Kel Tec

I've noticed that Kel Tec gets a lot of blogger action.  You can't hardly swing a lolcat without hitting a blog with a review of one of their guns.

I've also noticed that the tone from most of the reviews is "good idea, poor implementation".

Lots of people have noticed the QC and a distinct lack of attention to detail.

I have a personal story about one of their products!

The Lovely Harvey has a friend; I call him Lenny The Libtard Gun Owner.

Just after I assembled my first AR Lenny bought himself a SU-16.  Being a competitive cuss he immediately started comparing our guns.  He walked away disappointed.  I tried to be philosophical about it because he paid a couple hundred less than I did and there's simply a niche for a more affordable trunk gun.  It seemed to fit that bill.  It folded up nice and compact, took common AR mags and was very light.

A few months later, I get a call.  He can't get the thing apart.

So I come over to help.  I'd assumed that since he's not a mechanically inclined sort that he simply couldn't figure it out.  Nope.  While the disassembly is a bit fiddly, he was doing it right.  What was going wrong was the firing pin would not come out of the back of the bolt carrier.

Pliers and some excessive strength and I got it out.  What had happened was the firing pin retaining pin was hitting the end of the groove in the firing pin and swaging it into its channel.  Lenny put in a call to Kel Tec about it and their reply was (his words) "Tee hee, we fixed that after serial number XXX, we'll send you a new one."  The fix was a slightly longer groove in the firing pin.  Also a couple of minutes with some sandpaper and the original was returned to service, giving him a spare once the replacement arrived.

His next QC moment was a broken extractor spring.  I'd never seen one of those break before (I've seen them wear out but only after many more rounds than Lenny has on the gun).  Kel Tec basically said that while they could send him a new one, it's the same part as an AR-15 so he could pic one up cheap almost anywhere.  Lenny's priceless reply, "if this is such a common part why did yours fail?"

A week after getting a new extractor spring the pin that held the extractor broke.  Thankfully it broke with the action open and we were able to get it apart.  Again they told him that it was an AR part and while they could send him a new one...  We hit a gun show and got him one from the parts guy.

Along about this point Lenny asks me, "what problems you have with your AR?"  I said that I'd had none even though I'd bought my parts from the cheapest place I could find (Del Ton).  I did mention that Marv's rifle length AR had a strange cycling issue at first but got better as we shot it more and was gone now.

Lenny has an AR now.