I joined the club!

The RDB is definitely NOT an AR despite the color. Black firearms are one of the last holdouts where people can be racist even if it's just a firearm (the other is with certain breeds of dogs regardless of their color). Do NOT tell your wife anyone suggested that. But I made a T shirt that had a black silhouette of an AR and the text, "Is it because I'm black?". The meaning was clear and I really think that's the case for lots of folks. But again, DO NOT suggest that to your wife if you value your marriage.

In the future, since she's not a shooter, flood the house with black rifles. She won't be able to tell one from the other and you'll be free to buy what you want and bring it home. I don't know and I'm not going to look into the following. But if KT makes a tactical peanut butter stocked version as they do with the Sub2k you might exchange what you bought for one of those. It gets rid of the blackness and would look less threatening. I don't get it, but others would see it as "not an AR". Or maybe get the black RDB ceracoated a different color scheme before bringing it home?

Yes, we've pondered the lack of a 300BLK as well. Maybe it's the gas port placement? I dunno. But seems that they could make it work with supersonic loads if not subsonic loads. Or change the placement of the gas port and port diameter and make essentially a new gun that could look similar to the RDB. But that's speculation on my part, I'm not a firearm designer. Neither am I a lawyer and esp' not a gun lawyer so take what follows to someone who knows more about it then I do.

There are a few things you can do with that braced AR15. One is to take advantage of the amnesty and SBR it.

Another is to remove the brace and make the lower so that it can't accept a brace. That may mean getting rid of the brace which could be as simple as handing it to someone for safe keeping as long as it won't get them in trouble. After that you can cheek the buffer tube with an appropriate sight in place. They sell buffer tubes, and they're inexpensive, with foam sleeves for that very use. That way you'll still have your pistol. Get a 300BLK pistol upper for that legal lower just because you can.

Another option is to get a rifle length upper in whatever chambering you wish and put that in place on the lower. A rifle can use an arm brace as a stock or a real stock. I would then hand the pistol upper to someone for safe keeping for the utmost legality. I don't remember what ATF calls having the parts on hand, but it's some twisted thinking that gets one to the place where having parts on hand is illegal. Heck male ATF agents have male genitalia (I assume) and by that twisted reasoning they're all guilty of rape.

There's no logical reason for the SBR rule from a crime aspect, it's just there to hang people over. Allow me to explain. I had a brace on a CP33. It made the handgun larger and more difficult to conceal. The firepower was identical with or w/o the brace so is accuracy. Due to ATF I removed the brace and made it so that it couldn't be put back on. That made the handgun smaller with the same firepower, and just as accurate since I'm now cheeking the gun and that's an extremely stable shooting position. So the result was, if I was a criminal, a better gun for crime w/o the brace. Doesn't make sense from a logic standpoint. But when has logic ever gotten in the way of making ridiculous laws?

odinforever2000 said:

Desert Tech has the Mdrx in 300blk,and its availible.But it requires you change out the recoil spring, they use for the other calibers for a short one,deleting the moderately fast caliber change feature the gun has.

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Yeah, my history with the MDR was an order for one chambered in 300BLK. Back then I had to order the MDR in something else (.223 wylde) and also order a conversion. I got disgusted after 5 years of waiting and cancelled the conversion with the .223 Wylde in hand (after 4 years). Built my own AR 300BLK after researching the (IMO) optimum build and never regretted it. It was more $ but IMO better all around. Since 300BLK subsonics can be tempermental as to build I expected to tailor my handloads to the gun and yes, they require tweaking. But ALL my loads get tweaked to every gun I load for. If I had waited for a working 300BLK conversion it would have been another 2-3 years (I stopped counting after requesting my refund). Looking back on it I don't think Desert Tech had a clue what was involved in a 300BLK conversion before they began taking $ for them.

My MDR is an anchor and I had no thoughts that it would be a lightweight even years before I received it, I knew what to expect so I'm not casting aspersions on it's weight, not really as a .223 Wylde. I didn't design my 300BLK AR build to be lightweight but it's still lighter even with it's can in place that's designed to handle .300 Win Mag, and if I remember correctly, still a hair shorter than my MDR with the can that's on it 24/7/365. It's a dense AR, deceptively heavy, but also built right. IMO the MDR would be too heavy for it's role as a CQB rifle. That's where I was going with this paragraph. But if I want a reliable extreme cold weather rifle the MDR is the one I choose due to it's massive internals and the tiny cartridge it pushes.

OK, a bit off subject... Why don't ammo manufacturers tell us what their 300BLK is ammo is designed to work with? I have factory ammo on hand that is clearly designed for manual actions. The few (one?) that works with a self loader designed for CQB, which is what the 300 BLK is designed for, claims to be suppressor friendly and it is. Supersonic is easy to make work in pretty much ANY 300BLK. The ammo boxes need more data on them IMO. That's if they care about actually selling ammo to the consumer who can use it. If they just want to sell ammo and piss people off they're doing it right. I don't want factory ammo that turns my semi-auto into a manual action. I don't buy factory ammo anymore, so their one time sale to me is their last sale to me. They made one minor sale, that seems sorta like not what they would want, or I wouldn't want that if I was in the factory ammo business. Whatever. I don't have $ invested in their businesses. They do. Those folks with bolt actions and single shots can use anything that fits in the chamber.

edit: (I forgot some stuff)

Recently they introduced the really short MDR. It seems tailor made to be chambered in 300BLK and that's the only way they could get me to do business with them again. Yet, last I checked it wasn't chambered in that. OK. I don't get it.

odinforever2000 said:

So...IM gonna tell you..You may have dodged a bullet with the initial run of 300blk MDRX's..

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Thanks. I probably would have gotten one of those and I'd be even less happy with DT had that happened.

Yeah, I'm good with what I have for my MDR and my 300BLK AR. I think you suggested to me that the MDR was iffy in other conversions before I ever requested my refund.

Getting off topic even more... I gotta add that I love the 300BLK cartridge, I just wish I had discovered it long before it was ever a thing but of course I knew of it when it was the 300 Whisper I just didn't really understand it fully back then. I also had no use for the Whisper because I wasn't in the NFA registration with a can back then. Before I even started to build my AR I knew that I'd be reloading 300BLK to get it running up to it's potential but I just don't see it as a cartridge for the masses unless ammo manufacturers start to be more build specific on their ammo boxes. I see folks with 300BLK all the time over on 300BLKTalk who either don't handload or don't know enough about handloading trying to work with the cartridge and running into problems. Or jump into it with a build that's going to require very specific ammo if the build will work at all and then ask how they feed the thing. It's easy to get the 300BLK to work with supersonic ammo, but becomes more tempermental and demanding with subsonics.

Changing the recoil spring... I built my AR specifically to use standard off the shelf AR components yet still be reliable. Even so I have to tweak the ammo. From what you write it sounds as though DT is trying to get the MDRx to do something it's ill suited to do. I didn't know that 7ish (? has it really been that long?) years ago when I was 300BLK ignorant and put my conversion on order. But as I looked into my AR build semi-recently it became more apparent. IMO, if they didn't move the gas port back to get more gas they're just asking for problems. There are folks who know more than I do using gas ports farther from peak pressure and they work fine. But it's easier if the gas port is drilled for pistol gas.

Yeah, I'm good with what I have. At this time I don't desire any conversions for my MDR. Thanks again.