According to a little birdie, Tiger McKee, who was a padawan learner under Clint Smith before setting off on his own and starting Shootrite Firearms Academy, is collaborating with Red Jacket Firearms of Louisiana on a special AR carbine with the Tiger McKee stamp o' approval.
It allegedly has a Sabre Defense lower, Les Baer upper, A1 buttstock, pencil barrel, Daniel Defense fixed rear BUIS, and a carbon-fiber handguard with a single stubby chunk of rail at the for'd 11 o'clock position, rather than a whole rail farm, since you don't need twenty-nine-and-a-half linear feet of picatinny rail to put a flashlight on your heater. Rumor has it that the gun is also sans the mostly useless "forward assist" and sports an all-up weight of less than six pounds.
My mole snapped a blurry closeup of the receiver:
I'm not entirely certain why my mole didn't snap a picture of the whole gun, but I am not complaining.
You will note that, in true firearms industry fashion, the gun is not named the "Snugglebunny Cuddlekins" or the "Family Protector", but rather the "KATANA". Oh well. You can always put electrical tape over the name if it makes you feel like an anime dork, 'cause otherwise the specs sound pretty schweet.
27 comments:
Interesting. I'll have to check it out if I get a chance.
I can't wait for the day when I can't take some classes at Shootrite, especially since it is relatively right down the road from me.
Will Suzuki come after them? But the could win that in court with photographic evidence against, "I'm a little tea pot".
word: elity - "Allrighty, I'm elity"
... I might could buy a gun named 'Snugglebunny Cuddlekins'. I would have a bayonet lug and one of those things that goes up, right?
I think there is a market for 'Family Protector' type trademarks.
Would you rather have a jury looking at your 'Psychotic Terminator', or your 'June Cleaver Homemaker' carbine?
Best wishes.
If Winchester had named the initial version of their SXT bullet the "Blossoming Petal Home Defense Round" rather than the "Black Talon", they'd never have had to change the packaging.
"Glaser Safety Slug" sounds a lot better than "Exploding Fragmentation Bullet", no?
I've used my forward assist on one or two occasions. I guess "mostly useless" is another way of saying "useful on occasion", a term which could apply to firearms in general. -- Lyle
It's called mostly useless cause you never need it on the range. In the world, if you don't have it, you'll only need it once... Otherwise, I like it.
-embycil
I've handled the original. It works very well. My next AR build will be "Katana" like - sans the BUIS and probably adding a FA as I don't want to actually spend more for the "boobs on a boar hog" upper w/o a FA. I agree with the A1 butt and light position. Disagree with the BUIS as a ghost ring with an Aimpoint works out to 75y, no issue. As Tiger says, 3 yards to 300y, it works.
Al T.
Snugglebunny Cuddlekins -- I think I just named my rifle (that I haven't actually got or even seen in person yet, so we'll have to see if it fits ... )
FA is useless. Both in the context of full auto and forward assist. If it's not belt fed, full auto has only very specialized applications and switched on folks tend to discredit it. Forward assists tend to make a bad problem worse and your much better off getting rid of the bad round that trying to beat it into submission. Forty years of the AR has shown the willing new and better techniques. I'm only on 32 years of military service with a tour in Iraq. Lots for me to learn yet. :)
Al T.
"Forward assists tend to make a bad problem worse and your much better off getting rid of the bad round that trying to beat it into submission."
What he said. ^^^^^^
On an AR, I kinda agree that FA is not necessary. Eject it and get another round.
In a combat situation where you may be sending a lotta rounds down range, the lugs can get a little dirty. Sometimes enough to cause the bolt to not seat completely. If you don't have time to clean it, the FA is your friend. You are supposed to "tap" it - NOT use a hammer.
The addition of a Redi-Mag will cover up the name quite well.
you can get the same in a COLT at saw sales in az. to really pis'em off the COLT product is BETTER.
Finally, an AR that will cut through anything!
I sent you a pic of the whole carbine. I shall re-send it.
The Gun Mole
I'd love to find a fixed stock just a wee bit shorter than A1 length.
All of the shorty fixed stocks that I've found are too short.
When i was a kid, a friend of mine's dad had a friend who was a strait up motorcycle gang biker dude. In my memory he was HUGE with a full beard, sheeps wool lined denum vest and all. One day we were talking abut guns (I think I was playing with a cap gun at the time) and he showed me his "cap gun" which turned out to be a 6" colt python that was painted pink and had the word "fluffy" on the side in a darker pink. I will never forget what he said when I asked him why. He said "Who the f#ck is going to tell me I can't have a pink gun named fluffy".
It was a life changing experience for me. My friends hear that line (modified to fit the situation) from me all the time.
s
Katana is a perfectly good word that sadly has been ruined by anime and wannabee samurai.
If the AR is a katana, I guess my 1911 is my wakizashi.
wv: emashi. The big hammer you use to fold the metal of your katana thousands of times at the forge.
Forward assist is also useful if you're the kind of person who believes in chamber checking a gun.
