TNW piston guns- complete weapon, quick review

[bkb0000]

http://www.tnwfirearms.com/index.shtml

this thread will be diliberately vague, as to protect people that may or may not exist and/or have relationships with the manufacturer. all unverifiable information conveyed here is reported as it was conveyed to me, but you'll have to take my word on that.

its not often that i just happen upon an undiscovered manufacturer- especially one that's trying to do something somewhat innovative, so i found it very interesting. hopefully you do too.

based out of Vernonia, Oregun- about 30 minutes from my house, and I never even knew they existed.

they apparently machine their clearly billet uppers and lowers themselves. the uppers are functionally monolithic- steel welded to aluminum. the barrels are quick-change. you slide two locking plates back, which releases the barrel locking levers.. pull those back (or maybe they're supposed to spring back), and yank the barrel out through the handguard. the locking plates are almost impossible to get out of the way, as they're under whatever spring-tension that keeps them in place, plus the torqued tension of the locking levers, which are compressing the barrel into the receiver face. the locking levers on this one wouldn't stay locked into the lock-plates, so every time i charged the weapon, the levers sprung free and barrel fell off.

the carriers are reportedly machined in-house as well. i saw absolutely no sign of anti-tiltness, but supposedly they have some kind of patented anti-tilt thing going on. i whole-heartedly don't believe that.

there were two to look at.. one anodized, and this one- which is shiny hard-chromed. they call the finish "black ice," i believe. all of those things that look like smudges are actually toolmarks showing through the chrome. of the total number of guns ordered (more than a few), these were the only two they didn't have to send back to the manufacturer... and now, upon my ****ing with this one, it will be going back as well (remember? i break shit :)). the others reportedly had a whole range of problems, from not being able to charge the weapons to not being able to break them down to parts falling off, etc. none had been test-fired (deductive reasoning- since none of the returned weapons were functional, they couldnt have been). must have been in a hurry to get the order filled.

pics taken with my PDA... i didn't get great/more important angles, nor the guts. i got the feeling that photography wasn't really supposed to be happening, so i just snapped a few off and put the phone away before someone got hostile.

I gather TNW is known for their piston conversion kits.. a search here provided opinions like "the best piston conversion on the market," and the like. didn't see anything negative about the conversion kits.

the poor quality of this weapon, and the shit-ass-suck-balls machining lead me to believe these guns are brand spanking new, and basically prototypes. hopefully they'll figure some things out and start producing a decent weapon. the quick-change barrel locking mechanism needs to be straight up shit-canned and redesigned. everything else appears to be simple machining issues than can be greatly improved by nothing more than better machining. i mean c'mon.. receivers have been "done..." that's not a new frontier.

oh, and the tapco/mako (whatever the hell) furniture has to go. obviously.

pix.. for your pleasure. oh- and if anybody should happen to recognize the place where this weapon is located, please don't blurt it out. info intentionally left out.

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/51/l_e632a24aab5845eb8246f54564639469.jpg
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/39/l_6be6743f538e4dfead96c17cc1e50548.jpg
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/22/l_16c1d7c6906645268564439fe6ed94fc.jpg
http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/30/l_62d21f0fe69749cc8bd881928f1f3d8e.jpg
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/18/l_af9590cff0b948129c6a1bb28b3fa1ac.jpg
http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/10/l_f431f5f5e43b4433848a1d98ce004447.jpg
http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/22/l_c7e6810cfccb4b118fbbf6547050682a.jpg


i didn't even ask about price... oddly enough, the question never even entered my mind.

[perna]

Looks like it came from a Terminator movie.

[Miale]

looks as heavy as hell

[txdukklr]

looks as heavy as hell

thats my first thought and edgy. some of those corners need to be smoothed out.

[bkb0000]

the machining is very rough. they're deburred- you're not gonna cut yourself, but the obtuse angles are not smoothed over. so while it wont "cut" you, it's still a lot sharper than it should be.

weigh wasn't any worse than any other carbine, actually. in fact, its probably a bit lighter than most railed 16" carbines, as the handguard is just thin stamped steel with a few pieces of rail screwed to it.

i don't know what aluminum series they use, nor any other technical specs- barrel steel, bolt, etc. The receivers are about the same thickness as other billets, only machined out in more spots- probably actually a hair lighter than, say, a sun devil set. no delta ring or barrel nut, so some small weight savings there. the QD barrel mechanism doesn't look like it adds any measurable weight.

The bolt almost looks like a DD.. it has the same half-moon machine cuts behind the lugs as DD. no markings, so no MPI, wherever they come from.

[eternal24k]

was this thing a piston?

[benthughes]

This looks like it belongs in the "Bubba gun" thread.

[castillo]

NO thanks!!

[bkb0000]

was this thing a piston?

yep..

[StormWerkz]

Steel welded to aluminum? Nope. I will wait for better info before I look at these.