Gun Design Run Amok

Let me guess, a new 10-22 tactical conversion kit ?

The shotgun you have pictured isn't made by Kel-Tec. Its a UTS-15. I assume you're thinking of a KSG

http://www.keltecweapons.com/our-guns/shotguns/ksg/

Both of which are based on a South African design that's 30 years old (and the patent is enforced on anymore...)

Don't knock Kel-Tec designs till you've tried it.

Which you obviously haven't.

Sometimes Quality is somewhat lacking.
But George Kelgren does know how to design innovative weapons that work.

Witness the Ruger LCP .380 pistol.
It is a direct copy of the Kel-Tec P3AT which proceeded it by several years.

If all the designers & money at Ruger could come up with a better design?
Well, wouldn't they have?

rc

bushmaster1313 said:

Is Kel-Tec what you get when you have gun design without adult supervision?

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No, they are what you get when you have a gun designer who is still alive, vs. redesigners who think a "new" gun is the old gun with a different shape trigger guard.

I have both of the kel-tecs you showed pictures of, and while I don't like the amount of plastic in them they are both very practical function-over-form guns.

bushmaster1313 said:

Not knocking.

I just find the designs very entertaining from a visual perspective.

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Hmmm...I find 'em ugly myself...but where else am I going to get an 18" barrel .308 that is under 27" overall length? Or a .40S&W carbine that can tuck into a messenger bag and leave room for my lunch? And yes, those are features I find important.

I have to agree, and I normally like contemporary stuff. But some of these new designs are looking like toys more than guns. And it's not really necessary for their function. I would rather have 16 rounds in a magazine instead of the need to "pump" it, and switch tubes.
Or they could have gone that route and made it semi auto, switching the tube and being able to pop off another 8 rounds, it's too much pumping for me, I don't see the usefulness. And the liklihood of screwing up when you have to pump a gun that many times, becomes a big factor in it's usefullness.

That and the fact that dealers are marking them up 100%, is rediculous. If someone needed a 16 round shotgun, I would think it should be a semi auto. Like the russian models, either with a drum or mag. Tactical would mean to me, a great deal of fire,"for a shotgun" laid down fast and accurate. I can't see how a pump shotgun can do that nearlly as well as a semi auto.
There is a market for their product obviouslly, I just find that initially they made an inexpensive gun that filled a void, where now their guns are higher priced with no particular value for the higher price.

This is the Kel Tec KSG.
It ain't your Remington 870 pump.




And with the load of 2 inch 00 Buckshot.

RC is right on, my SU-16C is 25.5" OAL, weighs 4.5 lbs , packs 30 rds of 5.56, and shoots under 4MOA. I have over 5K rounds thru her, and expect 5K more. Mr. Kelgren is a genius: AK piston, AR bolt, and Glock polymer frame, what's not to love?

My brother has a KelTec Sub2000 in 9X19mm using Glock magazines. He has a number of 30 round magazines for it and everything fits in a briefcase. He had a nice old briefcase that he filled with that foam rubber stuff that you customize to fit whatever you want in it.

It's a nice package to ride along in his truck.

I had a P32, and he had a P3AT. They were nice, fairly accurate little guns, but they just weren't powerful enough for us so we traded them off. My daughter has a P11 that works just fine for her.

ECS

Beretta M9 in a holster on my harness and a Keltec Sub-2000 taking the same magazines packed into my ejection seat survival kit = a lot better self defense and foraging capability than the M9 alone. Keltec stuff works, and is innovative. There's a reason it's in short supply.


Willie


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Another Kel Tec design, the 223 PLR.




From arm's length to 100 plus yards it's impressive. (100 yards, offhand)



The only reason this isn't my primary house/car gun is the muzzle blast is ear shattering.

gym said:

I have to agree, and I normally like contemporary stuff. But some of these new designs are looking like toys more than guns. And it's not really necessary for their function. I would rather have 16 rounds in a magazine instead of the need to "pump" it, and switch tubes.
Or they could have gone that route and made it semi auto, switching the tube and being able to pop off another 8 rounds, it's too much pumping for me, I don't see the usefulness. And the liklihood of screwing up when you have to pump a gun that many times, becomes a big factor in it's usefullness.

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I can't say one way or the other on the KSG. It seems like a mechanism to automatically alternate is going to make the thing more fragile. From what I've read, that's a big problem with the UTS-15 pictured in the first post. It also seems like semi-auto introduces a regulatory quagmire but I haven't heard that pumps are considered a huge disadvantage for 3-gun type shooting.

gym said:

That and the fact that dealers are marking them up 100%, is rediculous.

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That's a different problem and honestly not one that bothers me. A lot of buyers are willing to pay a substantial premium for these guns. Someone is going to accept that premium. If the dealer sells them for MSRP or less, that dealer's customers will turn around and list them on Gunbroker. The premium will go into the pockets of the first buyer where it is unlikely to do any general good. If the dealer charges the premium, that means the dealer stays in business and maybe grows, benefitting everyone. Selfishly, I'd rather the dealer marked the gun up. Of course I won't pay the marked up price...it took me years to find a below-MSRP RFB.

gym said:

I
If someone needed a 16 round shotgun, I would think it should be a semi auto.

