General GunTuber thread

[SinistralRifleman]

why are you and Karl politicizing the firearms hobby and trade more so than it already is by injecting new far left perspectives on a natural human right - a right under attack through well-funded political action by zealots and ideologues that derive power and wealth from pushing an authoritarian agenda under the color of leftist ideology? the recent video interview Karl did was great. he should behave more along those lines instead of engaging in political slapfights that cause people to dig into his beliefs and personal lives which he might not want to be public knowledge. you are not any different than that. avoid the politics and enjoy the hobby or participate in the industry. there is no gain from purposely reducing the population of possible friends or customers when those in power and those vying for power are already doing that.

What the hell are you talking about? I don't post about far left anything. My personal politics are often the polar opposite of Karl's. The last thing I publicly commented on was saying Kyle Rittenhouse was probably legally justified based on the video evidence in 2020 and I got banned from SomethingAwful for it.

My marketing and sales tactics are deliberately apolitical. I am a capitalist first and foremost. I am interested in selling to anyone legally allowed to purchase firearms.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

This is my question. The AR has always had captive pins. Why the fuck did they remove it? To save a precious oz?

My guess is mass, since you'd need to make the polymer thicker than you would with aluminum in order to make sure that those bits don't break. However since the KP15 is Phagan's baby the reasoning is probably way more autistic and pedantic.

Because in a polymer design having the spring and detent holes creates fail points. On the front the outer wall eventually cracks out. At the rear take down pin the hole for the spring and detent has to be relocated vertical because the buttstock is integral; you'll see the same repositioning on .308 receivers because of dimensional differences. This hole becomes a fail point in the polymer that will gradually crack over time down through the pistol grip. Using pins with the detents built into them reduces scrap rate from drills walking and makes the receiver more structurally sound. There are other ways to potentially do captured pins (see the SCAR Fire Control Module), but they could potentially interfere with the ability to use normal AR15 uppers.

Oh hey what do you know?

 

[Club Sandwich]

Many of the details in this post are painfully wrong. If you want the actual history of the CAV-15 receiver you can read it here: https://sinistralrifleman.com/2013/01/27/history-of-the-cav-15-polymer-receiver/

why did the very early Cav Arms lowers have the Plum Crazy vertical detente? either that was some weird one-off or the two that i acquired after the 2001 show in Vegas were pre-production. the vertical hole was definitely a bad idea though. later from RSR, i received shipments (2008?) of receivers with ball detente take down pins, so as far as i know those were the last ones available. i was told there was an aluminum reinforcement at the rear due to cracking through the rear takedown pin hole, however i never cut apart a receiver to check. i do know that a couple other manufacturers at the time were doing something similar with brass reinforcement especially because the threading of the area for a collapsing stock was prone to failure.

What the hell are you talking about? I don't post about far left anything. My personal politics are often the polar opposite of Karl's. The last thing I publicly commented on was saying Kyle Rittenhouse was probably legally justified based on the video evidence in 2020 and I got banned from SomethingAwful for it.

My marketing and sales tactics are deliberately apolitical. I am a capitalist first and foremost. I am interested in selling to anyone legally allowed to purchase firearms.

then i've confused you for the other guy Karl has been featuring now and again. feel free to ignore that portion and my apologies for that confusion.

 

[Shaka Brah]

then i've confused you for the other guy Karl has been featuring now and again. feel free to ignore that portion and my apologies for that confusion.

Are you thinking of Deviant Ollam?

 

[Club Sandwich]

Are you thinking of Deviant Ollam?

probably. i don't keep track of people i don't deal with personally, so i'm pretty sure i just confused him for someone else that spergs out online. they all blend together at one point or another and his hostile "It's been fun reading your conspiracy theories, gossip, and grown up telephone game rumors." is both unprofessional and unexpected in someone directly involved that deals with the public regularly during the course of business, regardless of the forum for the interaction.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

his hostile "It's been fun reading your conspiracy theories, gossip, and grown up telephone game rumors." i

Remember the whole "Phagan is Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons" thing? This is exactly what we were talking about, he's always like this.

 

[SinistralRifleman]

why did the very early Cav Arms lowers have the Plum Crazy vertical detente? either that was some weird one-off or the two that i acquired after the 2001 show in Vegas were pre-production. the vertical hole was definitely a bad idea though. later from RSR, i received shipments (2008?) of receivers with ball detente take down pins, so as far as i know those were the last ones available. i was told there was an aluminum reinforcement at the rear due to cracking through the rear takedown pin hole, however i never cut apart a receiver to check. i do know that a couple other manufacturers at the time were doing something similar with brass reinforcement especially because the threading of the area for a collapsing stock was prone to failure.

then i've confused you for the other guy Karl has been featuring now and again. feel free to ignore that portion and my apologies for that confusion.

