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 Grey Templar wrote:
I would love to get one of those. Or just have something that a normal P320 slots into.

For coolness or because you like the boost in accuracy (out to presumably the limit of the barrel and round) and aren't fussed about the size?

Both. I have a Rony for my glock, this would be even cooler. It also has the forward magazine warmer

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Anyone got any experience with this sort of mod that veers into being really a new firearm?

They've been around for a very long time in various incarnations, from the screw-on shoulder stocks and swappable longer barrels of the Colt revolvers to the stock-holsters of the FNs, Lugers, and Mausers to the Beretta M93R to the various 1911 and Glock kits that were all the tacticool rage in the 00s. The modularity of the P320's design does lend itself better to this sort of conversion, but it is still fundamentally a stocked pistol and historically speaking there hasn't been a huge demand for those, particularly when limited to semi-auto.

Generally the limitation is that you are building something with a carbine-like profile, and no longer as convenient to carry as a handgun, but still limited to the ballistics of a handgun. Their biggest opportunity is really just exploiting the 'brace' loophole to sell it on the civilian market, where normally buying a semi-auto compact SMG as a range toy means buying a 'pistol' and then registering it as a short-barreled rifle to the tune of $200 and some non-negligible paperwork. For LE/mil, might as well just have a purpose-built select-fire system like a B&T MP9.

Cool, yes. Revolutionary, not really. And I don't think we'll see all that much in the way of 'chassis' that fit P320 internals. I'm actually a little annoyed that Flux discontinued their previous Glock-based brace system in favor of this; I really liked the form factor on that one.

So today I learned that Kel-Tec is making a stripper-clip fed handgun.

I love the Steyr-Hahn as much as the next guy, but this is next level. Also a lot cheaper, and in a caliber one can reliably find.

Obviously, by having a fixed magazine, it probably dances around a bunch of legal requirements, and I admire that. I never owned or wanted to own a Kel-Tec, but this does give me pause because top-feeds are cool.

Kel-tec certainly wins the most unique design team award hands down.

Kel-Tec is a hell of a drug

Looking at it, I get the rationale. I just think it would be hard to prize consumers away from their film fantasies of dropping magazines and loading new ones while delivering effective relatively long range shots with their pistol of choice. Seeing some idiots with their 'carry rig' festooned with spare magazines (and I note no first aid kit), that idea of needing to reload lots would be hard for many to break away from. (Real life usage of firearms just seems to be constantly lost in hard selling noise.)

I wonder if their are any additional reliability of this approach. I have zero experience of internal magazine rifles beyond dry firing them. How does their reliability compare to ejectable magazine set ups?

It is almost certainly being made that way for people who live in bad states where that sort of thing is necessary to get around dumb laws. If that didn't exist I have no doubt this gun would not have been made that way.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I wonder if their are any additional reliability of this approach. I have zero experience of internal magazine rifles beyond dry firing them. How does their reliability compare to ejectable magazine set ups?

Even after rifles had detachable box magazines, there were options for stripper clips because they are cheap to manufacture.

Internal feed is almost always better than external because there are fewer variables. Magazine quality or damaged feed lips simply don't exist. In terms of reloading, clips may be faster since the action will lock open and all one does is slam the rounds into it and removing the clip (which no one needs to save) closes the action. Topping off may be harder, depending on the design.

Doing a true comparison is difficult because surviving examples are all nearly a century old. My C96 does not feed well because it is a spare parts build. Similarly a Steyr-Hahn is going to older than any living human.

And yes, this is clearly an exploit-style firearm.

Lots of interesting stuff popping up at SHOT Show, including a couple of .32s. Daewoos for the American market are also a thing.

What I want to see is the US 'repatriate' all those Korean M-1 Carbines. I think there are 1.5 million waiting to come home.

Svt 40 come to mind, I believe they were only issued among with one charger at times and the soldier got some stripper clips. Would need to check.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Svt 40 come to mind, I believe they were only issued among with one charger at times and the soldier got some stripper clips. Would need to check.

The SKS used them and the internet tells me that they were an option on the M-14. Modern US 5.56mm comes om stripper clips, which can be speed-loaded into a magazine. It's not by any means a bad idea, and one can argue that the modern civilian small arms market is has reached "luxury" status in what it considers baseline, acceptable weapons.

