Product related – Cogburn Arsenal

Posted on March 9, 2019July 6, 2019 by cogburn — 5 Comments

Internal Production Capacity (Update)

As previously mentioned in our blog, we are working hard to develop internal capacity to produce our plastic parts and we have come a long way in the last month. We have resolved a few technical issues. A discerning eye will catch some other cosmetic defects in the pictures we would still like to resolve, but we like to share the progress. We should take this time to reiterate that we are trying to produce parts that are cheaper for the end user, shorten lead times, and produce better colors.

We have ultimately chosen colors for our initial release and have all of them on hand except black. As shown above, the colors are Grey, Blaze Orange, Olive Drab green, and Khaki. The Grey is a nice gun-metal color that actually matches U.S. military clips, clip guides, or any other U.S. Military parkerized steel. The orange is a UV reactive vibrant orange. It’s a bright color under any light, but UV rays from the sun are reflected into the visible light spectrum making it bright and easy to see if dropped it in tall grass. The olive drab green is a staple in the outdoors community and will match up with surplus bandoleers and ammo cans nicely. We were really excited to find this dark tan/khaki color. It’s not quite a true Flat Dark Earth match, but it’s close enough for all but the most fashion sensitive shooters. Black was delayed at the time of writing. It needs no commentary as it currently makes up over 50% of our sales by volume.
We will go live with these 5 colors available, but we are going to add more as we go. Send us a message if you have a different color request. We will likely have a minimum order quantity for new color requests, so keep that in mind if you’re looking for new colors.

Khaki
Grey
Blaze Orange
OD Green
OD Green Khaki, Grey

Another perk with the redesign is that these parts will work with U.S. military surplus clips as well as Thermold and Canadian surplus plastic clips. This will provides much more flexibility without sacrificing usability. There is no more need to choose between the two anymore.

Posted on January 19, 2019January 6, 2020 by cogburn — Leave a comment

Internal Production Capacity

Typically we have used 3rd party production capacity to get the highest quality prints we can. We think we can make some of the plastic parts in-house that offer the same functionality and durability. We also think we can provide a lower cost to the customer than the current products we offer. There is the added benefit of using colors we think are more typically associated with the shooting sports (tan, OD green, blaze orange) and we can ship sooner than waiting for the third party production. We are currently still investigating multiple different plastic types, and are attempting to balance ease of printing, durability, and color availability. It seems like a win for everyone involved.

Top two are from our supplier, bottom two are our prints. We are still fine tuning

On the topic of color; we would love to hear your input on what colors you are interested in for plastic parts. We would love for people to take part in our survey on just that(Click here for the survey). We’ll compare the information from the survey with the purchase history that we have(shown below). It’s clear to us that black, green, and orange are the top three color choices, but our data can’t tell us what shades of greens you like or if you would prefer tan to orange. We need help from the customers to determine a few of those things. We hope you take the time to give us input.

Above is the current distribution of colors for Clip Spoons and Magazine Couplers.

For the time being, we’ll be offering the normal parts as always. In the near future you might see new listings for clip spoons as a trial run while still selling the old parts for the people who want the same great parts. We hope that doesn’t cause too much confusion and will allow you to get the parts you want. As time progresses we will attempt to expand our internal production to encompass all of our plastic parts, but only if it meets our expectations of quality.

Posted on November 6, 2018January 15, 2019 by cogburn — Leave a comment

One or the Other? Why not Both?

I read through a lot of the comments on The Truth About Guns article. I’ve read the forum posts other places discussing our products. There are still a lot of people with the mentality that stripper clips and magazines are one versus the other. I’m not sure how we can be any more clear, but we’ll say it again:

It’s perfectly possible to use both.

Really, you can use stripper clips AND magazines. You could certainly only use magazines, but you can’t only use stripper clips. To use stripper clips you need to have at least one magazine. It is impossible to use our stripper clip guides without a magazine. It’s never been a goal of ours to replace your magazines. Keep as many as you want. We don’t care if you have 30 magazines for your rifles. What we’re concerned about is when the magazines run empty. We want you to be able to have the tools and means to stuff more rounds into them as fast as possible. To that effect we’ve brought surplus bandoleers into our product line up. We want to you to be able to grab and go with your extra ammo and reload your magazines when you get a chance. We also want to point out that these bandoleers are surplus U.S military bandoleers. The U.S. Military currently employs the 4 pocket bandoleers to resupply troops. I’m not sure where the disconnect happens, but I just want to point out that the most advanced military on the planet uses bandoleers stuffed with stripper clips for resupply of ammo. The only slight difference is that we can load our clips directly into the magazine when it’s installed on the rifle making it impossible to loose. This was seen on real military rifles including the M14, VZ-58, and some FAL variants. Modern US Military 4 pocket bandoleer for 5.56x45mm ammo with Mini-30

Of course you can just use them for fun anytime you like. That was the origination of the idea in the first place. Lever actions are still fun, revolvers are still fun, and stripper clips are still fun as well.

