Looking at the ATF documents for 2013, I see Keltec production totaling 81,714 handguns. 22,875 of them were either PLR22 or PMR30 (more common). They also made 17,103 rifles of various models and 19,045 KSG shotguns. Not a huge number but far from “just enough for Oleg to equip his models”. 117,862 guns to be exact.
Since 2014 isn’t over, we don’t know the exact total, but it will be close to 150,000 with only about ten more employees than last year. On average, 2.5 guns per employee per work day. And this year, the share of more labor and material intensive long guns has been a lot higher. Keltec is a family-owned company that managed to avoid over-expansion/bust traps that plagued quite a few of their competitors. They also haven’t grown to outpace their service and customer support capability. And people who say they can’t find a Keltec gun usually mean “can’t find it at MSRP”. At the same time, upping MSRP to bring availability and together has been unpopular. And, at the end of the day, remember that they only sell to distributors, so the prices aren’t even set by the manufacturer. In the meantime, for new and popular products, the prices are higher for delivery tomorrow and lower for delivery in a year. It’s the same with most consumer products, be they guns, cameras or cars. And Keltec has an incentive to build more of the hot new sellers before some other company makes a near copy. So the limited availability may have objective reasons for it, not just some gun makers’ intent to tease potential customers with unobtanium.
I think the problem is more that Kel-Tec has a fairly established history of releasing a glut of “new” and “revolutionary” designs, with expected release dates in just a few months, and then those months pass… and years pass… and still there is nothing.
For Heaven’s sake, I recall the CMR being “announced” years ago, and they said it would be on the market in a few months… and then a few months after that… and then a few months after that.
All the while, they keep cranking out more new and revolutionary and whatnot designs.
Basically, Kel-Tec should not make promises they cannot keep, or they should get better at projecting actual production and release dates. Or they should get used to people getting cranky over being teased with hopelessly optimistic and completely unrealistic “projections”.
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