er Done Chansawie

Blastec Shoot 'em Up

Sierra Buick Cutlass

and lastly

Kapowie Von Zapper

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Now that's funny right there; I don't care who you are.

Sounds cool to me, but to my mind, the Katana should be a 20", and the 16" should be called the Wakizashi, since they wanted to name it after the short sword.

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Well, a wakizashi is a one-handed weapon, while this rifle is a two-handed weapon; therefore I think it should be called the Chisa-Katana or Ko-Katana with the 16" barrel.

And he's building the perfect lightweight KISS AR15, and he didn't lose the fixed front sight?

It does look like an interesting project. Hopefully more details on the specs and price will be out soon

Well, a wakizashi is a one-handed weapon, while this rifle is a two-handed weapon; therefore I think it should be called the Chisa-Katana or Ko-Katana with the 16" barrel.

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But but but it haz teh piztol grapzzz!!!??!?!?

Duznt that meanz iz dezined to be fiered one handed from teh hipz?

Who is going to pay 1850 for this gun? I just built a stag flat top upper 16 inch that comes in at 6.4 pounds. This is what around 6? and my gun ran me 750 all in. I think it is a solution to a non problem. I watch Sons of Guns and it is very scripted and over blown. If someone wants to blow 2k on this gun more power to them, but I am happy with my stag and have 1100 extra to spend on ammo. I think this show is more for people who are not gun people than for those that are gun people.

Who is going to pay 1850 for this gun?

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people who don't know how to research.

You can grab a lightweight upper from BCM or a pencil kit from Del-ton, drop in JP lo-mass BCG and buffer, put some Carbon-15 receiver stuff on it...and not only have a rifle under 5lbs, but for only 35-50% of the cost of this thing.

That Rifle was built on that TV show. Yeah the guy in Louisiana.

But I gotta admit I always liked the "slabsides" Better.

Meh.

As others have noted, it doesn't look like it does anything new except maybe package in complete form what anyone can build, for cheaper, with extremely minimal effort.

It's more than components used - look up on RedJacket's website as to what they actually DID to the Shootrite...it's not a bad idea. IMHO, excellent work, but is unfinished without going 416-style, and adding a gas-piston system, which lackthereof has ALWAYS been AR-complaint #1. Again, IMHO.

As for price - Sabre-Defence barrel, and Carbon Fibre, as with custom internals-upgrades/mods, kinda explains the price. Justifies? No. But at least explains...

Even then, they really didn't do much of anything beyond bolt the rifle together and add a little glue. I don't know why anyone would buy the rifle complete though. $1250 for the upper (way over priced) or $1850 for a complete (even more over priced). I know there is a bit more tax when you buy complete rifle, but good lord, $600 for a standard LPK, A1 stocked lower? No thanks. Look at the retail cost for the parts they use. At $1850 they are purely marketing to the people who have to have a gun from TV. I like the idea of the rifle, I just don't understand why it costs more than $1,200, and even that is being generous.

...I'd LOVE to see where you would find a Les Baer upper, ALL Milspec parts, CUSTOM CarbonFiber free-float-tube, and the PRECISE beveling to the feed port, as with other custom work, for under $1,200. I tried building a decent DPMS-based AR from part-scrounging, and still went over $1,500...Just sayin' sir.

The Katana is not my cup of tea and the price does drop my jaw as does quite a few AR15s from mass manufacturers: however, I don't see too many other AR15s are the market that weigh UNDER 6 pounds( 5 pounds 9 ounces) that was built by a professional that can handle the stresses of Carbine classes and comes with a real warranty to boot. A bit more was done to that rifle than just slapping parts together which is what the typical home builder does then wonders why their rifle fails in a carbine class. Just using high quality parts does not alone assure high quality reliability.

A lot of the questions you all are asking were asked and answered here:
http://www.bayoushooter.com/forums/...trite-Katana/page4&highlight=katana+shootrite

Lets all remember that when you have a professional assemble and build a weapon for you, expect to pay professional prices.

When I saw this on the show I had the giggles for a half hour. I saw nothing new or revolutionary about it at all...just a very expensive lightweight build. I have been shooting my Cav Arms lightweight build for a couple years in competition, weighs just over 5 pounds and it is rifle length with much sturdier rear sight. It doesn't have a rail because I see no need for one but on could easily be added. And my build was less than half that of the "Shootrite".



