By Tom McHale This is a list of things I like to check out
when I have my AR 15 rifle field stripped for basic AR-15 Maintenance
& cleaning.
AR-15 Maintenance Care – 13 Things To Keep Your AR Rifle RunningTom McHaleUSA –-(Ammoland.com)- Cleaning
your AR-type rifle is a great opportunity to run through a quick
checklist of preventative maintenance and inspection steps.
Investing
a few seconds in some quick checks may just help your rifle from
vomiting parts while at the range, which can ruin your fun range day and
embarrass you in front of your friends.
If you kick in doors for a living, you (hopefully) already have a personal routine for rifle maintenance – it’s life and death after all.
But
if you’re a recreational or competitive shooter, then you can afford to
be slightly less rigorous. Contrary to internet myth, the AR platform
has become a pretty darn reliable piece of equipment.
One thing to check at every cleaning is the extractor.Back
to the point. I jotted down this list of things I like to check out
when I have my rifle field stripped for basic cleaning. Take a look, but
don’t get all stressed out about every little detail. Your AR-type
rifle is a remarkably resilient platform.
We’ll be using a Smith & Wesson M&P15 OR (Optics Ready) rifle as our model for this exercise. It’s a common gun that’s solid and reliable, with standard parts.
1. AR-15 Takedown Pins
You
can check the very first item as you separate the upper and lower
halves of your rifle. If everything is fit properly, you should be able
to push the takedown pins through
with hand pressure or very light tap. If you have to break out a hammer
to move your takedown pins, something is wrong – the whole point of the
AR design is to be able to use a finger, bullet tip or field-expedient
tool, like the Real Avid Ar15 Tool, to field strip the rifle for basic maintenance.
Besides, hammering away on your (most likely) aluminum receiver is usually detrimental to the long-term health of your gun.
The takedown pins should not require excessive force to open. By the way, the safety lever shown here is a Blackhawk! Offset Safety – one of the neatest little AR inventions ever.
2. AR-15 Muzzle Devices
Witt Machine AR15 Tactical Muzzle Brake : http://goo.gl/xsO7ZXWhile we’re still on the outside, give your muzzle device (brake, flash hider or silencer) a firm twist in both directions. Is it solid? While rare for a factory mounted device to work loose, it happens.
If you’ve ever removed the factory muzzle device and put your own in place, it’s somewhat more likely.
A half-second check, every cleaning, can prevent a whole lot of embarrassment and worse yet, flying chunks of metal.
3. AR-15 Optic and Mount
Another
no brainer is your optic and mount. Check the bases to make sure
they’re still tightly affixed to the receiver. Check the scope rings, if
applicable to make sure they’re tight to the proper specification. Poor
accuracy from a rifle is almost always the result of something silly
like a bad scope or scope loose mounts. Sometimes its optic internals
and you can narrow that down by ensuring that the externals are solid. One benefit of investing in a high-end optic like this Aimpoint PRO
is that it will stay put. I love this self-torquing mount. Just give it
a quick turn once in a while ’til it clicks, and you know it’s tight.
4. AR-15 Bolt Carrier Gas Key
When
you open the upper receiver, the first thing you do is remove the
charging handle and bolt carrier group. Since you’ve got your hand on it
anyway, this is a great time to do a quick visual and tactile
inspection of your bolt carrier gas key.
Look at it to make sure the screws are firmly in place. More
importantly, give it a firm twist with your hands. It should be rock
solid on the carrier body itself. If it’s not, you’re going to have some
malfunctions headed your way as gas is bleeding off before doing it’s
thing. The repair procedure is too involved to cover here, just know
you’re going to want to take it completely apart, thoroughly clean and
degrease everything and firmly remount it and stake the screws in place. This gas key is rock solid. The screws are properly staked. I also checked for cracks on the carrier body.
