Because I had a chance to on Saturday, the first time I ever saw one in person, and there was a problem.
I was excited about it at the time, because the gun always seemed interesting. A big problem with shotguns as defense weapons is the capacity of the magazine tube, right? And the Kel-Tec KSG has two tubes, and as long as that doesn’t make it too muzzle-heavy how could that be a bad thing? Well…
I could not figure out how to get either magazine to feed. It’s just a pump, and I’m not a virgin to pumps, but this one would not. If you dropped a shell into the chamber the gun would fire that round. But then I racked the slide, it ejected the spent round, and refused to release another from either mag tube. So it was either defective or there was some adjustment somewhere I was supposed to make but I couldn’t see it. There’s a little lever that apparently lets you choose which tube the action draws from, but fiddling with it every which way made no difference for me.
What was I doing wrong? Or was it the gun?
The last thing I heard of the things, someone found that if you short stroke them, it locks the whole gun up, and you have to disassemble it to get it cleared. I think Kel-Tec’s response was ‘Uhhhh, we MEANT to do that. It’s a safety feature!’ It wouldn’t surprise me to find that there are some very tricky and delicate timing pieces in the system, which would be easy to break and produce the fail you experienced. Just a guess, but… probably not you.
Can’t claim any experience with the KSG yet; haven’t even seen one at the fun shops up here, much less done any live-fire. Like you, I’m curious about it, but still a bit skeptical–reports I’ve seen thus far have been mixed, in the main. (And mixed reports are largely par-for-the-course with Kel-Tec, which seems to be one of those companies whose strengths lie more with their idea-people than with operations.)
Presumably this piece has an owner. Did anyone else have the feeding-selector problem as well, or was it just you?
I’ve always been a rifleman-pistolero rather than a shotgunner, and I’ve also got little cred with the tacticool crowd (which makes us mutual), so I’m happy to spend more time observing what happens with the KSG, from a distance. The concept sounds great, in priniciple, but I still can’t understand why everyone wants to stick a giant pistol grip on everything (destroying what Jeff Cooper called the “handiness index”), and especially given the KSG’s raison d’etre, reliability problems are a fairly instant deal-killer for me. Since I view the shotgun inherently as artillery to be deployed from a fixed, defensive position, I’ve got little hangup about capacity, and my old Ithaca 37 is butter-smooth, with a trigger that you don’t normally find on shotguns these days, and a lever-carbine sort of “handiness index”. It will take something pretty convincing to move me from that.
The flip side is that I find myself wanting to like the KSG, and a few other things from Kel-Tec as well (notably the SU16 carbine, and I’ll admit I’m also “where is this going” curious about the .22WMR pistol and carbine idea). Whatever their problems may be with build quality, that company is at least trying to innovate, and I always pull for someone who does that, even if they don’t share my preferences.
I’ll be curious to hear if you find a concrete reason for the selector failure.
From what I know (very little) of this type of shotgun, on the underside of the firearm there is a selector that needs to be pushed to the side of the tube that is being selected (or was that the opposite side?) as far as it will go. Being a Kel-Tec with all the quality control issues the problems you are having doesn’t surprise me.
Good luck with it.
Presumably this piece has an owner. Did anyone else have the feeding-selector problem as well, or was it just you?
Unfortunately the owner wasn’t present. S&L’s son borrowed it from a friend. He was there with half a dozen grandsons, and alas the expert on site was … me. And I couldn’t get it to work. Nobody else even tried hard.
No idea, myself. I have a .410 single shot and a Mossberg 500, five shot pump. Not much experience shooting either one, and I really need a shotgun class at some point before my joints freeze and I dry up to blow away. LOL
Anyway, one of my high priority rules for buying anything is simplicity. I want the minimum pieces, parts – especially moving parts – necessary to get the job done and no more. The more stuff involved, the higher the potential for failure of one of them, usually at the worst possible moment. So the “keep it simple” thing is the watchword for me. Add in a company that isn’t real high on the reliable side with their products, and I have no interest at all.