The earliest CAV-15s used the vertical drilling of the rear take down pin and detent to maintain commonality with standard AR15 parts. The more parts commonality guns have the easier they are to sell; as you can see from the conversation around this any small deviation (even with good reason) causes people to think its a major design flaw.

By CAV-15 Gen 4 (2001) it became apparent that this vertical spring/detent hole was both a fail point for cracking and a lot of receivers were being scrapped from drills walking out the side drilling that hole.

Cav Arms ordered some off the shelf pins available from DPMS at that time with the detents built into them and experimented with not drilling the holes for the spring and detents and using these pins sometime in 2002. When it was found that it worked and eliminated the fail point, Cav Arms had OEM runs of these pins made that went out with all new CAV-15 MKIs produced. All CAV-15 MKIIs (2003 forward) used these type of pins.

There are very few CAV-15 Gen 1-4 still in circulation today; most people traded them in to Cav Arms for CAV-15 MKIIs.

None of the CAV-15s have metal reinforcements for detents or structural features.

No worries, I do believe you are thinking of Deviant Ollam.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I do however care about you getting things about the KP-15 wrong, and polymer firearms in general wrong. Because as someone here mentioned I am that kind of sperg. The KP-15 project has been the most transparent I have ever seen in the industry and I am very accessible to answer questions rather than make wild speculations and guesses.

Since we are here, I'd like to know what is the point in developing and producing the KP-15. I don't mean it dismissively, either: there have been quite a few foibles, a fairly long development process, and I can't imagine any of this has been cheap. This is also the third (fourth?) attempt at the concept, if I got my CAV Arms history right. So, I'm genuinely curious as to what makes all the development and manufacture work worthwhile, compared to producing a conventional lower.

What's so good about a polymer lower that anyone should get it over a conventional lower? What made you invest in this project? Would you have done it if the product didn't have Forgotten Weapons and InRange's very public blessing/shilling?

This all has a whiff of capitalizing on novelty to me. Of course, novelty is a perfectly valid reason to sell (or buy) a product, if that's what the client is looking for. But it does shorten the product's legs quite considerably in the long run.

 

[SinistralRifleman]

Since we are here, I'd like to know what is the point in developing and producing the KP-15. I don't mean it dismissively, either: there have been quite a few foibles, a fairly long development process, and I can't imagine any of this has been cheap. This is also the third (fourth?) attempt at the concept, if I got my CAV Arms history right. So, I'm genuinely curious as to what makes all the development and manufacture work worthwhile, compared to producing a conventional lower.

What's so good about a polymer lower that anyone should get it over a conventional lower? What made you invest in this project? Would you have done it if the product didn't have Forgotten Weapons and InRange's very public blessing/shilling?

This all has a whiff of capitalizing on novelty to me. Of course, novelty is a perfectly valid reason to sell (or buy) a product, if that's what the client is looking for. But it does shorten the product's legs quite considerably in the long run.

The 4th iteration of a monolithic AR15 style lower is probably correct; Colt being the first in the 1960s.

Without Inrange and Forgotten Weapons on board it would have been much harder/riskier to make the KP-15. Polymer acceptance is much higher than it was 20 years ago, but any deviation from established norms is an up hill battle. Every 4 years there is a massive sales spike in the gun industry. Part of these sales spikes means raw materials like aluminum forgings and billet end up in short supply. In 2019 when we started this project we anticipated normal election season sales craziness. InRange and Forgotten Weapons created market demand for a product no one was filling and this upcoming anticipated sales period made it more of a sure thing. Then 2020 happened; fear of civil unrest starting in March, then riots over the summer, then normal scheduled firearms sales surge during the election. Normally these periods last 4-6 months. This time the industry had 16 months of absolutely insane sales by the time it was done.

The Development process was around a year from starting to first production parts in October of 2020. Normally a mold would take around 4-6 months, but 2020 covid disruptions made it take longer. When we started shipping there were tens of thousands of units on order and we started filling them. From a manufacturing perspective we can make roughly 8 polymer receivers in the same time period as one aluminum receiver, and not be effected by the same material supply chain issues. So while there was nothing on the shelves at distributors we were shipping thousands of KP-15s every week.

We shipped ~30,000 units in the course of 7 months. We sold enough KP-15s to justify reinvesting in tooling for a 9mm glock mag variant. Things have slowed down now, but we can turn that faucet back on as needed to meet market demand. Under this administration it could be next week, next year, or in 3 years? This industry is a roller coaster.