5. AR-15 Bolt Carrier Body
As
you disassemble the bolt from the carrier, check the carrier body
itself for cracks. Pay close attention to high-impact areas like the cam
pin hole – that takes a beating over time. If you see any cracks in
your carrier, it needs to be replaced. No big worries though, for a
recreational rifle, this is somewhat unlikely unless your bolt carrier group is made out of Mighty Putty.
6. AR-15 Maintenance – Bolt Lugs
This
is also a good time to inspect the lugs on your bolt. Make sure there
are no chips or peening signs. Peening is just a fancy word for “smashed” or “dented.” If you see signs of either, it’s time for a new Ar15 bolt. These bolt lugs are sharp – just the way they should be.
7. AR-15 Maintenance – Firing Pin
When
you wipe down the firing pin, put on your Mr. Magoo specs and look at
the tip. It should be smooth and rounded – no chips or weird dents.
Again, if you see either, get a new one. They’re cheap. Slightly dirty, but this firing pin is in perfect condition.
8. AR-15 Maintenance – Extractor and Spring
I like to pop off the extractor and
take a quick look since that’s one of the more likely failure points.
Check the extractor to make sure it’s whole and has nice sharp edges.
Also take a look at the spring and booster. That’s a plastic insert
inside the spring. Again, these are all cheap parts, so if anything is missing or looks wonky, replace it.
9.AR-15 Maintenance – Gas Rings, or Not
People get all lathered up about gas rings. If they’re not perfectly “unaligned,”
meaning none of the gaps line up, then the moon might crash into Possum
Kingdom, South Carolina. And that would be tragic indeed. In reality,
If you have more than one gas ring in place, your rifle will most likely
still function – gaps aligned or unaligned. If memory serves, AR guru
Patrick Sweeney did some tests way back when to test this and found that
it just doesn’t matter all that much. Once again, if you’re employed as
one of those dudes or dudettes that line up outside Meth labs or clay
huts, then you might pay more attention. As to the rest of us? Check
them and tweak their orientation, but don’t lose a lot of sleep over the
issue. Oh no! These three gas rings are ‘almost’ lined up! Run for your lives!!!In
an ideal world, what you should see is three normal looking gas rings,
with the gaps unaligned. To test for wear, simply pull the bolt out of
the carrier as far as it will go. Stand the bolt and carrier up on a
flat surface. If the carrier doesn’t start to slip down, you’re good to
go. If it does, your gas rings are worn. Get some new ones.
10. AR-15 Maintenance – Lower Receiver
Moving
to the lower receiver, take a peek down into the trigger assembly area.
You’ll almost certainly see grime and crud, and that’s OK – you’re about to clean it after all.
What you don’t want to see are primers or pieces of primers. If primers
are getting blown out of cartridges once in a while, that could be
indicating pressure problems with your ammunition, overheating or
possibly headspace problems. AR-15
Maintenance Wow. Pretty clean for one of my rifles, so I had to show
this photo. Most importantly, there are no primers or bits thereof in
here.
11. AR-15 Maintenance – Recoil Buffer and Spring
Remove your AR15’s buffer and spring.
Check for gunk in the buffer tube and wipe it out as necessary. While
you have the parts out, check the buffer itself to make sure it’s smooth
and not messed up. Give that spring a wipe too. If you’re a casual or
recreational shooter, you can lube up the spring to quiet some of that “sproing” noise during recoil.
Sproing is another fancy word, but fortunately it does not cause harmful things like peening – it just sounds uncool.
12. AR-15 Maintenance – Magazines
You
might as well pop the bottom off your magazines and give the interiors a
quick inspection and wipe down. If you’re dropping them in the dirt,
they will get crud in them. One of the biggest causes of malfunctions is
dirty and / or damaged magazines and it’s easy to be proactive about
that. If I’m having reliability issues, the magazines are the first
thing I’m going to check.
13. AR-15 Maintenance – the Cool & Fun Factor
Last
on the list, after you reassemble the upper and lower receivers, take a
good look at your rifle as a whole. Is it still awesome? Does it still
look ridiculously handy and fun to shoot? Yes? Then you’re good to go!
