What’s Cooking at Inter Ordnance

Inter Ordnance makes AKs and AR15s on Florida’s “Space Coast.” The company boasts that its new locale helps business because “we have been able to hire top quality engineers and assembly personnel, who worked before for NASA and defense contractors.” Meanwhile, IO hired Eduardo Debarros to be their VP of Production. Debarros worked for Taurus for more than 20 years, expanding Taurus’ production from 100 guns a week to more than 5000 guns a week. IO Inc is hoping that Eduardo can help expand and optimize their product lines, reduce waste and improve quality. Here’s what he’s working with . . .

IO invited journalists to their Sunshine State base to sample products both old and new and meet with company officials. Most of the products that IO Inc submitted to the assembled crows were existing guns, like the AKM247 (AK), and its many variants, the M214 Sniper (AK), the M214 Nano (AK) and the M215 (AR).

IO has added an under-folding and side-folding stock option to their AKM247 models (the AKM247-UF and AKM247-SF). They’re also working on upping production of the M214 Nano (currently only 10 a day), gearing-up within the next few months.

One of the new items: a PPS43-C Polish import pistol chambered in 7.62x25mm Tokarev with a 9.8″ barrel. This was converted to a closed bolt Semi-Auto from the original open bolt full-auto configuration. Since the quantity is limited (just 500 guns), my guess is they will be hard to find.

Another update. Apparently IO has some sourcing problems with the Venom .45 ACP pistol’s slides. They’re moving away from forgings, planning on machine the slide from billet in-house. They’re hoping to have them available at this January’s SHOT Show.

Also in the works: a concept for an “SBR ready” AKM247 with a pinned fake “suppressor” attached to the barrel. That way,  you can file your paperwork, pay your $200, get a tax stamp and then, with a lot less hassle, remove the “suppressor” and have your SBR ready to go. No other work needed. This will be a nice and simple way to get an AK SBR without having to do a ton of the work that is required to change a barrel, etc. IO’s hoping to have this available next year.

At the Range

Last year things went pretty smoothly. This time around . . .

One of the M214 Nanos had the bolt carrier come off track and get stuck. There were a few failure-to-feed and a few failure-to-fire issues. Bad surplus ammo appeared to cause the firing issues, whiled the failures-to-feed were likely caused by some new magazines that needed to be smacked around a bit. After a few uses, and some oil, most – but not all – of the issues went away. There were also a few instances of the rim of cases getting ripped off. Over-gassed guns? Old ammunition? Something.

[Northern California’s The Gun Range is planning to put some of the IO Inc products into their rental program to see how they perform under some real abuse. That will be a great stress test; everyone knows how people treat rentals. I’ll reach out to see how everything is holding up and report back.]

Customer Service

IO company officials discussed customer service frequently. Many distributors in attendance said how much they appreciated IO Inc’s customer service.

IO Inc offers a lifetime warranty on all of their products. In talking with a few shops and distributors, the failure rate of delivered guns is better than some larger brands. I don’t have any specific numbers, but “very low” was tossed around more than a few times by various third parties. That said, the time on the range was a little disheartening no matter what anyone says. You pays your money . . .

Price List

Here is a list of all of IO Inc’s current/future products and their MSRP prices.