Why would a consumer want one?
lighter weight, lower cost (especially for a flared magwell), something different, color options, or availability. The people that want one generally know they want one. If you don't want one I probably won't convince you and I don't want to try. My methodology is simply showing that they work, and explaining tech issues as they arise.

 

[TerminalTryHard]

The 4th iteration of a monolithic AR15 style lower is probably correct; Colt being the first in the 1960s.

Without Inrange and Forgotten Weapons on board it would have been much harder/riskier to make the KP-15. Polymer acceptance is much higher than it was 20 years ago, but any deviation from established norms is an up hill battle. Every 4 years there is a massive sales spike in the gun industry. Part of these sales spikes means raw materials like aluminum forgings and billet end up in short supply. In 2019 when we started this project we anticipated normal election season sales craziness. InRange and Forgotten Weapons created market demand for a product no one was filling and this upcoming anticipated sales period made it more of a sure thing. Then 2020 happened; fear of civil unrest starting in March, then riots over the summer, then normal scheduled firearms sales surge during the election. Normally these periods last 4-6 months. This time the industry had 16 months of absolutely insane sales by the time it was done.

The Development process was around a year from starting to first production parts in October of 2020. Normally a mold would take around 4-6 months, but 2020 covid disruptions made it take longer. When we started shipping there were tens of thousands of units on order and we started filling them. From a manufacturing perspective we can make roughly 8 polymer receivers in the same time period as one aluminum receiver, and not be effected by the same material supply chain issues. So while there was nothing on the shelves at distributors we were shipping thousands of KP-15s every week.

We shipped ~30,000 units in the course of 7 months. We sold enough KP-15s to justify reinvesting in tooling for a 9mm glock mag variant. Things have slowed down now, but we can turn that faucet back on as needed to meet market demand. Under this administration it could be next week, next year, or in 3 years? This industry is a roller coaster.

Why would a consumer want one?
lighter weight, lower cost (especially for a flared magwell), something different, color options, or availability. The people that want one generally know they want one. If you don't want one I probably won't convince you and I don't want to try. My methodology is simply showing that they work, and explaining tech issues as they arise.

No offense but until you reach out to a mod and prove you are SR I'm just going to assume you're some random weirdo. Don't take it personally but this is KF and people regularly show up here claiming to be people or to have insider information and it often turns out to be bullshit.

 

[SinistralRifleman]

No offense but until you reach out to a mod and prove you are SR I'm just going to assume you're some random weirdo. Don't take it personally but this is KF and people regularly show up here claiming to be people or to have insider information and it often turns out to be bullshit.

Sure, where are the mods listed? Or which one specifically should I message?

 

[WinchesterWhiskey]

@SinistralRifleman Yo Russ, if that's actually you, I'm just here to shitpost and call out what I see, man.

 

[Rose Breeder]

Sure, where are the mods listed? Or which one specifically should I message?

It is my belief that @Null is the one who handles verification requests, and will assign you the POI-tag, provided you confirm your identity. I do not think you are deserving of the lolcow-tag quite yet.

 

[SinistralRifleman]

It is my belief that @Null is the one who handles verification requests, and will assign you the POI-tag, provided you confirm your identity. I do think you are deserving of the lolcow-tag quite yet.

I sent email to the address listed there.

Alternately I can record a proof of life video tomorrow and upload it to my channel.

 

[Rose Breeder]

Alternately I can record a proof of life video tomorrow and upload it to my channel.

Please do. Make sure to mention the forum and it's owner, Judas Moon, if you decide to upload such.

 

[MrJokerRager]

The 4th iteration of a monolithic AR15 style lower is probably correct; Colt being the first in the 1960s.

Without Inrange and Forgotten Weapons on board it would have been much harder/riskier to make the KP-15. Polymer acceptance is much higher than it was 20 years ago, but any deviation from established norms is an up hill battle. Every 4 years there is a massive sales spike in the gun industry. Part of these sales spikes means raw materials like aluminum forgings and billet end up in short supply. In 2019 when we started this project we anticipated normal election season sales craziness. InRange and Forgotten Weapons created market demand for a product no one was filling and this upcoming anticipated sales period made it more of a sure thing. Then 2020 happened; fear of civil unrest starting in March, then riots over the summer, then normal scheduled firearms sales surge during the election. Normally these periods last 4-6 months. This time the industry had 16 months of absolutely insane sales by the time it was done.