How about you? How rigorous are you with preventative maintenance? What are the things you look for?
GOP delegates at Texas’s Republican Party state convention will vote Friday on whether the state should secede from the U.S., after the idea passed a special platform committee on Wednesday.
The motion is not expected to pass the convention,
but it’s a major step forward for activists with the Texas Nationalist
Movement, who have long been agitating for the Lone Star State to secede
from the union. The group reported a 400% increase in membership after the 2012 election, and more than 100,000 people signed a Change.org petition to the White House asking it to allow Texas’s secession.
Jon Carson, director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, responded to the petition by citing the Supreme Court’s 1869 decision in Texas v. White, which ruled “[t]he Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.”
“As much as we value a healthy debate, we don’t let that debate tear us apart,” Carson wrote.
Reporter Pete Santilli had
his hearing in Nevada on Monday on trumped up charges he is facing for
his reporting on the Bundy Ranch Siege in 2014. As he left the courtroom
in chains, he cried out, “I’m a journalist. This is what they do in
Communist China!”
The Law Vegas Review Journal reports:
Peter Santilli, a conservative Internet talk show
host, lost another bid for freedom Monday while he faces felony charges
in the criminal case stemming from the Bunkerville standoff.
Following a hearing, Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro
said she did not buy Santilli’s argument that he was a journalist
covering the April 12, 2014, armed confrontation between the Bundy
family and law enforcement. He hosts the Internet-based “Pete Santilli
Show” from Cincinnati on YouTube. Navarro ordered Santilli to remain behind bars after finding that
he is a danger to the community and that he cannot be relied on to make
his court appearances.
His lawyer, Chris Rasmussen, argued that Santilli’s free speech
rights were being violated and sought the defendant’s release with
conditions.
But First Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Myhre countered that the
case was not about free speech, but rather about the armed assault of
federal agents.
Resources: 12v – 19v / 5 amps Step Up Converter in Metal Chassis $18.23 Same Thing in 10 amp Model – $16.50 Adjustable Power Supply 80w – $12.50 100 amp/hour Sealed Lead Acid Storage Battery – $169 100 watt Solar Panel – $114 Charge Controller 30 amps – $40 5v/3amp Converter w/2 USB Ports -$3.05 5v/3amp Converter in Video w/2 USB Ports $3.50 5v/5amp Conerter in Metal Chassis $8.99 10 Pack 3a Buck Converters – $22.99 Raspberry Pi Information The Pi on Ebay
It
has been a long time since my last topic on solar power. Not much has
changed. A basic solar system is still made up of panels, a charge
controller, and storage batteries. It’s not rocket science, and the
prices haven’t lowered significantly, except perhaps in storage
batteries.
I did, however, find and tested something of late
regarding power that I think I should share with you. It is survival
computing. Most people think of computers, even laptops, in terms of
wall socket, AC power, but they run on DC. That one of two functions of
your power adapter, converting AC into DC, which on a laptop then
charges your battery, and the laptop runs off of the battery. Desktop
computers also run off of DC, and they have an internal power supply
that does the same thing as your laptop adapter, but for this article we
are going to stick to laptops, and other portable devices.
In
general I am not a big fan of power inverters. They are always going to
be your point of failure in a solar, wind, hydro, or thermo power
solution, and they should be avoided whenever possible. I think you
should run as much off of 12 volts as you can, but there are a lot of
benefits to having a laptop available, and phones and tablets are
priceless if you have kids. None of these will run off of pure 12 volts,
so you will need a power inverter. The nice thing is, your batteries
are DC and the computers run on DC, so half of the inverter isn’t
required (the oscillator, to make the power AC). The other half, the
part that changes the voltage, is much simpler as well. Instead of
ramping 12 volts up to 120 volts, you only have to message the voltage
up to 19 volts in the case of laptops, or cut it down to less than half
for all of your 5 volt devices.