If you go back, revolvers and stripper-fed autoloaders were just less expensive to support and production methods led to individual fit an finish, which is why magazines were paired with the pistol they were issued with. Stripper clips got around that.

I remember when i was in Estonia I had a manoeuvre going in a training village against the english, and as we ran dry on blank bullets, we got more in these very stripper clips that I had to try and stuff into my famas magazine... that was a pain lol, had no speed loader readily available

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
I remember when i was in Estonia I had a manoeuvre going in a training village against the english, and as we ran dry on blank bullets, we got more in these very stripper clips that I had to try and stuff into my famas magazine... that was a pain lol, had no speed loader readily available

They generally come in the ammo can. It's a simple device,hooks on to the magazine and you can insert the clip and then slam the mag against a table or even a bit of wood. It was funny - during my final rifle qualification, we were told to load the magazines to certain amounts, and all the Airmen around me were prying them off the clips and sticking them in one by one. Without thinking, I did the same, and then stood up and walked to the range tower, rooted about the ammo cans and found the adapter, and began ramming them home. The range NCOs looked at my curiously.

"Prior Army," I said, and they nodded knowingly.

I had the speed loaders in the cans as well! But the blank ammo on that exercise was carried by a lieutenant that already had stripped the cans and not taken the speed loaders, only the ammoo clips! Shame on her lol

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
I remember when i was in Estonia I had a manoeuvre going in a training village against the english, and as we ran dry on blank bullets, we got more in these very stripper clips that I had to try and stuff into my famas magazine... that was a pain lol, had no speed loader readily available

They generally come in the ammo can. It's a simple device,hooks on to the magazine and you can insert the clip and then slam the mag against a table or even a bit of wood. It was funny - during my final rifle qualification, we were told to load the magazines to certain amounts, and all the Airmen around me were prying them off the clips and sticking them in one by one. Without thinking, I did the same, and then stood up and walked to the range tower, rooted about the ammo cans and found the adapter, and began ramming them home. The range NCOs looked at my curiously.

"Prior Army," I said, and they nodded knowingly.

Just because someone is Army doesn't mean they know that trick. When I reclassed as a cook I was assigned to an Artillery battalion, and they looked at me like I parted water when I did that on the range. I looked at then and asked "Why is the sky blue?" to which a 1SG replied "Because God loves the Infantry."


I was also shocked none of them knew the Barbasol trick.

On that note of stripper clips, I do have got a couple for my Mosin nagant, but these are probably Chinese reproduction and they are utter trash that don't work reliably with.5 rounds, I need to load four only which is a shame because stripper clip charging your Mosin is badass

I tried stripper clips in my Mosin ( before I modded it). I didn't so much like it. Now that I have it in an archangel stock it's much better in my opinion. Detachable box mags ftw.

Yeah they are horrible, and I did try multiple time pushing slightly differently to see if anything got better but no, nothing helped. There might be a solution I'm not aware of obviously but to this day I fail to find it

 Just Tony wrote:
Just because someone is Army doesn't mean they know that trick. When I reclassed as a cook I was assigned to an Artillery battalion, and they looked at me like I parted water when I did that on the range. I looked at then and asked "Why is the sky blue?" to which a 1SG replied "Because God loves the Infantry."


I was also shocked none of them knew the Barbasol trick.

Ah, cannon cockers. That explains it. They do the OSUT thing. I went through Ft. Lost-in-the-Woods, so it was a grab bag of MOS and we all used the loaders. Several of our cadre were infantry.

As to Mosin stripper clips, there's a lot of things that can affect performance. I've had to tweak the ones I use with the C96.

In theory, Chinese clips should work with any Mosin, because the Soviets handed over the tooling to them. Chinese Kar98ks are parts interchangeable with German ones (mine came with a German stock and bolt, runs fine) so I assume the clips would work.

I think of reproductions because they look too brand new to me, but as they were received, ans not bought, I struggle to determine we're they're from. I suspect it comes done to quality of the stripper clips in the end but maybe when I'll done with my to many projects I'll try to make them work again

Been watching tv again. The A-Team to be specific. And there’s a scene which raised a question.

Face is loading a bolt action rifle. But he inserts the round whilst holding the rifle vertically, barrel toward the ceiling. He locks the bolt pretty quickly, but I’m wondering if the round would’ve been in danger of falling out?

