Yeah, that’s pretty much the reaction everyone had shooting Witt Machine’s integrally suppressed uppers in Montana last month. Sure, the full-auto lower added to the experience, but the prospect of a light weight, normal-length, hearing-safe, plug-and-play upper on your standard AR lower is awfully compelling. Especially at the price.
You can snag one of these ultra-light 4.4 lb uppers for $1499. Not a 300 shooter? Witt offers a 5.56 version at the same price. The only other gear you’d need is a tax stamp.
That’s a good $300-$400 less than comparable suppressed uppers from competitors. We’re trying to arrange a range day to give these the full work-out. Watch this space.
Too many bad experiences with Witt Machine to care.
I’m sensing some disapproval (here and your post below). Would you care to elaborate?
I don’t know what Some Bloke had for bad experiences, but This Bloke was very dissatisfied with the overall buying process, mainly from the customer service and transfer angles.
I spoke to the directly and requested a specific serial number, which was stated No Problem. The third digit was clearly articulated to them to be Z, as in Zulu. But in reality it is a 2, as in the number 2. At a quick glance, not too much difference. Oh freaking well. I requested to be notified when the product shipped from there, after the female on the phone said it could be noted and done. Four weeks after I was told it would ship “next week” I call back and find out there was a shipping SNAFU courtesy UPS. I get that they couldn’t control what the shipping company does, but as soon as they found out there was a problem my phone should have rang to let me know where my expensive device was. It ended up in the Soviet nation of Illinois at a lawn mower repair shop. Fortunately, the guy apparently didn’t know what it was, contacted the mfr, and it was arranged for a local FFL to send it back to Witt. I, during this news, was told it got badly damaged and needed to be rebuilt. Two weeks later I still don’t have anything at my local SOT, so I email them. Via some pretty shitty communication from someone with the company, I was again told that I would be informed when my expensive device was shipped from their facility. A couple weeks later, I called up the SOT who would be eventually receiving this suppressed upper to ask a question about a gunsmith service. I posed, casually, the question if they were aware of the whole situation, since I know there is one guy that checks in all the NFA toys. He had no idea about any of it. The rep from Witt telling me that the receiving store is the one who let them know there was a shipping problem, and sparked the tracking search, blatantly lied to me about that. Incidentally, the same day I asked if the store had any knowledge of the ordeal I was told that it had arrived two days prior. However, my name only appeared on the shipping label in the address area, with the LGS at the C/O address.
So, later that same day, after dropping all of my plans to go and get this party started, and test fire this thing, I went up and got to inspect for the first time. I found there was a small scuff on the side of it; serial number wasn’t what I requested; fit didn’t really work well with the lower that I bought to put along side it. (Sharp Bros “the Jack”) That last bit was more of an inconvenience. I had to do a touch of sanding on the black coating to make it fit. I’m not really annoyed at that point, since the thickness of the coating can vary slightly, and both parts needed a little TLC to get fully assembled, to include putting on the buffer tube.
As far as the device itself, I got to fire a few mags of 5.56 through it on the indoor range. The noise in that environment was a bit too loud, but you know, I’m inside. So, duh. I had an LWRCI M6 rifle with a nickel boron BCG. I never needed to put a drop of lube on that thing as long as I owned it. This one, however, wouldn’t even go into battery with the forward assist. Lube is definitely needed on this one, which is again, a moot point and part of regular maintenance anyway. I was hopeful that the design of this system would prevent some of the blowback, and mitigate the filth inside the upper receiver. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and I’ll be giving it a deep clean each time I use it, time permitting. Once it’s home, the inside will be cleaned well each session. The bolt itself was an awful mess when I brought it home with me that day. It now has a healthy coat of graphite lube upon it in preparation for my next outing. I have found, in my 17 years Army service, that graphite is among the best to use. It looks kinda like carbon buildup, but after an extensive day at the range, with more rounds than I carried in a combat mission, all I had to do was gently wipe away the blackness and my bolt parts would shine once more. No scrubbing or scratching necessary.
I’ve only shot this upper once so far, since my life as a student/single dad/full time employee sucks. I don’t necessarily recommend avoiding this purchase, but be prepared for some huge waves that will need to be ridden in order to finally get your big spending back to Fort Living Room. And don’t be surprised when the customer service is lacking.
Lady has bigger guns than me.
That lady has bigger guns than I do.
With the new rules for tax stamps… I’ll stick with my TBAC 5.56 can thanks.
Don’t give the ATF and Barry’s administration what they want, by avoiding NFA items. 41F isn’t the end of the world. In fact, it is a boon for non-trust buyers. Yes, getting fingerprints is annoying, yes getting them for multiple people is a hassle. But the extra form and the photo per person isn’t that time consuming or problematic. Is it a further infringement? Probably. But refusing to buy based on yet another dumb regulation is exactly what “they” want, and are hoping for.
