r/canadaguns • u/SmatheAverage • 3d ago

Feets / Collection / My build Cry Harder Poly

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Never lose hope and make the most of our current circumstances, lads.

437 Upvotes

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41

u/Whispersfine 3d ago

I’ve been downvoted to oblivion for saying makasi is just a w180 game 2.0. Well, here we are, another owner telling us to buy Carmel instead.

How hard it is to believe that a few guys with CNC machines just can’t make good guns. Give me a break.

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u/syspak 3d ago

My brother in law made his on 9mm lower and 5.56 lower they work perfectly fine.

Infact I was using them on July 4th on his property. Lots of good fun.

(This is not in Canada)

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u/Whispersfine 3d ago

Ask him to make 5000 of those in 3 months and maintain the QC.

I’ve been working with many manufacturers. It’s never hard to make one good gun. It’s about how you can make 99 good ones out of 100 with max efficiency. That, my friend, is the difference between a proper arsenal and a little gun workshop.

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u/SmatheAverage 3d ago

I concur. My serial number is less than 500 which likely indicates that this rifle is indeed a boutique, low production product. QC will be lacking to meet the Canadian market demand.

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u/syspak 3d ago

Yeah right, it took him jours to mill out the 2 lowers of a solid block of metal and then the finishing was a whole other story.

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u/superfluid 2d ago

I'm a stupid person but curious: could you elaborate on the most likely places for quality to suffer when scaling from "artisinal" crafting of platforms vs at scale?

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u/Whispersfine 2d ago

K so imagine you are running a team of 20 to 50 technicians but planning to supply the whole Canadian market. We are looking at perhaps 50 to 100 orders from each distributor in the whole country. Do you have enough man power and management resources to cover the operation? If you screw up one rifle, you need twice the time to make it right. It’s a nightmare for operation management.

I’ve seen some awesome projects from small arms manufacturers but they probably only produce a handful each year. In Makasi’s case, they need to haul ass to fill all the preorders, QC then becomes a joke.

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u/superfluid 2d ago

Ah, I gotcha. A follow-up: my ignorant and obviously wrong assumption is that these are repeatable, computer-driven, processes. What aspects of the manufacturing pipeline fails to scale here? Is there like "drift" in the tooling over time or like, what's actually failing here?

I appreciate your time and insight, I find this pretty interesting.

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u/Whispersfine 2d ago

As simple as it sounds, those CNC machines needs regular maintenance. Also, the most common negative reviews about makasi at this point appears to happen during the assembly process. Forcing bolts through is a main concern, they also sourced less ideal parts for piston clip, this was the first report about charging handle being wedged.

I won’t generalize and assume that these QC issues are due to one simple factor. The main reason why those w180 were garbage because they lacked of large scale manufacturing capacity and experience. Yet because of our brilliant government, we only have so many options for a much bigger demand.

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u/SmatheAverage 2d ago

A fellow from Texas reported the same issue with the charging handle back in Oct 2023.
https://www.falfiles.com/threads/brigade-manufacturing-makasi-fal-ar-hybrid-rifle.485006/post-5531368

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u/Top_Importance6216 2d ago

he also reported his issues were user end related / gas tube not fully being in position.

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u/yukukaze233 3d ago

it's wk180 with Floridian characteristics lol

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u/GodsGiftToWrenching 3d ago

I feel like the Carmel will be ass too, in the few unboxing videos I've seen this week from the few guys that got them the thing looks absolutely gigantic, like a tactical tuna with 2x4 furniture, also in every video the light catches the bolt nicely and you can see all the super rushed and kinda shitty machining all over the bolt, just like Cringesader, Ruger, and the soviets did

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u/Whispersfine 3d ago

I have a Christensen Arms rifle that comes with machining circles on the bolt. It’s a laser beam accurate gun.

Polished bolt face is nice but can you get it from makasi? Probably not. The only thing I know is that Carmel is made by a real arms manufacturer. The same one made service rifle for the most active military forces.

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u/GodsGiftToWrenching 3d ago

Thats a fair point, but at the same time, a CZ Bren 2 has a well finished bolt and bolt carrier as well as a well finished race way on the upper, an absolutely well finished piece of machinery that is also made by a proper manufacturer and is activley seeing use in trench warfare today ( what a haunting sentence to type) but that being said the bren 2 was also twice the price of the makasi and the Carmel, however if savage can afford to properly blast and finish their equipment so should IWI

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u/Whispersfine 2d ago

There’s a new post on CGN with high res pics. Bolt looks just fine.

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u/GodsGiftToWrenching 2d ago

I'll have to go searching for it, because from the videos that have been released, it looks like a Ruger american bolt where you can tell exactly what processed they used to mill the bolt because the machining is so rushed and sloppy

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u/ExplorerEnjoyer 2d ago

It may be ugly (ugly guns are still cool), IWI can actually build a firearm that works

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u/NIBLZ_HAMSTR 2d ago

Yeah... I wouldn't expect problems with rifles from iwi

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u/IcySkyDream 3d ago

My Israeli X95 has those milling marks too.

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u/GodsGiftToWrenching 3d ago

That is quite a bummer, my Bren 2 doesn't, nor does my savage 10T-SR, you would think if savage can afford to properly finish their rifles then a mil spec manufacturer could too

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u/IcySkyDream 3d ago

I don’t consider it a negative, TBH. It’s a mil-spec MSR, not a fancy hunting rifle.

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u/GodsGiftToWrenching 2d ago

I'd comnsider it a negative lol, you're paying how many thousands for somethjng with Cringesader quality? It is a mil spec modern sporting rifle... bit for the civilian market not the front lines, and a savage 10T-SR is about the furthest thing from a fancy hunting rifle, literally the bottom of the barrel most entry level target rifle at 650 bucks, and it comes with a 5R barrel and a finisher better than IWI, I think they can spare a couple min, slow their feed rate, and tumble their bolt carriers before bluing

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u/NIBLZ_HAMSTR 2d ago

I dont think there are many companies out there that could make a crappier rifle than crusader arms... but hey... at least their customer service is even worse.

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u/IcySkyDream 2d ago

I suppose Colt could also ensure their rifles don’t arrive with factory dings and scrapes, but such is the nature of military-spec firearms.

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u/GodsGiftToWrenching 2d ago

I will say the 1911 series 70 and SP-1 do not have the machining marks that the carmel appears ro have, I have no experience with new colt

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u/IcySkyDream 2d ago

Just a matter of customer demand, I think.

The typical LE department ordering duty rifles only cares that they work, so Colt’s QC reflects that.

The series 70 and 89 1911s were always aimed at civilians.

Having said that, my US-made X95 bolt carrier looks cleaner. Both work just fine. 🤷