The strange story of Kel-Tec CNC, Inc
I belong to KTOG, a Yahoo! Group (discussion board) for owners of Kel-Tec firearms. I own three models of Kel-Tecs, a P-11 (9mm compact), a P3AT (.380 sub-compact) and a pair of Sub-Rifle 2000s (pistol-caliber carbines).
I trust the Kel-Tecs. The company has some quality control issues, but they are all wrapped around things like shipping dirty guns, rather than spending the few bucks it takes to clean a firearm after manufacturing and test-firing it. The guns work, and on the one occasion I had one fail, I survived the failure (overcharged round blew the P3AT up in my hand, but the force was directed downward, and I got only a slight scratch on one finger. Kel-Tec rebuilt the gun).
The problem with the company nowadays is not the design or quality of the firearms, it's the build rate. Kel-Tec CNC is a small company, employs only about 30 people IIRC, but they have over a dozen models out, and have several more in testing stage. They produce everything from Main Battle Rifles (the RFB bullpup in 7.62X51), to light battle carbines (the SU-16 series of Stoner-inspired folding carbines), to pistol caliber folding carbines (the Sub-rifles), seven different pistol models, and a unique twin-magazine 12-ga pump shotgun (the KSG). That's an impressive array of models that even huge companies such as Ruger would, and do, envy (envy, as in copying the design and building their own).
The problem comes in production. A large company would probably devote 30 people to each model of a firearm's production, but Kel-Tec has only 30 people in the whole company, so they rotate production. That is, they operate one or two production lines at a time, changing production lines several times a year.
The process of rotating production results in Kel-Tec having shortages of certain models in high demand. This has happened lately with the RFB, the KSG, and their unique 30-round .22 WMR pistol, the PMR-30.
Lots of gripes are generated. The company released a few KSGs, and a couple of them showed up on auction sites, NIB, where they brought 4 times their MSRP. More gripes. Don't I remember that this happened with the first few Toyota Prius' delivered? The first big flat-screen TVs?
The problem, dear readers, is that one marketing dude with talent can sit down behind a computer and generate huge buzz for a product, that same product which 29 other guys out on the production floor have trouble turning out enough of to meet one fiftieth of the buzz-guy's generated demand.
Unless of course Kel-tec builds another plant, or makes some other major changes to their production line.