We will never see any true improvement on the NFA purchase process, until the NFA, GCA, and FOPA are repealed (good luck with that). But 41F is a trade off, that gives non-trust buyer the ability to buy without having their CLEO infringe on their rights, at the cost of some extra hassle for trust-buyers.
Anyway, go talk to your trust attorney, and there is likely a way to adjust your trust to minimize the impact of 41F.
Bottom line…quit whining about stupid ATF rules, and go exercise your rights to buy what you want, while you have them.
“Yes, getting fingerprints is annoying, yes getting them for multiple people is a hassle. But the extra form and the photo per person isn’t that time consuming or problematic.”
No offense, but don’t try to tell me what’s what when you have no idea how my life is structured. My trust was set up to deal with the legal ramifications of multiple simultaneous deaths in the family such as my wife and I dying in a car crash or my parents/her parents dying at the same time. Now, due to the way life has changed I’ve got seven people in four states. One person now lives in a state that doesn’t allow NFA gear.
That’s an enormous pain in the ass and, as designed, basically defeats the entire purpose of my trust. The way things are now, it’s basically useless without removing people from it.
On top of that, without modification, I’d have to figure out how a CLEO informing letter works in a state that doesn’t allow NFA gear and what if any legal ramifications that would have for my brother in law.
As planned, people like me were completely fucked by the new rules. I’m now in a position where the only rational option is to pay a few hundred dollars to have another addendum crafted removing a bunch of people from my trust.
“I’m now in a position where the only rational option is to pay a few hundred dollars to have another addendum crafted removing a bunch of people from my trust.”
Holy shit, you’re paying way too much for a simple notarized document that contains boilerplate wording. You can even craft it yourself. No wonder you’re pissed.
“Holy shit, you’re paying way too much for a simple notarized document that contains boilerplate wording.”
ScottS, if you had bothered to read what he wrote, what he has described is a very complex legal trust with numerous individuals in different parts of the US where NFA goodies are verboten.
A ‘boilerplate’ Staples-Office Depot instant trust would be worse than worthless for him, it could open some on the trust up to some serious federal firearms charges.
Stryc, I don’t envy your situation one bit.
I love the Strychnine reference in the username, BTW That toxin is one of the *nastiest* ways to die…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine_poisoning
@Scott
HOLY SHIT! You obviously have absolutely no idea what it costs to have a trust that covers people in multiple states and what it costs to have it reviewed in each state to make sure that everyone is protected by air-tight language.
You also don’t seem to understand that if the BATFE can find a SINGLE flaw with your shit they will disapprove your Form 4 and will not state why they did so.
Now, unless you’re a lawyer that will craft such a document for free, FLAME DELETED
@Geoff:
At least someone understands how complex the legalities of this sort of thing can be. Sorry, to the rest on here, I’m not going to throw my family under the bus so they can go to prison as a form of my protesting for the 2A.
Also, as to the name… my friends call me C21H22N2O2… but only when they’re drunk. LOL. No, it’s been a gaming name of mine since the 90’s. I guess that’s what happens when your parents are chemists.
Well, if you can’t afford a few hundred bucks for your attorneys fees, maybe you shouldn’t be in the NFA stamp collecting game anyway. Its not for everyone, but at least you got a can. Now that the rules have changed, alot more people will have that opportunity. No need to rain on everyone else’s parade, just because you are pissed at a dumb rule change. Direct that anger into pushing for a legislative solution or something.
FLAME DELETED
So it’s totally legit for the government to just add a few hundred dollars in costs to your “rights” whenever they like huh? That’s literally what you’re saying here. This is the government here, given the ability to just “add a few hundred dollars” to the price of your rights whenever the EXPLETIVE DELETED they want your rights will rapidly belong only to millionaires and billionaires.
Yeah, welcome to the $25K price increase on a pistol brought on by “administrative regulations”. I’m sure you’ll be so smug then.
I’ll say this real loud and proud for you folks that think this “isn’t a big deal” EXPLETIVE DELETED. The same EXPLETIVE DELETED talking about the 2A are literally now posting on TTAG that what amounts to taxation without representation is totally fine as long as it has to do with some “narrow” portion of the NFA.
FLAME DELETED
Well, I guess we don’t moderate the nut jobs here anymore, and attacking other commenters with a barage of profanity is good to go on TTAG now. Cool.
I was attempting to encourage you and other to stop thinking of these rule changes as the end of NFA buying. I am tired of seeing people sit in the corner with their thumb in their mouth and sulk like a three year old, because a rule changed and they have to do more stuff to get what they want. It is a shitty situation, but get over and find a solution, or shut up.
