are the OD green RDB being released, yet?
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Ah, KelTech.....she is not the cheerleader or the prom queen that was out of your league during your high school years, but the smart, sassy, cute girl that friend zoned you for months, then let you date her, but only to cock tease your for some more months until the night before you shipped out for boot camp.
They have gotten some OD Green furniture. They have told me that I can come in and get my furniture swapped out. They do have some 20" barrels, and I have offered to pay even more to get them to swap out my 17.4 barrel, but they are holding those barrels for rifles in the production process.
So, I made the pilgrimage again. Drove out there, was greeted warmly by the staff behind the desk. And RDB armorer(?) gunsmith(?) technician(?) came out. I filled out a form and was told my rifle would come back clad in OD green shortly.
A 20" barrel was out of the question. They exist. Some have been made, but only a limited number and those are still being tested and used in R&D. The shooting team is testing them out, and police departments that are placing orders are getting them to try out. It might be months or even a year before those are released to us.
They could call me as soon as it was ready, but it was too early for lunch and I decided to hang out in the reception room. Comfy couch, a big screen with relevant videos, a rack of owners' manuals to thumb through, so the time would fly by.
But the part that made the time go quick was being allowed to fondle the sample rifles on the wall. The star was the M-43. Pictures have been released, and the one the wall had an "NRA show" tag dangling form the trigger card. I was allowed to handle it.
There are a lot of science fiction movie looking guns out there. But the M-43 is more like an alternate history novel looking gun. The guts are those of the RDB, but it looks are very retro: there are no plastic polymers, no Picatinny rails, no carry handles, just wood and steel. It harkens back to the 1940s or the 1950s, but not the one we know.
It looks like it could have been made in the U.S. in 1947 if there was no atomic bomb in 1945 and the U.S. had to invade the home islands (ask your grandfather what "Back to the Golden Gate in '48" meant to him), or in Germany if the D-Day invasion failed, or the Soviet Union if Hitler had not declared war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor, or Japan if they had not bombed Pearl Harbor. If they made a movie out of one of the S.M. Sterling or Harry Turtledove series, these would make great props.
The muzzle looks like AK74's compensator, which I hope they will decide to use in the production model. Behind that, there is a thin tongue of metal with only one indentation, which I hope means it will accept AK bayonets. There are flip up front and rear sights which make it easier to store and carry. They are crude looking stamped steel, but very adjustable. There is barrel ventilation sleeve instead of an accessory rail, that reminded me of those metal handguards on M-1 carbines. The wood is beefy and very period piece. I was told that the wooden furniture was expensive and difficult to make with compared to polymers. The sling attachment points are as simple and crude as those of the M-3 Grease Gun SMG.
Hefting this rifle is as close as I will come to ever holding a British EM-2. The EM-2 was a bullpup that the UK Army briefly adopted in 7x43mm/.280 caliber until Winston Churchill ordered standardization on 7.62x51mm. The example I saw did not have the wooden cheek piece, but like the EM-2, it would required a thin sheet of wrap around wood. The EM-2 required an expensively heat & steam sweated layer of wood pressed an shaped around the receiver cover.
It did not seem like very long before my rifle was taken apart, reassembled with OD furniture, test fired and returned to me. It was explained to me that the upgrade from basic black was more involved that just throwing different colored plastic into the molds. All the color variations were the result of sending basic furniture to a contractor who Cerakoted them.
A 20" barrel was out of the question. They exist. Some have been made, but only a limited number and those are still being tested and used in R&D. The shooting team is testing them out, and police departments that are placing orders are getting them to try out. It might be months or even a year before those are released to us.
They could call me as soon as it was ready, but it was too early for lunch and I decided to hang out in the reception room. Comfy couch, a big screen with relevant videos, a rack of owners' manuals to thumb through, so the time would fly by.
But the part that made the time go quick was being allowed to fondle the sample rifles on the wall. The star was the M-43. Pictures have been released, and the one the wall had an "NRA show" tag dangling form the trigger card. I was allowed to handle it.
There are a lot of science fiction movie looking guns out there. But the M-43 is more like an alternate history novel looking gun. The guts are those of the RDB, but it looks are very retro: there are no plastic polymers, no Picatinny rails, no carry handles, just wood and steel. It harkens back to the 1940s or the 1950s, but not the one we know.
It looks like it could have been made in the U.S. in 1947 if there was no atomic bomb in 1945 and the U.S. had to invade the home islands (ask your grandfather what "Back to the Golden Gate in '48" meant to him), or in Germany if the D-Day invasion failed, or the Soviet Union if Hitler had not declared war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor, or Japan if they had not bombed Pearl Harbor. If they made a movie out of one of the S.M. Sterling or Harry Turtledove series, these would make great props.
The muzzle looks like AK74's compensator, which I hope they will decide to use in the production model. Behind that, there is a thin tongue of metal with only one indentation, which I hope means it will accept AK bayonets. There are flip up front and rear sights which make it easier to store and carry. They are crude looking stamped steel, but very adjustable. There is barrel ventilation sleeve instead of an accessory rail, that reminded me of those metal handguards on M-1 carbines. The wood is beefy and very period piece. I was told that the wooden furniture was expensive and difficult to make with compared to polymers. The sling attachment points are as simple and crude as those of the M-3 Grease Gun SMG.
Hefting this rifle is as close as I will come to ever holding a British EM-2. The EM-2 was a bullpup that the UK Army briefly adopted in 7x43mm/.280 caliber until Winston Churchill ordered standardization on 7.62x51mm. The example I saw did not have the wooden cheek piece, but like the EM-2, it would required a thin sheet of wrap around wood. The EM-2 required an expensively heat & steam sweated layer of wood pressed an shaped around the receiver cover.
It did not seem like very long before my rifle was taken apart, reassembled with OD furniture, test fired and returned to me. It was explained to me that the upgrade from basic black was more involved that just throwing different colored plastic into the molds. All the color variations were the result of sending basic furniture to a contractor who Cerakoted them.
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