I’m also going to cover a $25 low
voltage/low amperage computer solution that is currently being used to
build perimeter security systems, remote listening posts, and even
balloon lifted radio relay antennas, and that also runs on 5 volts. It
is pretty cool stuff.
To focus down a bit first, my topic for this
week is specifically about what most people call “buck converters,” or
“step up/step down transformers.” They are made to lift or drop fairly
low voltages to a percentage increase, or decrease. For this article we
are looking at converters that will take 12 volts as a source (actually
13.6 or so on a regular deep cycle storage battery or car battery), and
convert it to either 19 volts or 5 volts. This is DC to DC, remember.
Even
though I am something of an electronics nerd, I haven’t looked into the
actually schematics for these things. It appears that they use a coil
and control circuits to work some low level voltage magic, and though
the boards are full of components, they are cheap cheap. Some units
have a variable resister pot to control the output voltage, and some are
dedicated to a certain voltage, and come encased in a weatherproof and
shockproof chassis.
The most common voltage for laptops is 19
volts and most of the buck converters are built to appeal primarily to
that voltage, with enough power to cover the draw of most laptops. My
current Lenovo power supplies say 20 volts, but if you open up the case,
the actual internal battery is listed as 19.4 volts. For consumption,
usually the power supplies will list a wattage rating of 60-100 watts,
or they will say 3-5 amps, which at 19-20 volts is 60-100 watts.
When
you buy a buck converter, the variable voltage models generally are
listed in watts, and the fixed voltage ones are listed in amps. I have
focused on the 60-100 watt range for this article, but they are now
listed on Ebay for up to 200 watts, and even higher occasionally. For
most single laptops this is overkill, but I do have a beast of a Dell
that is several years old and that has a 7.7amps@19.5v power supply.
That is 150 watts.
Fixed vs. Variable Voltage
When I first
purchased these they were much more expensive, so this decision isn’t
as important as it once was. The 12v to 19v converter that you see in
the video, rated at 5 amps, used to be $40. Now it is $18.23 with free
shipping. The 10 amp model is even cheaper than that these days, linked
above.
The adjustable supply with the voltage readout is only
$12.50 with shipping. To me it is a no brainer to buy one of these as
well, because you never know what you might need to charge down the
line. The Canon camera that I shot the above video on has an 8.4v power
adapter. When the wall socket goes down for good, I may want to document
what happens next. You also may want to run a wireless network, charge a
remote control car for your kid, or play your guitar through a signal
processor and headphones. A lot of things run on odd voltages and come
with those odd voltage wall warts. Clip off the wart, dial in your
inverter, and start shredding away.
Charging Phones, Tablets, GPS, etc.
The
nice thing about all of our nifty devices that clutter up our lives
these days is that most of them have long lasting internal batteries,
and they all charge on 5 volts. There are dedicated solar charging
devices for them, and even thermal ones as I have reviewed in the past,
but the problem is, the capacity of those batteries is really small. In
solar panel terms it isn’t worth charging the devices directly, because
they’ll be fully charged with the sun still shining using a real solar
panel, and the gimicky backpacker solar chargers are a complete waste of
time. You’ll pay as much for a small 2-3 watt designer solar panel that
is rigged for 5v output as you will for a 40-100 watt real 12 volt
solar panel, and if I were you I would opt for the real panel and real
storage.
The battery you see in the video is a generic sealed lead
acid 100 amp/hour model that goes for $169 shipped. If you are careful
to not run it down past 50%, it should last years, if not a decade. 50
amp hours (half) equals 680 watt hours at 13.6 volts, (which it won’t
hold for the entire life of the charge), but even if you say 500 watt
hours, if your laptop is drawing a high amount, like 100 watts (which is
most likely double what it really draws), that equals 5 hours. In
practice it will be more like 12 hours.