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Does anyone have any stats on how much extra time a pump takes to put three shells of high-wall buck on an aimed target vs a semi-auto? I don't know if it's a large numer or not. It seems like with recoil recovery the difference could be low. In that case, why get hung up on semi autos?

Keltec is good stuff. I like the fact that the company can design it's own stuff and bring it to production, and it works. It may not be perfect, but I can't wait to see the company in another 5 or 10 years. People can knock them if they want, but designing, building, and selling weapons, and actually being able to do so well enough to maintain a company, isn't easy. They've got to be doing something right.

And I like the fact that their stuff is different.

There's a reason it's in short supply.

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That wouldn't be because production gets stopped due to functioning issues would it? Or that they promise the world, yet can't deliver.
Kel Tec has failed so many times on fit and finish and functionality out of the box.

Their pocket guns have a propensity to keyhole and how many models were thrown on the market only to have to be corrected and production stop'd.

Innovation means nothing if QC and function testing before production begins are ignored.

FINALLY, the phased plasma rifle in the 40 megawatt range!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glock makes one gun and rules the world.. there's a lesson for ya. I don't own a glock though

I gave them one shot with the PF-9, and it was a bomb. The KTOG forums were full of fixes and stories about 147 grain bullets not cycling in half their initial guns. I had one. It fired the 115 grain round fine, but anything other than that had a failure to eject and feed. The mag was fine I had "3 mags", all did the same thing with the 147 grain bullet. If you stuck in a mag or 115, it ran great. To me that was still unacceptable. i sold it with the laser for $200 and told the dealer.
I have seen this happen with more expensive guns also, but not to the extent where there are many listed problems with work arounds for guns that never should have left the factory.
If you got a good one, you would not know what I spoke of. But I know this has been spoken on before,as I had been privey to that discussion a while back. I hate to say it but they do throw out the product and let the buyer do the QC analysis.
I touted them when they only had 1 model out like 13 years ago, "whenever it was" until 3 of my friends had firing pins snapped off, those 11 round 9mm guns "P11" "I think", after thet I tried the PF9 and the problem with the chamber being out of spec. I don't have time to troubleshoot someones product. If it's being sold to consumers, it should work.
I don't see this happening to any other brand, "maybe an occasional Taurus", but usually the run ok for the most part. Even the problems with small 1911's have been less frequent by changing out the mags and springs, and perhaps an extractor, but things like firing pins and "off size parts", bother me.
I know many like their guns, but once I have more than one bad experience with a brand, I stay away from it. You have to ask yourself "do I trust this with my life", I absolutelly trust every carry gun I own to fire when and if I need to pull it. If I had the slightest doubt, it's gone.
I fire my guns with a rubber eraser tipped pencil every time after cleaning, just to make sure that firing pin is working, I know the first round is going to fire.
This dosen't mean that they suck, it just means they are unreliable to me. If another person had a good experience with their products, they could easily disagree with me, I completely understand. I never had a Glock hang up in 20yrs of glocks, or a S&W revolver in 43 years of carrying Guns, or my xd's or my m&p, so that's usually what I carry or a commander sized 1911 colt or springer or S&W j or K frame. I ditched the seacamp, for similar reasons, and the Walther. It has to pass the test of time, and use over time. The XDS is still new but it just works so far, I still carry 2.
I take my life very seriouslly. I won't carry a solo, or a kimber ultra, or many other popular expensive guns either, because they fail far too often. I am not saying I won't buy one. I just won't carry it.
Disagree away, I am not here to down anyones preference, only to speak to what my experiences were with their product. And I have been doing this for 58 of my 65 years.
Just don't care for em.

Anyone else note the irony?

Bushmaster starts a thread on goofy looking weapons when this existed long before?

Me thinks that the BullPup design is always going to look odd, but they work as advertised.

I like to think that new gun designs are always changing and evolving beyond conventional designs of the past, but I don't really see KelTec and other similar manufacturers as running amok with the guns that they offer. I see it more like they're trying to build the better mousetrap and are doing so by utilizing new materials and designs to accomplish it.

Me thinks that the BullPup design is always going to look odd, but they work as advertised.

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As long as you are willing to overlook the horrible triggers. The trigger on the Kel-Tec RFB is among the best of the bullpups, but that ain't saying much. That trigger on a $600 AR all anyone would ever talk about would be how bad the trigger was no matter how well it shot.

My RFB won't win any prizes for reliability, my longest run wihtout a failure is about 200 rounds and its been back to kel-Tec three times and the'ce sent me parts to swap twice more. Great service, but sub-par results for me.

wally said:

[Put an RFB] trigger on a $600 AR all anyone would ever talk about would be how bad the trigger was no matter how well it shot.

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Dunno about that. Just about every stock, and some upgraded, AR trigger I've tried has been worse than my RFB's. It isn't as good as my savage or my own upgraded AR trigger, but it is far from the worst trigger I've touched.

Hope mine turns out to be more reliable than yours....so far so good but with ammopocalypse II going on I've been slow on building up the round count.