We have fitted a few M11s with kits and they run just as reliably as the M10s.  We will begin working our way through the list as soon as we have our magazine perfected.

Magazines:  We have approximately 200 magazine bodies back from the laser welder and we are working the bugs out.  The 20 and 30 round mags work great.  The high cap mags, however, continue to be a bit of a problem. We tested several 40 round mags (in the white) with our local beta testers and it was thumbs up all the way. We then parkerized them and in an effort to save time and reduce costs, we replaced our follower with a Black Dog Machine follower. Before test firing the new follower, we sent them out to beta test volunteers.  As soon as we had those practice mags in the mail, we discovered that the Black Dog Machine followers (through no fault of their own) were too small for our spring. The parkerizing also made the inside so rough that the follower would not slide correctly. Our high cap mag that (in the white) would hold 42 rounds were now only allowing 17-20 rounds if you smashed the last rounds into the mag.  So, we have modified the followers so that they work with our springs in our mags and sent them out to our volunteers.  To avoid the rough interior wall caused by parkerizing, we have set up for bluing the mags to keep a smooth polished finish on the inside. We will be test firing the latest mags this week and are waiting for reports from our volunteers.

We are currently bending the magazine bodies so that they can be sent out to the laser welder.  Below is a picture of the unfinished 12″ mag bodies w/ an H&K 270 20 round mag in the middle for comparison.

M11 Kits:  All of the programming for the parts is completed and we are currently machining the first run of 10 kits.  We expect to send these kits out to be coated late next week.

We have located a company that will do the laser welding we need for the back of the magazine bodies.  Shipping today, is enough sheet metal to fabricate 200 magazines.  We anticipate receiving the materials next week, however we are preparing for vacation (13th-19th) and will probably not start bending up the sheet metal until we get back – Christmas week.  After we have them bent, the laser welder speculates a turn around time of 3 weeks.  When we have the completed mags inhouse, we will have them beta tested and begin sending them out to those that have already purchased one of our .22 kits.

M11 Kit:  We have cut up the material and it is piled everywhere.  We are in the process of programming the rest of the pieces that make up the kit.  We anticiapte that we’ll have some kits ready to be sent out for coating by the end of the month.

We are also working on the hardware for side cocking uppers for the M10 and M11 .22 kits.  This hardware will also retro fit any side cocking M10 or M11 upper.  The difference between ours and other manufacturers is that ours is spring loaded and the charging handle will always return to the front of the upper on it’s own.

The picture below shows the results of our dry run for our new tooling.  As you can see, we’re displaying 30 and 40 round mags sandwiched between the H&K 20 round mag we are currently selling with our kits and a typical Sten mag.  We have not yet testfired these mags but intend to do so in the near future.  Our first step was to make sure we could fabricate what we wanted in the way of mag pieces.  There are some quirks in the tooling that make reproduction difficult at best and we are working that out now.  Next, we will begin beta-testing.  We apologize for the delay.  We have undergone a few setbacks, design changes, and delays; but we are pushing forward as fast as we can.

M11 Kit update:  Because we made a slight design change early in the summer, we resubmitted our M11 Kit to ATF for approval (because they instructed us to do so if we made even the slightest design change.)  We have finally received a positive response from ATF and are free to move forward with production of the kit.  We will be working on them over the next couple of months and will get them out as soon as we can.

We have come up with a better way to form the 40 round magazines.  Unfortunately, this requires different tooling.  We hope to be doing our bending trials by the end of this week.