To refill 680 watts, using
a 100 watt panel, you should be able to match that in about one day
worth of daylight, assuming some direct sun. But even if it takes a
couple days, or a few days, or even a week, that much use out of a
computer if you are using it as an RTL-SDR receiver, or with your Ham
radio, or even just to watch movies, is pretty darn good. A 100 watt
solar panel right now is as little as $114 shipped. The 30 amp charge
controller you see here in the video is $12-40.
The buck
converters for 5 volts are even cheaper. In a waterproof case with two
USB ports pre-wired, the whole thing is all of $3.50 shipped. This will
charge your phone or tablet just as fast as nearly any wall charger, and
the input circuits of those devices generally limit the input to 2 amps
at most regardless, so more amps isn’t going to charge you quicker. I
have also linked to a 5 amp model meant to be mounted in a car and hard
wired to mounted USB ports in the dash. I charged the dead dead Ipad you
see in the video from that 100ah battery and it used about 1% of the
charge.
The Raspberry Pi
I feel that I would be remiss if I
failed to mention the newest revolution in computer technology for this
article. It is called the Raspberry Pi, and it is a $25 full featured
computer based on the Debian Linux operating system. Right now they are a
little more expensive that that because they can’t make them fast
enough and they are going for a premium. There is even a $5 Pi now
(though I haven’t gotten one or tested it) and I just saw one being bid
up on Ebay to over $25.
I call it a revolution, but it is more of a
counter-revolution. Because going on 30 years, computing has been the
battle of the stupid between the PC and the Mac. Apple is one of the
most profitable companies in the world today because they have
succeeding in making computer devices that are almost entire
idiot-proof.
Well not of us are idiots, and some of us would even
prefer to teach our kids to not be idiots. That as the idea behind the
Raspberry Pi. Build a cheap, basic computer with enough power to do most
stuff for a cheap cheap price, so that kids could use it in a classroom
setting as a software and hardware development learning tool.
In a
very inexpensive package, the Raspberry Pi was created to break out the
things that the hardware of a computer can do into usable chunks, and
with each of those chunks you can program everything from lighting
simple LEDs, to running a sensor network, to controlling a robot army.
Google
around and you’ll see some of the incredible things that people have
done with this little $25 computer. In practice it isn’t really $25,
because you have to buy a memory card, a wireless dongle, a keyboard, a
mouse, a screen, and an HDMI cable. It will run on any TV, so you may be
able to save money on the screen to get started.
What makes the
Pi unique, (and it isn’t unique these days because there are a few good
copies), is that you have access to all of the ports, and what they call
GPIO pins, which are control points that you can program. I’m not
going to get into the depth of the Pi, but you’ll see that people have
used it for all kinds of nifty things that directly pertain to perimeter
security, communications, and remote activation of electronic defenses.
Based on a “system on a chip” originally designed for TV set top boxes,
the Pi isn’t a ton of computing power, but you have complete access to
everything that a computer can really do.
There is also a new
version of Windows 10 that runs on the Pi, but it is experimental, and
traditionally the Pi runs a special version of Debian Linux called
Raspbian. For serious tasks you’ll be using the Python computer
language, which isn’t that different than Perl, the original language of
the web that GunsAmerica, Ebay, Amazon, and all the other first
generation automated websites were built from. If you have any
programming experience at all, Python should be easy, and when you see
how cheap you can get some very serious sensor boards, relay boards, and
even Arduino control boards for these days, if you have the time you’ll
be digging in I can assure you. These little computers are truly modern
wonders of technology.
What Can I Do With This Computing Power?
If you didn’t see my article on RTL-SDR, you should read it now.
It is from last year, so there is no accompany video. We take
communication and information for granted, but after this whole mess
burns down and evolves into chaos, there will be neither. I think the
powers that be will try to keep the Fox News et al propaganda machine on
as long as possible, but at some point everything is going to go dark,
simply because the supply lines of food are going to fail.