I have yet to anything new or innovative on the TV show, everything they have done has been done before for the most part. And in my opinion it has been done better in the past.

He's pimping a rifle built to his spec's made by Red Jacket Firearms.

Here's a link.
http://shootrite.org/

R.W.Dale said:

You forgot

Oldsmobile Magnum LeSabre

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Thunder Cougar Falcon Bird...al la Futurama

I think pimping is exactly wrong and shows poor reading comprehension skills. Tiger designed it (I handled the prototype in spring 2009 while taking a class at Shootrite) and they built it.

This thread was started in December 2009.

...I'd LOVE to see where you would find a Les Baer upper, ALL Milspec parts, CUSTOM CarbonFiber free-float-tube, and the PRECISE beveling to the feed port, as with other custom work, for under $1,200. I tried building a decent DPMS-based AR from part-scrounging, and still went over $1,500...Just sayin' sir.

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Really? That upper is $120. ER Shaw barrels are like $185 with a fsb. A DD bcg is $150. $45 for the charging handle. A complete lower with an A1 stock is $250. Or even if you want to go more expensive, $360 from BCM where you will get those milspec parts. The handguard is $110. Rear sight is $65 So lets add that up. That comes to $1035. Now you won't have the sling attachment on the left side of the stock but rather the bottom and that is with the stock internals on the bolt. You will have to drill the handguard if you want a flashlight mount, though I couldn't see that being a $50 fee from a gunsmith and then anther $20 for the rail. That puts my total right at $1100 with a quick google search of parts. $1000 if you bargain shop a complete lower. I'm sure if you went with a $60 lpk, $100 A1 stock assembly, and a $70 stripped lower you could drop that price a lot closer to $900.

And these are full retail prices. I understand they need to make money, but this is clearly taking advantage of their name. The parts they are using aren't exclusive to them either. I don't see where the extra $800 comes into the equation.

The funny thing I see about this thing is Red Jacket Firearms has the parts list up on their website for anyone who cares to look.

http://www.redjacketfirearms.com/about/about.html

I tried building a decent DPMS-based AR from part-scrounging, and still went over $1,500.

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Wow Just sayin.

From looking at the specs, I can definitely say they didn't spare any expense The result, however, does seem to be a very high-quality rifle. Would I pay that much for it when I could build it in my garage? No, but hey, different strokes as they say....
As for the fixed rear sight, its not fixed, it just doesn't fold (i.e. you can take it off but not fold it down). In my personal weapon, I run with the folding rear sight up all the time even when running my Aimpoint. Had a bad stretch during training when my Aimpoint was failing constantly and found that when on the clock, the time it takes to recognize you aren't seeing the dot, reach up with your non-firing hand and activate the flip-up sights, and re-acquire your sight picture was a bit much for me. I wish I could get one of those Daniel Defense sights on my gun....

In regards to the AR forward assist,

I find it amusing that a firearm malfunctions enough to need a part to "assist" in properly feeding from the magazine. (I find it even funnier that the users just kind of accept it.) There is clearly a design flas somewhere (bolt, magazine, ammo, etc) that has not been refined for proper function.

It's like if you drove a car and they cut a hole in the floorboard so you can "Fred Flinstone" it into first gear because "every once in a while" it doesn't like to start up on
it's own. I just don't understand it.

IMHO if a round won't chamber, you would be better off to just eject it rather than forcing into the chamber. If it such a common occurance that ejecting the cartridge is a problem, then someone needs to go back to the drawing board and further improve the design.

The forward assist is more for closing the bolt after brass checking than fixing a problem that wouldn't go into battery on it's own. When you pull the charging handle back far enough to see brass, often the bolt doesn't have enough momentum to lock back up when released. This is where the FA is beneficial. Any other time it does more harm than good.

Most all rifles have a FA built in. Typically though, they are in the form of a charging handle built into the bolt. The exact same function of the FA can be found by smacking the charging handle of an AK or M14 or anything with a reciprocating charging handle.

The forward assist is more for closing the bolt after brass checking than fixing a problem that wouldn't go into battery on it's own.

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+1, and for which it works great.

On the LEO side of the house, I was taught the feel-load-feel technique for checking stagger on magazines, but don't like it having had lots and lots of previous emphasis placed on press check to look (light level permitting) and feel for round on bolt face then close bolt with forward assist during a deliberate load.