Pistol-caliber carbines may not be the panacea to your shooting needs, but TTAG has sponsored a lively and at times spirited debate about them. We’ve wrung-out and written-up a passel of them: the Kel Tec Sub2000, Henry Big Boy, Calico M-900 , Marlin 1894C, FN PS-90, and the Just Right 9mm Carbine.
Some love them, and some don’t. I usually like them, because of their huge SEG (shit-eating-grin) factor and the fact that most people find them easier to shoot than pistols or full-caliber rifles.
But rifle-caliber handguns like this C93 pistol are nothing but short-range bullet hoses. I’d call them ‘mall-ninja range toys’ but that name would be even more inaccurate than the guns themselves: they’re expressly forbidden at most shooting ranges. (T/C Encores and Remington XP-100s are totally cool and completely different from guns like the one above.)
Factory guns are no-brainers for conversion into licensed SBRs, but I can’t believe that many of them will ever be converted back into anything useful. The ATFE makes that impossible by understaffing their NFA branch and creating a de facto 6-month waiting period for suppressors or SBRs.
Maybe I’m being too harsh on this 9-pound, 40-round pistol. After all, it holds twice the ammo and costs less than half the price of a .308 FN-FAL pistol. Even if you can’t hit anything with it, that’s gotta count for something. Right?