I’m guessing the fit would be pretty snug, because gas pressure is the name of the chemical game. But snug enough to gently but firmly grip the round?

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

What I want to see is the US 'repatriate' all those Korean M-1 Carbines. I think there are 1.5 million waiting to come home.

I imagine a lot of $ are going into lobbying by gun companies to ensure that doesn't happen as how to compete with that kind of sell off?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Been watching tv again. The A-Team to be specific. And there’s a scene which raised a question.

Face is loading a bolt action rifle. But he inserts the round whilst holding the rifle vertically, barrel toward the ceiling. He locks the bolt pretty quickly, but I’m wondering if the round would’ve been in danger of falling out?

I’m guessing the fit would be pretty snug, because gas pressure is the name of the chemical game. But snug enough to gently but firmly grip the round?

Depends on the individual gun. Most of the time a round will just barely hang into the chamber without falling out via gravity unless it's perfectly clean. And once its a little dirty it'll stick snugly. But some guns it might be loose enough to fall out without something else holding it or just a small shake.

The gas seal is accomplished by the casing flexing under the pressure of firing, outside of that its not gas tight so the cartridge can be extracted more easily. Basically when fired the casing flexes, creates the seal, and then it shrinks once the pressure drops and it can be extracted.

I know my Mosin Nagan wouldn't hold a round in the chamber like that. She's a worn out old girl

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Been watching tv again. The A-Team to be specific. And there’s a scene which raised a question.

Face is loading a bolt action rifle. But he inserts the round whilst holding the rifle vertically, barrel toward the ceiling. He locks the bolt pretty quickly, but I’m wondering if the round would’ve been in danger of falling out?

I’m guessing the fit would be pretty snug, because gas pressure is the name of the chemical game. But snug enough to gently but firmly grip the round?

If he pressed the round down into the magazine, it would be visible, but also be under tension, so it wouldn't fall out. Closing the bolt would strip it and feed it into the chamber.

The round was loaded manually, so my assumption is it was a single round rifle. It was being used for a sniper shot, which let’s face it is qualifying info I should’ve put in the original post.

Certainly I didn’t see even a small magazine.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The round was loaded manually, so my assumption is it was a single round rifle. It was being used for a sniper shot, which let’s face it is qualifying info I should’ve put in the original post.

Certainly I didn’t see even a small magazine.

If it's a sporting rifle, the magazine would not be visible from outside. Lots of hunting rifles have an integral three-round magazine. Putting them into the top of the magazine makes them feed better as well. So you may have thought he was just setting it on a feed tray, but it was likely an integral magazine. Without that, just resting on the top, it would fall out.

Also: pushing a cartridge into the chamber would require the extractor to snap up over the cartridge base and that's not fun. By setting it in the magazine, the extractor will slip over the cartridge and slide easily into battery.

Seen at the SHOT show, Titus Arms is making a VZ61 Skorpion clone chambered in 32acp for an msrp of just $580. Real world price means you'll be able to snag one for well under $500. Is it stupid to get one so I can cosplay The Winter Soldier?

 cuda1179 wrote:
Seen at the SHOT show, Titus Arms is making a VZ61 Skorpion clone chambered in 32acp for an msrp of just $580. Real world price means you'll be able to snag one for well under $500. Is it stupid to get one so I can cosplay The Winter Soldier?

I never saw the film, but having one intrigues me.

[adds another entry to the purchase list]

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Seen at the SHOT show, Titus Arms is making a VZ61 Skorpion clone chambered in 32acp for an msrp of just $580. Real world price means you'll be able to snag one for well under $500. Is it stupid to get one so I can cosplay The Winter Soldier?

I never saw the film, but having one intrigues me.

[adds another entry to the purchase list]

Yeah, I think I'd rather have one in 380 auto, just for commonality of ammunition. I don't need more oddball calibers.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Yeah, I think I'd rather have one in 380 auto, just for commonality of ammunition. I don't need more oddball calibers.

Everyone needs more oddball calibers! A serious collector should have a minimum of three 9mms.

When guns are offered in .380 and .32, I prefer the latter because they are typically more pleasant to shoot. A Skorpion in .32 would be a laugh machine.