Marvyn, also a Brony, has purchased a Kel-Tec SUB-2000 Gen 2.
His is configured to accept M&P 9 magazines.
Being Marv, he's bought about $300 worth of accessories and upgrades... they arrived a week before the gun.
To retain the folding capability, he mounted a short picatinny rail on the MLOK slots on the side, then mounted a 45˚ QD mount to that. This turned out to be a problem since it wasn't aligned well with the bore and used all of the adjustment of the Vortex Sparc AR and wasn't zeroed.
So the folding was sacrificed to the Gods Of Zero.
First. Marv is the absolute WORST about getting a gun zeroed. He will shoot all day and never get his sights to shoot where he's aiming. Luckily, I'm quite handy with it could get him very close to where he needed to be for a final zero.
Second. Zeroing at 7 yards is about 4-5" low at 25 yards. So it's zeroed at 25 yards now, and it's just a bit high at 7.
Third. Not one malfunction of any kind! Factory ammo, Marv's reloads, 115 gr, 147 gr, ball or hollowpoint. It cheerfully ate everything.
Fourth. Willard shot it like a pistol once. "Kinda front heavy and ungainly long," is his assessment.
Fifth. Willard also says that if you've got an M1 Carbine, you're really not in the market for a SUB-2000. It's the same sort of niche.
Sixth. The trigger is heavy and unpleasant, but not hard to use consistently. We were shooting very small groups with ease... with the Sparc AR, because...
Seventh. The factory "iron" sights are teh suxxor! They're just crap.
Marv's plan is to replace the factory handguard with one that rotates so that he can use the folding feature. I think I'd just get a QD mount for the Sparc.
Bonus! There's a small portion of picatinny rail at the toe of the stock. PERFECT for mounting a light! If you're OK with the pistol grip and magazine blocking the beam...
Does it fill the same niche as an M1 carbine? yes. The niche is also filled by the Highpoint carbine, the Marlin 9, 9 mm ARs, and others - But it has a few advantages (and no, I don't own one):
ReplyDelete- It uses a more common ammo, and as you mentioned, it feeds everything (true only for the M1, not the others in 9 or .40)
- It uses common pistol magazines; if you use a major brand full handgun in .40 or 9 mm, you can use the same magazines.
- It folds and takes up even less space than an M1 with a folding stock or even a 'true' pistol AR; I've seen them carried in laptop bags and other places where you wouldn't expect a long gun to fit.
It is important to remember that Willard is a curmudgeon's curmudgeon.
DeleteSpecific advantages within a niche doesn't move something from the niche. And some of those advantages don't matter much if you're not looking to standardize your pistol and carbine's ammo supply.
I'd also like to remind everyone that we were buying and shooting .30 Carbine when you couldn't get 9mm for love or money just a little while ago.
The SUB-2000 is amazingly compact when folded, but you've got to invest another couple hundred at it to retain that folding capability if you're going to use an optic. Gods, those irons suck.
So far, the SUB-2000 has proven to be more reliable than any M1 Carbine we've played with! Carbine magazines suck as bad as SUB-2000 iron sights.
And because all roads lead to GURPS, M1 carbine is 4d+1 pi, 330/2,100; SUB-2000 (9mm) is 3d-1 pi, 170/1,900.
15 avg damage vs 9 avg and at a longer range. Better sights but less reliable and heavier...
I've got one in the glock version. Only acc is a gell buttpad to increase the length of pull.
ReplyDeleteThat and 8 more mags and a backpack it all fits in.
Don't tell Mere.