Upcoming Products and Update

Welcome back to Hoffman Tactical! Today, I’ll update you on upcoming products, and what’s been going on here at Hoffman Tactical.

Obviously the big thing that has been going down is the situation surrounding the cease and desist letter I received from rare breed. I won’t say much about it here, as it’s not settled yet. However, I am hopeful that we can work everything out amicably, if or when we do, I will write a dedicated post on the subject.

Combo Kits Are Back In Stock

The LR-308 and AR-15 Combo Kits are back in stock and ready to ship. Due to delays, the new AR-9 Combo Kits won’t be shipping until next week, more about them below.

Upcoming AR-9 Combo Kit

The difference between an AR-15 Combo Kit and an AR-9 Combo kit is only a couple of parts. In fact, the AR-15 reinforcement kit is interchangeable with the AR-9 Super Lower, which is why we don’t provide a dedicated AR-9 Reinforcement Kit. However the differences between the Combo Kits are important.

The biggest one is that the AR-15 Magazine Catch is removed and replaced with a 3D printed one, of course a stainless steel roll pin must be added to support the printed catch. The original Magazine Catch spring is retained and used with the new printed catch.

The other difference is the Buffer Mass. In the AR-9 kit, the standard AR-15 buffer is replaced by a much heavier eight ounce solid steel buffer, this slows the bolt down and prevents out of battery detonations and other problems that can affect blowback operated firearms.

These two changes are important, and will be reflected in the soon to be available AR-9 Combo Kits. The AR-9 buffers do cost more, but the increase in cost should not be more then a few dollars over the AR-15 kits.

Double Ribbed Super Lower

Another new and upcoming design is the Double Rib Super Lower. I have had the design in the final stages for a number of weeks. Unfortunately other business has prevented me from adding the final touches, such as built in support. I hope to have this Double Rib Super Lower out in a couple more weeks.

Since there are two ribs rather then one, the buffer tower is wider and will require a larger reinforcement band. Because of this, I will provide a new Reinforcement Kit and Combo kit for the double ribbed lower that includes the larger band, which will be the same as the one currently fielded on the LR-308 Super Lower. This should come at no additional cost.

I have been asked what uppers will work with the new Double Ribbed Super Lower. Any upper that is narrow enough to fit between the ribs should work. That means left hand side chargers, right hand side chargers, and slick sides. Uppers with a forward assist will not work, and you will have to use the single ribbed Super Lower for them.

Increased strength is not the only advantage of using two ribs. Another advantage is that the additional rib on the right side allows for the right fire control group wall to be brought back to the “mil-spec” thickness. This opens up a lot of options for ambidextrous safeties and equipment. In fact, most ambidextrous accessories that work with aluminum lowers will work with the double rib lower. Pretty cool!

Other Designs In The Works

There is a long list of designs that require my attention, and current designs that need updating. A few of these are listed below.

• Double Rib AR-15 Super Lower. Soon to be released.
• V2.0 AR-9 Lower. A LRBHO is the priority with this, but some feeding issues also need to be addressed.
• V2.0 Super LR-308 Lower. An all around update of the V1.4 LR-308 lower is needed to bring it up to the same level as the V3.0 Super AR-15 Lower. This will probably be the next release after the double ribbed lower.
• 3D printed W54.
• Gen 3 Stock System. Don’t know when this will be out, but there are a number of issues that need to be addressed with the current stocks, mostly with their shape and form, but also functionally with the retention system and sling mount.
• Double Ribbed LR-308.

There are others, but these are the more relevant ones. If you have a suggestion for something you think I should design, let me know! While I probably won’t get to it for a while (unless it’s just that cool!), I always heavily consider suggestions.

Location Of The Design Files

Many of you know that this site was down the beginning of February. This was due to what I believe was a DoS attack targeting the then unprotected design files. I would like to continue hosting files here from my site, but for now I thought it was best to move them out to Odysee. That is why on the Downloads Page there are links to Odysee rather then direct downloads.

Filament Testing

Due to other work I have fallen a bit behind on filament testing. Several gentlemen have sent me samples to test, and Kimya sent me some interesting Kevlar ABS to try. I have also purchased other filaments to test. Hopefully I’ll have my new impact tester done soon and can get back to testing.

An interesting line if experiments I would also like to try is creep testing. I have found that the Overture Easy Nylon suffers from quite a lot of creep, enough where I don’t think it is a good option for parts with springs. This is unfortunate because otherwise the Easy Nylon has very good properties, and prints beautifully. I’m interested how other Nylons will perform, and if annealing the Easy Nylon will fix the creep issue.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!