The nicest horse and buggy I've ever seen.

Les Jones got some video of me shooting the KRISS guns on Day Two of the shoot. The guys from KRISS were professional and enthusiastic and willing to answer questions; they practically dragged you to the line and pressed the guns into your hands.

The guns were extremely well made, and the controls were well-thought out and fell easily to hand. The semiauto pistol version was as silly as most weapons of that type are, but that hasn't stopped people from buying everything from TEC-9's to B&T TP9's to HK SP89's, not to mention every AK and AR "pistol" they can lay their hands on. Seriously, if you want a .45ACP pistol with a ~5" barrel that eats out of Glock 21 mags, why not just get a Glock 21? (Because it's not in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, that's why. Duh!)

The semiauto carbine version, with its dummy can to bring the barrel out to the required 16" length, makes slightly more sense, at least if pistol caliber carbines are your thing; they're generally not my bag, baby. The fake can is dorky, but you could always spend the $200 with the BATFEIEIO and get the gun registered as an SBR and lose the "can". I'd probably go ahead and spend another $200 getting a real can, like the second gun in the video above.

The real reason for the existence of the KRISS system is, of course, the SMG version for law enforcement and .mil customers. As you can see in the video, it is unbelievably controllable for a buzzgun launching 230gr slugs at over 1,000 rounds a minute. I've got a fair amount of trigger time on various machine pistols, and the KRISS is like science fiction compared to most of them.

There's only one problem: Most of the people who used machine pistols have gone to rifle-caliber "shorty" carbines over the last few years; any agency still using the MP5 is probably going to replace them with M4s or shorty G36's or the like, rather than another pistol-caliber weapon. I felt like I was looking at the sleekest, most-advanced, CAD-CAM, carbon fiber and titanium... horse and buggy. I wish 'em all the best of luck, though, or maybe they can translate the system to something that fires a rifle round.