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Is the Ruger LCP a rebadged Kel-Tec

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I, for one, welcome the competition. Keltecs have a good reputation, though there are horror stories out there. I'm sure the same will happen with the Ruger LCP; however, Ruger has a certain reputation for reliability with their autoloaders too (the P series?).

If the LCP is "cloned" or "inspired" by the P3AT, then so be it. Really and truly, how many different ways are there to design an effective .380 in a compact package? And if being different won't make your product better, why be different for difference's sake?

My Bersa Thunder 380 isn't a Walther PPK, but they are strikingly similar. Is it a clone? Maybe. But I wouldn't own a .380 of this general design if the Walther had been my only choice.
 
Is the LCP a re-badged Kel-tec? No, both are manufactured in house.

Is it a copy? Maybe, or maybe they just decided to make a pocket .380 and came up with the same design all by themselves. Its a simple design. I mean think about it: would they really need to reverse engineer the P3AT to get the LCP. All they had to do was realize it was a good idea, the rest is simply a matter of common sense design as far as firearms go.
 
Is this a design that's old enough that no patent is in effect? That's the way it makes sense to me, similar to how anyone and their brother can build a 1911.
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According to what I've heard from Kel-Tec, there never was a patent on the P3AT to begin with.
My Bersa Thunder 380 isn't a Walther PPK, but they are strikingly similar. Is it a clone? Maybe. But I wouldn't own a .380 of this general design if the Walther had been my only choice.
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At least the Bersa is a significantly modified version of a pistol that's been in production for the better part of a century.
Really and truly, how many different ways are there to design an effective .380 in a compact package? And if being different won't make your product better, why be different for difference's sake?
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Well, one could always attempt to make something new for the sake of actually offering something new. Or you could take someone else's product, pretty it up, and then advertise the crap out of it so as to gain market share. The only real question is, which choice do you personally view as preferable? There are many companies out there that I deeply admire, some large and some small, that choose to make quality and the customer their top priorities.
 
Is it a copy? Maybe, or maybe they just decided to make a pocket .380 and came up with the same design all by themselves. Its a simple design. I mean think about it: would they really need to reverse engineer the P3AT to get the LCP.
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Uhh, have you seen one in person? They are visibly identical at first glance. Really, they are the same at second glance, too. We had to actually field strip one to tell any real difference, and even those differences are very minor. Whether or not they needed to reverse engineer it, it's pretty obvious to anyone who examines them side by side they did.
 
I have seen an LCP in person. I have seen many P3ATs in person. They are really really really similar inside and out, but you have to be exaggerating to say that you actually had to field strip the LCP to make sure it wasn't a P3AT, kcshooter. The first time I saw an LCP in person was from 15 feet away on the third shelf of a glass case in my local gun shop, and it was partially obscured by the tag of another handgun. I didn't mistake it for a P3AT. :)

I guess if you were groping around in the dark during a sandstorm after being hit with OC spray in the eyes, you could have serious trouble telling the two apart. But you could say the same thing about a Hi-Power and a 1911.
 
kcshooter, I agreed that they looked very similar! I was just puzzled that you had to field strip them to tell them apart. I would think that by the time you actually had the two guns in your hands, you could've read the bold "RUGER" on the LCP and saved yourself the trouble of taking them both apart. ;)
 
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Oh, come on. I didn't say I couldn't read the name on them, I said to tell any real mfgring difference they had to be fieldstripped. We were talking about the engineering of it.
 
yes it is..... but in the same way every 1911 copied the original. Ruger was just the first. I personally wont buy the LCP for other reasons, but don't let the copycat-fact be the reason.
 
does nobody understand the difference between copying and rebadging?


I guess it doesn't matter as my question has finally been answered
 
Well, let's put it this way, I can use my spare magazines from my Keltec in my LCP. That's a pretty close copy and I'm glad they did it that way.
 
does nobody understand the difference between copying and rebadging?


I guess it doesn't matter as my question has finally been answered
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I am pretty sure most of us get it and your question has been answered multiple times. Kel-tec makes their own guns and so dose Ruger. Each is a firearms manufacturer and any firearm with their name on it is manufactured by them and no one else.

Why would they have to reverse engineer such a simple, basic design, especially considering the fact that they are an accomplished firearms manufacture? They could just look at it, like the idea, design their own version and end up with something pretty damn similar without every having to field strip a P3AT.
 