I have a 9mm carbine with a pistol grip, and like that very much, but it’s the only long gun I ever fired that had one – so I’m really no judge. 🙂
It’s finally warm enough, and the snow has melted at the range, so I’m ready to go shooting again! Was going today, but a friend stopped by and now I don’t have time. Tomorrow I’m going, whatever else happens. LOL Maybe I’ll take the Mossy, just for fun.
I have a Kel-Tec P11 (9mm) as a primary and absolutely love it with a P-32 as a backup. Have never had an issue with either of them. Great side arms and I would highly recommend them. I’ve wanted to shoot the KSG & the Sub-2000 but never have had the chance. My guess regarding the issue might be damaged component. The P11 & P32 are so easy to break down, clean, & rebuild it isn’t funny. Great and simple engineering so my guess would be the same for the KSG. Replacement parts are inexpensive and easy to obtain [http://www.keltecweapons.com/ksg/ksg-parts/?p=1].
The cop next to me at the indoor range had one; it attracted some attention. It attracted even more when one shot tore the target in half. It got even MORE attention when a clay shooter had a turn and started to track and fire on a falling piece of target. On a cement floor. About five feet in front of us. Excited instructions were rapidly issue. Sorry, no useful info on the gun. But it was fun telling the story.
Ah yes….the KSG. All the knuckleheads on Calguns swooned. Many paid way too much and subsequently a bunch because present on the “classified” ads on the website. Seems not many guys were happy with what were going for $1400 when you could get one a while back.
I like my Mossberg.
If I need more shot in the air, I have a Saiga shotgun. I like Kel-tec’s stuff, the stuff I have. I have the SU-16 and it’s a nice suitcase rifle. The KSG just never impressed me.
If there is a selector that chooses between the two tubes, there is likely a detent in it for selecting NEITHER tube. Anyway, manuals are usually available on the Internet…
I talked to Kel-Tec on the phone directly with respect to feed issues and this was their response: “We recommend using high brass for the first 200 rounds as a break-in period.” They followed by saying the gun feeds anything you want after that. It’s possible to get a bad gun from some manufacturers. Kel-Tec has made some lemons, and I’m sure the experience you guys are getting is true. But what rounds were you feeding it? How many rounds has the gun had through it?
My experience with the gun has been 100% reliability. My friend who has a generation one has also had great reliability with that gun. That’s just anecdotal, however. I’m not a gun reviewer. I waited 5 years before buying one, because I’m pragmatic about BYL use. Now that I have one I’m running with it, and if I ever have a failure in the field, I’ll retire it for a defensive goto gun. I know all about the short stroke issues as well. For me it’s solid. I keep it cruiser-ready and run it with an EOTech 25 yard zero, bottom of the 65 MOA ring for 7 yard holdover.
If I retire it, it will be a fun gun maybe. I won’t sell a bad gun to another human being. If you want an option for a bullpup shotgun you can go with a Mossburg or Remington conversion kit. Nothing wrong with the classics. I realize you don’t need high capacity for a home defense shotgun, but the bullpup design is a beautiful option for home defense for obvious reasons.
I’ve also heard the UTS-15 has a ton of issues and is for sure one to avoid. There are some good video reviews on bullpup shotguns and if you’re wanting one, I would check those out for sure.
Good luck guys!
And by the way it is confirmed that you can put the selector in a center position (although it’s not easy) and both tubes do not feed. I don’t recommend fiddling it into the center position, for any reason. There may be a purpose for that, but I can’t think of one. If that’s an added safety feature then maybe I’m wrong (it might keep the gun from being used against you by a bad guy, for example, but I don’t have real data).
Also the KSG is drop-safe, according to Kel-Tec (which is a big plus for me). Cruiser-ready should be enough for the storage vs. defensive-readiness. My brother in LE stores the gun above the bedroom door on a magnet that the kids could do pull-ups on (if they could reach it). Lots of information and I hope it helps.
The right information is all that’s needed.