Look, there is this thing called reality. In this reality, there are currently lots of stupid rules and regulations that have to be jumped through for many things, including NFA items. Many of these involve spending unnecessary and excessive amounts of money to get past. You dying, for example. It happens to everyone, and it is not something that should require a lot of Government involvement, attorneys, or finanical expenditure. But it does. Its wrong, it stupid, and it is a hassle for everyone. But it is reality. Accept reality, as difficult, unseemly, morally wrong, and unlawful as it may be, and I think you’ll have an easier time enjoying life. Which seems to be a problem for you now.
I believe I mentioned, or at least strongly implied, in my original comment that the NFA, GCA, and Hughes Amendment to FOPA were infringements, which should be repealed, along with 41F/P. So I am a little confused by your personal attack on me about the legality of federal firearms regulation. But maybe you don’t do well with subtlety. So, whatever.
Clearly you have been, or believe you have been personally, significantly, negatively affected by these infringements. If you have, then you have a right to redress from the government, and you should seek that through legal action and advocating (to your congresscritters, not on the internet) legislative action to resolve these infringements. If you spent even a fraction of the energy it took to write down the vitriolic hated that you spewed forth here on contacting your congresscritters or taking legal action, perhaps we would all benefit from you working to rectify your situation.
As to your apparent problem with minor typing errors, I suggest you take that up with whomever is currently writing and debugging (hah, as if they debug it) the computer code that controls the auto-correct functions, which have a habit of changing correct words into incorrect words, and real words into non words.
Lighten up, Francis.
Aw, but you deleted all the funny parts, RF…
Oh, well, standards and all.
You can have more than 1 trust. I have one for each NFA item. You already have the complicated, custom, bullet-proof trust for whatever life situation you cared about. Does everyone that trust want to use you item? Even if they’re out of state? Get a cheap boilerplate for just the NFA.
Must have been using supers. This is what a full auto 300 should sound like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dru6f9SCzxw&list=WL&index=9
Or it’s another Witt Machine abortion/dumpster fire. Anyone can make a can, not everyone can make one that works decently.
For the life of me, I can’t understand why we’re not in our Congressman’s offices in support of the Hearing Protection Act. This thing has a ton of co sponsors and we’re getting through to some that suppressors are freely available in foreign countries.
We CAN remove suppressors and SBRs from the NFA with a relatively small effort from gun owners. The most frustrating thing about gun politics is the sad knowledge that if 10% of gun owners put in as much effort as me, we’d have national permitless carry and the ability to ship machine guns to our doors. What do I do? Give a couple hundred bucks to gun rights groups a year, call, email, and visit the state house once a year. Not very much at all. But if a couple million cared to do that? In the words of Marlon Brando: “our troubles here would be over very quickly”.
Explain how an integrally suppressed AR is possible please.
Where is the gas tube?
On a 300blk, they commonly have pistol length gas ports even with 16″ barrels. So, if they used a 10″ or 12″ barrel, they could move the rear of the can pretty far back over the barrel without running into the gas block. Or, they could use an 8″ and weld the rear endcap to the muzzle threads.
Where ever you want it to be, at least 2″ forward of the throat, I’d reckon.
You’d probably want a pretty small gas port in the barrel that close in, what with the pressures in that region of the barrel.
I guess what I mean is, is it truly integrally suppressed, with a suppressor that goes all the way back to the receiver? If so, is the gas port fitted to a tube that goes down to the actual barrel? Or is it just attached to the suppressor at a location where there is still enough pressure even inside the can to drive the BCG?
If the suppressor doesn’t go all the way back to the receiver, then I get it.
It appears the can doesn’t extend all the way back to the barrel nut:
http://wittmachine.net/images/witt/sup_up-24-Nov-2015-_DSC2888.jpg
Look just in front of the barrel nut, and you can see the can isn’t there in the rearmost two hexagonal cuts in the forearm.
8 inch barrel on the most recent evolution of this upper. That has a pinned baffle set, with the sleeve that goes over the top. Turn free a few screws and the sleeve comes off to clean the baffles.
I was told that the first generation of this system was a full length barrel with ports that ran from about the 8 inch mark on the barrel anyway, so the muzzle velocity of mine versus the original design would be pretty much the same
I don’t think “integrally suppressed” means what you think it means, any more. When I hear that phrase, I see an MP5SD, and I think, tube over the barrel, ports drilled into the barrel to reduce gas pressure AND projectile velocity of standard ammunition, at the same time. Apparently ‘integrally suppressed’ now just means that the damn thing is welded to the barrel so it won’t come off. I wish they would just call it a fixed or permanent suppressor.