Why would they have to reverse engineer such a simple, basic design, especially considering the fact that they are an accomplished firearms manufacture? They could just look at it, like the idea, design their own version and end up with something pretty damn similar without every having to field strip a P3AT.
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Well, obviously you aren't to informed about engineering from scratch vs reverse engineering. As another poster said, even the magazines are interchangeable. It's more than just asthetics at that point.
 
Well, obviously you aren't to informed about engineering from scratch vs reverse engineering.
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I know I have an incomplete understanding of the complexities of firearms engineering but none the less I know how much harder it is to design from scratch as opposed to reverse engineering. I would also say that even still there is nothing so special about the P3AT design that Ruger could not have come up with on their own. The P3AT is a minimalist pocket sized polymer framed DAO pistol. Is a good idea but I maintain it is not a unique design and there is nothing about it that Ruger, a firearms manufacturer, could not have come up with on their own.

As another poster said, even the magazines are interchangeable. It's more than just asthetics at that point.
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Thats actually a pretty good point. Still, if they are interchangeable its intentional. They could have easily made it otherwise. Maybe they did it like that so holsters and magazines would be immediately accessible. That might be a bit of a stretch but I prefer to give the the "benefit of the doubt" when I can.
 
Is a good idea but I maintain it is not a unique design and there is nothing about it that Ruger, a firearms manufacturer, could not have come up with on their own.
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All very true, but Ruger didn't.


but none the less I know how much harder it is to design from scratch as opposed to reverse engineering.
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That's why they copied it.



The root of the controversy and what I think what galls many folks is that Ruger claims to have started with a "blank piece of paper" in designing it when they obviously didn't. It wouldn't look good for a iconic major firearms manufacturer to admit they simply copied a competitor's pistol so they must maintain the fiction that they designed it from scratch. Simple as that.
 
i own both, they look a lot alike, but there are differences, both in the design, and the way they function. NO they are not the same gun. not much (if anything) will interchange between the 2 (although i have not tried a full dissasembly and trried to do so), not even the clip will interchange. it appears to me that almost everything was changed a little bit. but, if you took the 2 apart, dumped all the parts in a box and shook them up, a good gunsmith would have his work cut out for himself for a couple of days trying to figure out what goes where to which gun!
 
Well, let's put it this way, I can use my spare magazines from my Keltec in my LCP. That's a pretty close copy and I'm glad they did it that way.
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YOU HAD BETTER CHECK AGAIN!
they fit in the magazine well, but THEY WILL NOT FUNCTION! the locating knotch is about 1/2 of the width off. so while it will fit, the bullets will not feed. make no mistake, these are NOT the same guns! when installing the kel-tec clip into the ruger,the clip will latch, but when the slide is released, it jams the bullet into the bottom of the feed ramp, and will not feed.
when installing the ruger clip into the kel-tec, the clip will insert, but will not latch. so there is no way to make it feed (unless you physically hold it into place) if it won't stay in the gun.
 
boy,lots of good info here.lots of Ruger stole this,copied that,could have designed their own,ect.it ALL may be true,WE don't know,WE weren't there.the Ruger design/theft team was.RUGER alone KNOWS what took place.every thing else is speculation.lots of ideas/designs/products have come about at the same time in different parts of the country/world/universe,ect.the pistols look alike,whoop-de-do.but it still matters not,to me. jwr
PS: I think ,over 1500 years ago, the Greek Sage Bitethebulletcus predicted this very argument.
 
The root of the controversy and what I think what galls many folks is that Ruger claims to have started with a "blank piece of paper" in designing it when they obviously didn't.
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Sure it was a blank piece of paper.

Copy paper.
 
koka: i sure hope it comes out the end of this month and it better be a good one to. I will grab the first one I can find, and I bet that isn't going to be an easy gun to find. Not sure how many they can make in one day either. I sure like everything about it-SO FAR.
 
koka: i sure hope it comes out the end of this month and it better be a good one to. I will grab the first one I can find, and I bet that isn't going to be an easy gun to find. Not sure how many they can make in one day either. I sure like everything about it-SO FAR.
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I also had an email conversation with a sales rep at Kahr that told me there is a good possibility they will have a high cap pistol out in 09.

Gives me a little time to decide which of my high capacity pistols will be leaving to make room for the Kahr HiCap pistol.
 
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