Coming Spring 2016: Magpul UBR Gen 2

[masakari]

I should have just stolen one of the display units at the Marine expo last year.

[Hammer_Man]

I hope it comes soon, as all the usual places list the UBR1 as discontinued.

[SPQR476]

OK...sorry for the delays...delays...delays...and so on, and also for the lack of comms on this, but after a while I was starting to feel silly, as I probably should have. The UBR GEN 2 program has been both exasperating and educational. The word "educational" in a product development context means pain, and that we found some excellent ways to do things in an optimal fashion after discarding a bunch of ways to do that same thing in a less perfect way.

The UBR is a tough act to follow, and we had some lofty goals. Cutting weight by 20% and cutting price through design, material advancements, and optimizing for manufacturing and still having the strongest possible carbine stock with the UBR expected features was a tough act. We thought we had it licked. But...there were some things that we weren't happy with, aesthetically, with "feel", with some functional aspects--so we went back to the drawing board a bunch of times. We've come very close to being able to release this several times, but each time we were faced with opportunities to make it better. Perfect is always the enemy of "shipping", but in this case, we felt it was a product that carries such high expectations that the improvements were worth incorporating, regardless of the delays.

Strength, weight, and price goals have been met. This was difficult enough in itself, but we now are where we need to be, from -60 to +180, in all colors. This took some doing. It would have been easy to bust the weight goals, bust price, or both, but much harder to accomplish all within our constraints.

We have also incorporated some changes to the operation and "manual of arms". After living with the stock in pre-production form, we found that the pinch lever method of removal was frequently actuated by accident. An inadvertent disassembly is less than desirable, and so we went back to the drawing board and have arrived at an extremely solid and foolproof system that we are much happier with.

Bottom line is that we're in what should be the final change phase. We are slated to have all pre-production and pilot efforts coming soon, and be shipping by the end of June.

We certainly didn't intend for this to drag out this long, but the stock is much, much better because of the delays, and is worthy of the UBR moniker.

Thank you for your patience.

[IndustrialHalo]

Thank you for the update. Sounds like I may be able to use it on a precision rifle build I just started.

[Stickman]

Much better to wait and have it right, than to release it on time, and put out a gen 2.1 six months later. People would absolutely freak, and it would be 16 pages of bitching and crying on every forum.

[masakari]

OK...sorry for the delays...delays...delays...and so on, and also for the lack of comms on this, but after a while I was starting to feel silly, as I probably should have. The UBR GEN 2 program has been both exasperating and educational. The word "educational" in a product development context means pain, and that we found some excellent ways to do things in an optimal fashion after discarding a bunch of ways to do that same thing in a less perfect way.

The UBR is a tough act to follow, and we had some lofty goals. Cutting weight by 20% and cutting price through design, material advancements, and optimizing for manufacturing and still having the strongest possible carbine stock with the UBR expected features was a tough act. We thought we had it licked. But...there were some things that we weren't happy with, aesthetically, with "feel", with some functional aspects--so we went back to the drawing board a bunch of times. We've come very close to being able to release this several times, but each time we were faced with opportunities to make it better. Perfect is always the enemy of "shipping", but in this case, we felt it was a product that carries such high expectations that the improvements were worth incorporating, regardless of the delays.

Strength, weight, and price goals have been met. This was difficult enough in itself, but we now are where we need to be, from -60 to +180, in all colors. This took some doing. It would have been easy to bust the weight goals, bust price, or both, but much harder to accomplish all within our constraints.

We have also incorporated some changes to the operation and "manual of arms". After living with the stock in pre-production form, we found that the pinch lever method of removal was frequently actuated by accident. An inadvertent disassembly is less than desirable, and so we went back to the drawing board and have arrived at an extremely solid and foolproof system that we are much happier with.

Bottom line is that we're in what should be the final change phase. We are slated to have all pre-production and pilot efforts coming soon, and be shipping by the end of June.

We certainly didn't intend for this to drag out this long, but the stock is much, much better because of the delays, and is worthy of the UBR moniker.

Thank you for your patience.

Just read this now. I'm glad to hear it, I'd much prefer a perfect product than a speedy one.
I look forward to buying one in OD green when they are available.

[jekbrown]

OK...sorry for the delays...delays...delays...and so on, and also for the lack of comms on this, but after a while I was starting to feel silly, as I probably should have. drawing board and have arrived at an extremely solid and foolproof system that we are much happier with....

Cool. Question: there are a lot of people that heard the "they'll be ready by SHOT 2017!" announcement and bought giftcards for magpul.com during black Friday. In the initial batch will there be ANY ubr2s for the home site? It seems like generally the big distributors get all the initial offerings for any new product (could be wrong, but it seems like the prs 3 was that way). Is there any chance that at least a few will be sold at magpul.com for those poor souls in that situation?

[RHINOWSO]

Much better to wait and have it right, than to release it on time, and put out a gen 2.1 six months later. People would absolutely freak, and it would be 16 pages of bitching and crying on every forum.

Yup. Get it right the first time and avoid the SIG Beta testing version 1 / 2 / safety upgrade.

[htw]

Appreciate the update, at lease we know 2.0 is not cancelled. But Am I the only one feeling that in all these paragraphs only 4th one did give us some hints of the improvements, although still vague? Maybe this is just their marketing thing...

Certainly I will still wait for 2.0, but probably will not buy without seeing the user review...

[jstalford]

Are you saying you're wanting more improvements than the 20% weight / 25% price reductions and A5 compatibility, coupled with the fact that they seem to improved the manual of arms over the prototype?