I was at the NRA show on Saturday and had stopped by the Magpul booth. I noticed they had their MP5 furniture on some Zenith guns and went over to look. Once the gaggle of Magpul guys stopped chatting amongst themselves, one of them came over and asked me if I had any questions. Of course, my first question is was "Where are the MP5 mags?". I'm pretty sure the Magpul guy sighed, but then he recovered and told me that they were looking at it, but it wasn't easy to do. Anyway, once I was done chiding him over that, we talked about the furniture a bit. He told me that Palmetto would be using the Mapgul furniture for their guns. The lower looked nice enough, though I didn't really care for the texture. I prefer my Navy-type lower. However, the Magpul selector switch seemed to be a pretty big improvement over the standard HK design (mainly, because I'm left handed and their ambi-selector was way better than the HK ones I've seen). Their lowers are SEF and while they have a little nub to prevent the selector from going to the full auto position, the rep told me you can just grind it off and you will be good to go.
Next, I went over to Palmetto's booth to see if they had one of their MP5s. They only had one on display, behind a counter on a rack marked "Prototypes - Do not Touch". So, I went over to take a closer look. The guy behind the counter didn't seem to know a whole lot about it, other than yes, it was a reverse stretch, and yes, they were working on standard and RS variants. But he indicated they had been having problems getting them to run well and had no idea what I was talking about when I asked if it was sear ready. Frankly, the gun didn't look at that good. The welds looked kind of sloppy and the cocking tube cut looked really rough. Since I couldn't get touch it, let alone get that close, I couldn't really see much more about it.
When I asked about pricing and release, he said they were trying to keep it under $1200 and that it might be coming out late this year (like November). So, it doesn't sound like it will be as cheap as some of the initial rumors indicated ($800) and we are still a ways out on release date.
Sadly, I didn't get any pictures from either booth. They were the last stops for me on Saturday and I was in a rush to get out and get home, since I had to take my wife and her cousin's kids to go see Avengers and we had to get the kids fed dinner before we went.
Next, I went over to Palmetto's booth to see if they had one of their MP5s. They only had one on display, behind a counter on a rack marked "Prototypes - Do not Touch". So, I went over to take a closer look. The guy behind the counter didn't seem to know a whole lot about it, other than yes, it was a reverse stretch, and yes, they were working on standard and RS variants. But he indicated they had been having problems getting them to run well and had no idea what I was talking about when I asked if it was sear ready. Frankly, the gun didn't look at that good. The welds looked kind of sloppy and the cocking tube cut looked really rough. Since I couldn't get touch it, let alone get that close, I couldn't really see much more about it.
When I asked about pricing and release, he said they were trying to keep it under $1200 and that it might be coming out late this year (like November). So, it doesn't sound like it will be as cheap as some of the initial rumors indicated ($800) and we are still a ways out on release date.
Sadly, I didn't get any pictures from either booth. They were the last stops for me on Saturday and I was in a rush to get out and get home, since I had to take my wife and her cousin's kids to go see Avengers and we had to get the kids fed dinner before we went.
