To me, the support hand placement on the 18″ variant illustrates that the version with a 24″ barrel wouldn’t be too long. The long quad forend would allow greater iron sight radius for backup, as well as a tandem placement of night vision or thermal sight with a red dot or a scope.
How easy will it be to change barrels? If I buy an 18″ one, now, will it be possible to slap a 24″ barrel into it, or will that involve gunsmithing?
AFAIK, Kel-tec plans on offering longer barreled uppers as conversion options first. No gunsmithing needed.
What I am seeing is a chassis with optional barrel lengths and purposes. We have been chasing the one caliber multi-purpose weapon system for a long while. KelTec may have solved the dilemma. Think about the XM-8 project but with a bullpup .308.
If the recoil is manageable from short barreled models and the weapon can be controlled on automatic fire, then the US military needs to take note. 7.62x51mm has the range with optics to counter long range harassing fire. But a short barreled model will allow easier operations in vehicles and CQB. A heavy barrel model for the designated automatic rifleman. A long barrel with better optics for designated marksman duties. Suppressors, laser designators, lights, grips, etc……
In my opinion, RFB in its present shape is not suitable for automatic fire. While controllable, it can only rapidly fire up to 60 rounds suppressed or 80 unsuppressed before the heat becomes a factor.
Dang.
Appropos of nothing, what is the camo pattern the gent in the picture is wearing?….
http://www.a-tacs.com/
On a related note, what is the patch on his cap? It strongly resembles a Republic of Georgia/ St George’s cross, but I’ve never seen one like that before (except for the better face pic in the previous post).
The Cross of Jerusalem.
That is about to be a tattoo on my left inner forearm as soon as I get the art work figured out with the words “IN HOC SIGNO VINCES” around it. Cant decide on the Cross of Jerusalem or the Crusaders cross or a hybrid.