An
RTL-SDR radio is not unlike the Pi (though the Pi is not powerful enough
to run the graphical software, but people do use Pis to transmit raw
data from balloon antennas to laptops on the ground). The RTL-SDR took
something we consider simple, like turning on a TV, a little more
complex, but with that complexity (really not more than installing
software and learning something about antennas), that in turn made the
technology more flexible. This brought an enormous power to really use
the simple technology (in this case it was a laptop TV dongle chip) to
give you what could only be achieved by expensive systems before.
You
can “watch” huge swaths of radio bandwidth with an RTL-SDR for any
audible signals. Think about this in contrast to even an expensive Ham
radio, which is limited to certain frequency blocks anyway. On a Ham
radio, unless you use it’s computer interface, you can listen to about
3,000 hertz at a time. With an RTL-SDR and a decent laptop you can watch
and listen on 2,000,000 hertz. Prior to this, you needed an expensive
modern Ham radio, interface cables and more knowhow than it takes to get
the RTL-SDR going.
You can also monitor radiation levels while
you are sleeping with a laptop and some of the USB Geigers I have
covered here, and don’t discount the value of entertainment in a
survival situation. A 2 terabyte drive right now is about $60. You can
put hundreds of movies on one drive, tens of thousands of books, fiction
and nonfiction including encyclopedias and how to books for just about
everything.
Tablets and phones, primarily the Android devices, are
also valuable for entertainment, and if you have kids, the games will
for the most part work off of the network. I have also covered a network
free GPS topo map you can buy for Android, and there now both Ham radio
and RTL-SDR apps you can get for Android. This is no joke stuff, you
just have to learn to use it now, before the collapse.
That is why
I suggest you do take some time and download the RTL-SDR software, buy a
couple of good antennas, get a good Geiger, and get busy downloading
movies. If you have time for the Pi, go for it. There are dozens of uses
for sensors and relays in a survival situation. But you have to get
going now. You know they say there only two times in your life that it
is wise to plant a tree. Thirty years ago and right now.
Read More at Kel-Tec: http://www.keltecweapons.com/our-guns/pistol/rdb
The
first Kel-Tec firearm I ever shot was a KSG. The radically redesigned
12 gauge left me impressed. Since then I’ve shot and loved almost every
gun Kel-Tec has produced. Just like the KSG shook up the shotgun world,
Kel-Tec’s newest offering–the RDB (Rifle, Downward-ejecting Bullpup)–is
poised to redefine what a black rifle can be.
The gun is less alien looking that most of the other bullpups on the market.
Specifications
Caliber 5.56mm NATO
Magazines AR Stanag
Barrel Length 17.4″
Overall Length 27.4″
Weight Empty 7 lbs.
MSRP $1272.73
Slim, trim, compact…. The RDB is also one of the smallest, lightest bullpups available.
What
makes the RDB special? We’ll scatter that out through this review,
because it isn’t just one thing–though what’s getting the most attention
is in the name itself. The gun ejects empty brass down, out the bottom
of the stock, which solves one of the biggest questions bullpup
designers have had to face.
The rounds eject from the gap here between the butt and the magazine.
Consider
that many bullpups are just kits. You take a barreled action and slap
it in a chassis of some sort that moves the trigger forward and the
breech back. Many of the others, the ones built from the ground up,
eject out the side–just like most automatic rifles. This means brass is
ejecting close to the shooter’s face, and that it limits left handed
shooters–as most bullpups shoot that brass directly into the shooter.
Kel-Tec
has tackled this dilemma before. The RFB (Rifle, Forward-ejecting,
Bullpup) collects brass inside the frame and spits it out the front.
I’ve spent some quality time with the RFB. One of the fun things about
that gun is shooting, then tipping the gun forward so the empties can
spill out. It is the mic-drop equivalent of the gun world. But the
design never really caught on, and many had reliability issues with the
gun.
