Hello Kiwi Farms members. It's been fun reading your conspiracy theories, gossip, and grown up telephone game rumors. I really don't care about you constantly getting that stuff wrong.
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. One of the conversations I've had with Ian is "looking at how wrong people get this stuff when the primary sources are still alive and can be questioned, how accurate do you think an article on something from 100 years ago is?".
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.
There is a reason for every design decision on the KP-15. You may not agree with some of the design choices on the KP-15; but every decision is a balancing act of features, function, cost, and execution.