You know. Like they teach you to do with any OTHER kind of gun that may be stored loaded.
But if you never, ever, ever, think you might put down a loaded rifle, and you never, ever, ever think you may want to load a rifle relatively quietly, then no, you don't need a foward assist on an AR.
Of course, my crystal ball being in the shop, and me being unable to predict the future with 100% accuracy (which is the major reason for HAVING self defence guns ready -- whether it's the shotgun "crusier ready" in the closet or the 1911 under your shirt), I prefer to keep options that don't cost me extra, rather than spend more moeny to discard potentially useful option.
If you're playing the "I probably won't need it" game, then you don't need guns for home defence or CCW.
Now, if your argument is, "I'm too ignorant to know how to use it and too dumb to figure out how to learn," then perhaps you shouldn't consider firearms as a defensive choice. Perhaps something less difficult to operate, with fewer controls to remember the proper use of. . . like a stick or a rock.
Just because you probably don't need something is not reason to work harder to get rid of it. Especially since you can simply choose to not use it if you don't need it. . . without paying extra money to do so.
Tomcatshanger,
Get shorty stock.
Add rubber "recoil pad" of appropriate length. Like those slip-on ones they make.
Done. Paint black if desired.
I know, people will look at you funny with an AR15 equipped with a rubber recoil pad.
To paraphrase Stuart the Viking:
"Who the f#ck is going to tell me I can't have a recoil pad on an EBR?!?"
Geodykt,
RE: The Chamber Check.
I can seat the bolt manually with my thumb using the cutout in the carrier handily provided for that purpose (the one that doubles as an actuator for the ejection port cover). Further, in a staggered L-R feed box mag, I can make sure a round went in the hole by feel, simply by checking which side of the box the top round was on and double-checking w/my index finger after running the charging handle.
The forward assist mostly adds a couple ounces of weight, excess parts, and yet another something to snag on my gear, all to please M14 fanboys who ignore the fact that the FAL has been killing folks graveyard dead around the world without benefit of a forward assist for half a century.
Geodykt said: "if your argument is, "I'm too ignorant to know how to use it and too dumb to figure out how to learn," then perhaps you shouldn't consider firearms as a defensive choice"
Well, if you say so. Sorry to see that you don't have firearms, but then again you (hopefully) know yourself better than I. Me, I'd prefer that you get some training and get up to speed. Apparently you don't know that the scooped out area on the bolt was the original forward assist. It's still all you need.
As for the mythical "soldier in the middle of battle" user, run your AR wet and use good magazines. One of mine is over 2k, never cleaned and runs fine. If your blaster is choking up in a firefight on the banks of the Euphrates, more lube is the only quick answer. An AR is a piston, just like the cylinder in your car's engine - it needs lube. Wetter is better.
Is there any way that the name brand on the upper and lower makes it shoot better?
Or the purty logo on the magwell?
Because I'm not seeing any reason to use non-generic parts, myself.
Last I checked all the AR forgings in the US were made in the same ... what, two or three places?
I mean, if it turns someone's crank, good for them, but this thing seems to be fixing problems I either don't have or don't even comprehend, for double the price.
Sigivald,
1) Hey, I'm just saying what they were. (And Sabre Defense is, after all, one of those two or three places to which you referred.)
2)Double the price? What's the price? Nobody told me yet.
3) Parts is parts. Except when they aren't, of course. When it comes to things like the fire control group, barrel, or bolt carrier ass'y, there are good parts and bad parts. It's as possible to build a substandard AR for six bills as it is to overpay hundreds for exotic names on outsourced Lego parts. As the ancient Romans said: Caveat emptor, baby.
The one time at the Range I used the forward assist I bent my bullet at the neck. Fortunately it was during Slow Prone so I had plenty of time to un-stick and remove the goober, but then I had to dig-up another round and get back into the sling.
When I put down a rifle it gets a chamber flag in it.
Anonymous:
Um, the notch on the bolt carrier is fine and well.
Except when your hand is slippery with blood, water, and/or oil. All exacerbated if you're a tad bit nervous becuase, well, someone is shooting at you. . .
Meanwhile, the FA can be used with a fairly simple manual motion, and doesn't suffer from those problems.
Being as I AM aware of when and when not to try and manually seat the bolt, it works just fine.
And it has never activated itself, nor gotten snagged on any gear -- not even when I had an M16A1 with the teardrop FA. (Amusing that Tam mentioned that "failure", in the same post she lauds the FAL with a fixed charging handle that pokes at you and DOES snag on stuff. Which is why the L1A1 has a folding charging handle. . . )
Haven't noticed it making the weapon uncontrollably heavy.
Haven't ever had one fail in such a manner as to CAUSE a malfunction.
If I don't need it -- I ignore it.
If I need it -- it's there. And easier and more reliable than pushing on the indent in the carrier.
So, in the hands of someone who actually understand the equipemnt, the FA doesn't have a noticeable downside, and DOES have a useful purpose.
Just like the FA feature the Israeilis introducted on their version of the FAL, after having serious reliability issues with the Belgian version. . .
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