Reliability in any gun design is really important. If you get
a jam in a bullpup, clearing it can be a bitch. Even if you are a
wizard with an AR, getting your fingers up inside a bullpup (especially a
hot bullpup) can take you out of the fight. But this downward brass dump seems to run without a hitch.
Ergonomics
The
RDB was developed to be fully ambidextrous in every way shape and form.
Starting at the back, the RDB has ambidextrous sling mounting points,
bolt releases, a centrally located magazine release, 45-degree-throw
safeties, a left or right-side interchangeable non-reciprocating
charging handle, and even ambidextrous forward sling mounting points.
The mag release is a piece of spring steel that wraps around the mag.
The safety, easy to find with the thumb.
This
aspect is innovative, and has helped build the buzz around the gun, but
there are more subtle features that make it a true contender for those
looking for a tactical carbine. The RDB has a slim rubber butt pad that
helps to keep traction on your shoulder. Moving up the rifle, the RDB
has an integral polymer cheek rest. Most of Kel-Tec’s other other
bullpup weapons were missing this feature, so I’d say this is evidence
that Kel-Tec has been listening customer feedback. The rest of the RDB’s
furniture is polymer and is textured with their Gator Grip pattern. The
Gator Grip provides plenty of traction and looks good on the gun.
Best
of all, the RDB doesn’t punish the shooter with recoil or muzzle rise
and I have to think this is partially due to its caliber and adjustable
gas system.
Gator grip.
The gas tube sits about where it would on a carbine length AR, but this system is adjustable.
Shooting The RDB
Running
the RDB isn’t like any other rifle I’ve ever fired. It’s the abundance
of ambidextrous controls and the downward ejection of spent cases that
will seem unusual at first. I’ve got a lot of trigger time on my Tavor,
so I’m used to bullpups, but learning a new set of controls and
behaviors always takes time.
Still, from what I’ve seen so far,
the RDB is worth the steep learning curve. The ambidextrous controls
allow for a lot of flexibility, the long barrel in the short package
gives the RDB better ballistic potential than many AR-15s, and it weighs
in at just 7 pounds.
The gun ships with one 20 round Gen 3 P-mag
and is capable of using just about every AR style magazine on the
market. I found that the Gen 3 P-mags ran flawlessly but were sluggish
to drop free with the bolt locked back to the rear. These dudes are
light when empty, and wider than a typical steel or aluminum AR mag.
They can get sticky in most guns, which is why AR shooters have
developed that wrist-snap motion to sling them free of the mag well.
I
have confirmed that these will drop free: Lancer, USGI, Hexmag,
E-Lander, Gen2 P-Mag, and the Fab Defense Ultimag. This is important, as
the mag is under your shooting arm and there’s less room to manipulate
the gun.
The Primary Arms red dot.
The
barrel, with rail attached. This method of mounting the rail gives more
stability than you would get from mounting the rail to the polymer
parts.
The gun
ships naked, leaving sight options up to you. I went with a simple
Primary Arms Micro Dot in an effort to keep weight down, but the RDB
would be equally well served with a 1-6 scope. There’s ample rail to
work with, too, so you could combine any number of options.
Accuracy
Why
do most shooters struggle with bullpup accuracy? There can be a number
of reasons. Some have sub-standard, or heavy trigger systems. Placing
the barrel farther back means a reduction in sight radius for those
using irons. And then some of the barrels themselves aren’t
free-floated. But non of this matters for a rifle that is incredibly
maneuverable, fast to the target, and optimized for close-quarters
combat distances. Or at least that’s the list of excuses for poor
accuracy.
5 in under an inch. This was shot with a Primary Arms 1-6 from 50 meters.
5 under two inches from 100 meters, from the bench. This group would be much tighter but for the one flier.
So
where does the RDB stand? Unlike some of the other Kel-Tecs I’ve shot,
the RDB has a near match-quality trigger. It breaks right at 5 lbs. and
has a short take-up with a clean, glass-like break. It simply makes for
accurate and consistent shooting.