The Development process was around a year from starting to first production parts in October of 2020. Normally a mold would take around 4-6 months, but 2020 covid disruptions made it take longer. When we started shipping there were tens of thousands of units on order and we started filling them. From a manufacturing perspective we can make roughly 8 polymer receivers in the same time period as one aluminum receiver, and not be effected by the same material supply chain issues. So while there was nothing on the shelves at distributors we were shipping thousands of KP-15s every week.

We shipped ~30,000 units in the course of 7 months. We sold enough KP-15s to justify reinvesting in tooling for a 9mm glock mag variant. Things have slowed down now, but we can turn that faucet back on as needed to meet market demand. Under this administration it could be next week, next year, or in 3 years? This industry is a roller coaster.

Why would a consumer want one?
lighter weight, lower cost (especially for a flared magwell), something different, color options, or availability. The people that want one generally know they want one. If you don't want one I probably won't convince you and I don't want to try. My methodology is simply showing that they work, and explaining tech issues as they arise.

I take it that this device is not legal in California then again what is legal there anymore. It will soon be the most individualistic state with every man for himself for anyone left there at the rate everything is getting the ban hammer.

 

[Club Sandwich]

I take it that this device is not legal in California then again what is legal there anymore. It will soon be the most individualistic state with every man for himself for anyone left there at the rate everything is getting the ban hammer.

the KP-15 is a centerfire, semiautomatic, detachable magazine-fed rifle and could be made California compliant with some minor effort, either with a blind magazine well, or a completely "featureless" design which would require modifying the lower to delete the pistol grip and have a replacement of some kind in it's place. other "features" like a barrel shroud or flash hider would also need to be removed. more recently, a vertical grip (or forward pistol grip as amended in PC) is also counted as a feature. a centerfire, semiautomatic rifle that has a detachable magazine must not have any other feature as listed.

given the KP-15 is molded polymer, deleting the pistol grip and allow the attachment of something like a monsterman grip for CA compliance and then any normal AR-15 upper that has a muzzle brake would likely meet compliance requirements as illustrated by many other CA compliant rifles.

the other method is to keep all the features, and modify the magazine to no longer be detachable, but instead require "disassembly of the action" or opening the action (separate the upper and lower receivers) to load a non-removable blind magazine. Bushmaster had such a rifle that worked like that: the Carbon-15 top loader.

alternately the gas system could be removed entirely and a conversion to pump action or straight pull might be alright if the upper receiver was modified to delete the gas tube and prevent the insertion of one. that would likely be annoying to keep track of and would require a particular order to not do that machining step. easier would be to do one of the others.

modifying a mold is not cheap, so deleting the pistol grip is likely the more expensive path of the two remaining options and while CA has a large gun community, it might not be large enough for a limited release product line that would require a uniquely modified mold. if i were doing it, a blind magazine would be the best option, by taking a standard KP-15 lower and drill a pair of blind holes in such a way as to support a standard 10 round magazine in place (all other parts being standard AR-15 parts including a useless magazine release). after finishing the receiver, a magazine is inserted and then drilled through using a fixture for the insertion of a pair of blind pins to keep the magazine in place through the front (just below the lowest travel of the follower for 10 rounds) and rear (just forward of the "tail" of the follower that is in the spine) of the magazine. this would fix the magazine in place and require opening and separating the receiver from the upper to reload. therefore, it would require user modification to become non-compliant and would be likely legal under current CA law. he could also just sell the lower alone, since it's just a frame and not on either of the rosters.

ref: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=30515.&lawCode=PEN

 

[Cold Root Beer]

For all the walls of text he's posted on here defending this meme lower, he hasn't managed to address why he thought going into business with someone cringe enough to list their title on LinkedIn as "warlord" would be good idea:

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

the KP-15 is a centerfire, semiautomatic, detachable magazine-fed rifle and could be made California compliant with some minor effort, either with a blind magazine well, or a completely "featureless" design which would require modifying the lower to delete the pistol grip and have a replacement of some kind in it's place. other "features" like a barrel shroud or flash hider would

Ares used to make something called the SCR lower which was effectively a traditional monte carlo style stock for a featureless AR upper. It looked like the bastard love child of an AR15 and a Mini14, you could probably do that in full polymer and they'd most likely sell like gangbusters.

Spoiler: This fugly thing

ADDENDUM: Did a quick Google search and it looks like you can still get these things but the company either changed it's name or was bought out, they go by FightLite Industries now.

 

[Club Sandwich]

SCR lower

the problem would be the articulated carrier which would put an awful lot of stress at the wrist of the stock, not to mention the issue of the ownership of the design and how permissible it would be to use a "polymer version" of it. that isn't even going into the costs of tooling up for a design that barely uses anything from what you already have tools for.