Rifles

At first glance the Kel-Tec SUB-2000 rifle is as ugly as 40 miles of bad road. But as I took it out of its box and began to look it over, its beauty began to shine through. Its appearance is certainly Spartan--tactical black with a rectangular receiver and tubular stock, a utilitarian design with no frills. Every line and shape is purely functional, and that is a good thing. Function has its own beauty.

The SUB-2000 is a self-loading, blowback carbine chambered for 9mm or .40 S&W. All functioning parts except the trigger group are located within the tubular stock. The receiver is made from glass-reinforced Zytel, and it accepts a Glock double-stack handgun magazine.

An operating handle on the underside of the tubular stock may be pulled to the rear and rotated into a detent to hold it open. Nudging it out of the detent allows it to slam forward, chambering a round. A cross-bolt safety is located above the pistol grip at the rear of the receiver. The polymer fore-end has a rectangular cross-section and encloses the barrel from the front of the receiver to 3 1/2 inches aft of the muzzle.

Sights are rudimentary, with a fixed rear aperture and a front-sight post made from a flat piece of Day-Glo orange plastic clamped in place using plastic pressure pads. Backing out one pressure pad and tightening the opposite one allows you to adjust windage and elevation. One-eighth turn moves bullet impact one inch at 100 yards. Remember, moving the front sight to the right moves the point of impact left (and vice versa). Moving it up moves point of impact down.

A hinge at the top of the breech allows the SUB-2000's barrel and fore-end to fold up and back, where a detent on the back of the front-sight fixture engages a latch on the heel of the buttstock. Folded, the SUB-2000 measures a hair over 16 inches long by seven inches wide. Its weight is four pounds unloaded.

Field-stripping the SUB-2000 for cleaning is easy. First, make sure the gun is unloaded, the bolt is forward, the hammer cocked and the safety on. Then, use a stick or pointed object to withdraw (but not remove) a stock pin that passes through the tubular stock, which houses the buffer, recoil spring and two-piece bolt. This frees the buffer, which should pop up out of the buttplate. Remove the buffer and the recoil spring, which will come out with the buffer.