I was consistently shooting sub 1.5 inch groups at 50 meters and right at 2 inches at 100 meters with a Primary Arms 1-6 scope.
The
polymer trigger has one spring is exposed. This is the one obvious
point of concern for me, as an exposed spring picks up grit and grime.
It clears it out, too. I had no issues with it, but it is an unusual
design choice.
Problems with the gun?
No gun
is perfect. In fact, most guns I own and love have quirks about them.
The RDB is no exception. In my testing, I found the reliability was
solid and the gun worked well from round 1–no awkward break-in period
needed. My malfunctions occurred when trying to make mag changes too
fast. You have to take things slow at first to get used to working in a
space that’s far less accessible than the mag well on an AR. The only
true malfunctions happened while I was tuning the gas system, and those
are–without question–warranted.
How would the RDB fair in a much
longer testing period? I shot 750+ rounds of ZQI SS109 and Wolf
Polyformance for this review, so I can’t say for sure. I have no reason
to doubt that it won’t keep chugging along.
So what are the points
of concern? What I’m seeing has less to do with the gun itself, and
more to do with the bullpup philosophy. When a malfunction happens–like a
double feed or a failure to extract–you must clear the issue to stay in
the fight. If you aren’t practicing these skills, but relying on your
gun to work as advertised, than you’re missing an important step.
The
AR and AK put the chamber and mag well right in the center of the
rifle. When you bring the gun in to your chest, both hands have access
to everything that’s important. Strip the mag, rack the bolt (multiple
times), jam a finger up in gun if there’s still a problem.
With the bullpup, you give up that convenience and problem solving speed.
America’s bullpup
There’s
one other detail worth noting. The AR-15 is the definitive black rifle,
at least in this country. In its short barreled format, the rifle is
compact enough. Yet most of the guns are still carbine length, or
longer. This extra length, many think, is a deterrent to effective
maneuverability.
That’s the motive behind the bullpup movement. A
short-barreled AR loses some of the 5.56’s punch. So why not leave the
full length barrel in place and just scoot the whole action back into
the stock? What would you lose? The only answer seems to be–as I
mentioned earlier–the problem solving and the ergonomic advantage of
reloading.
The best known bullpup here in America isn’t an
American gun. The IWI Tavor is the reigning champ. Though the Tavor is
compact (in terms of length), it is hardly slim. Part of the Tavor’s
diehard reputation has grown from the serious strength of the gun. The
AR, by contrast, seem skinny. The AR (and, to a lesser extent, the
Tavor) has a proven track record.
The RDB combines the two ideas.
The gun is more narrow. The frame, though polymer, doesn’t feel as large
in the hand, and the design maintains a visual aesthetic that will be
familiar to those who know Kel-Tec. Will it stand up to abuse like a
Tavor or the AR? The verdict on that is still out.
But the RDB
does have an American pedigree. While Kel-Tec has included a long stroke
piston design that is vaguely similar to some Russian designs, it is
American–all the way.
The muzzle brake and a ridge of polymer to use as a hand stop.
Price and Availability
The
RDB is in production and available now. They are normally available
online, but–like all Kel-Tec products–there is a serious demand, so they
will normally bring a premium and be somewhat hard to find. My advice
is to be patient and check often.
Where will that $1.2K price
settle out? After the demand subsides, and the market levels out, I’d
guess the gun will sell for closer to the $1,000 mark.
The Kel-Tec
RDB is truly a unique firearm that is building quite the reputation for
itself. Is it going to replace my go-to fighting rifle? I can say this;
it hasn’t missed a range trip yet since I picked it up.
The gun is easy to break down and service.
The mag release paddle is central on the frame, while the bolt release (the small trapezoidal lever) is on both sides.
The hand-guard.
Push the pins through to take it down.
The upper, assembled.
The bolt carrier contains the recoil spring–the thin plunger sticking out the back end.