Which reminds me: I need to procure a Russian contract 1895 Winchester and a M1917 Smith and Wesson.

Posted on August 25, 2018September 8, 2018 by cogburn — Leave a comment

Current and Future Product Developments

Close followers of Cogburn Arsenal might have noticed the recent addition of the Mini-14 stripper clip spoon. We have a whole family of magazine loaders that we offer on a rolling release. This will extend a little outside the Mini-14 and Mini-30 family, but certainly cover the bases as well as we can.

lanyard loops for retention
easy to find orange
for people using Thermold clips

We don’t claim these are the most innovative products out there, but many in this product line will be the first time these items are created by anyone. Even if the idea isn’t very shocking, we hope to change people’s minds of what is possible as a standard product a company can offer. Our intent is to create a product family that includes many clips and magazine types all with a familiar look, feel, and function. We also think there are a few things we do to differentiate ourselves from mass production parts. All of our parts will have loops to attach a bit of para-cord. We also have the full range of colors. That can be a useful tool for high visibility, style points, or color coding(example: bandoleers with green spoons have M855 “green tip”, red spoons are with ballistic tips, etc).

Mini-30 Stripper clip mag loader prototype

Creative work is coming amongst the boring. That work never really stopped. Obviously, for competitive business reasons, we can’t tell what we’re working on too soon(those darn copy cats will swoop in and steal an idea). We also had a couple months delay due to web development and restructuring the business. In a manner of weeks we’ll likely be ready to share some pictures and videos of the next new thing. So keep an eye out for that, but only if you want to see the ergonomics of the Mini-14/30 rifles increase. We do like sharing pictures of our fun side projects on Instagram and Facebook if it’s something we don’t plan on selling. The Broomhandle Mauser is a perfect example and it certainly won’t be the last. We do this because we have lag times between getting prototypes made, it’s fun, and I think you guys like seeing them. So, until everyone starts screaming and shouting, I’ll keep doing that.

The Mauser Broom handle

Along with the new developed products, we are looking into bringing in a limited amount of military surplus items that have relevant use with our products. The USGI stripper clips and USGI bandoleers are a great example of that. We’ll choose carefully as we still stick to our philosophy of keeping low inventory costs and passing the savings onto you wherever we can.

Posted on July 3, 2018April 4, 2019 by cogburn — Leave a comment

Why Use Stripper Clips for Loading?

Many times when I see the idea of stripper clip loading proposed, usually someone quickly asks “but why?”

For a lot of people, the sight of stripper clip loading is self explanatory. If this is you, feel free to read no further. For other people, they look at stripper clips as an inferior and out dated loading method. In all honesty, they are correct. It’s slower and more finicky than changing a magazine. People take that correct view and go one step farther and think something that is inferior and out dated doesn’t have a place. That’s where I disagree.

Reason 1) Stripper clips prove their worth as a supplementary loading method. They don’t replace magazines, they supplement magazines. There is generally a finite number of magazines in any given situation. Proprietary Mini-14 and Mini-30 magazines cost significant amounts of money. On the other hand, stripper clips flood the market at a nearly disposable price. The average shooter can afford to buy stripper clips for most of the ammo they have on hand. Some ammo is even sold prepackaged on stripper clips giving the shooter a steady supply of loaded clips. When the loaded magazines run out, the shooter can reload magazines using pre-loaded stripper clips. The U.S. military still employs this method, although they issue a magzine filler (or colloquially a loading spoon) to load the magazines directly. These “spoons” are available for the Mini-14 and I encourage their use. Keep in mind no such product exists for the Mini-30(until now). I don’t see a good reason why someone should complain about stripper clip guides attached to a rifle but not the little spoons currently still issued to U.S military personnel for resupply. It’s the same thought process for both.

STANAG magazine and USGI stripper clip spoon with USGI stripper clip Mini-14 magazine loader

Reason 2) Shooting with outdated technology is more fun than you’d think. I point to the continued popularity of lever actions, revolvers, and black powder for proof. When you can envision what it was like for a Vietcong soldier using a Chinese made Type 56 SKS against the French in a jungle, it enriches the shooting community with some history. I think we can all embrace a little novelty into shooting. Not every item in your safe needs to be for the protection of your life. There are a lot of people not interested in shooting for fun, but that’s okay. If that’s you, no problem, but it’s also okay to let others have our fun. Keep in mind, it has never been recommended by us that you use a stripper clip to reload your rifle while being shot at, unless that’s your only means of reloading.

SKS / Siminov 7.62x39 carbine

Reason 3) Gadgety things captivate me and make my soul hum. I know others feel the same deep pull. I’m fascinated by adapting things together that normally have no business together. (See Other post) There is no foreseeable end for the tinkering with my rifles. I need to re-zero my rifle on every range visit because I’ve changed so much that I can’t trust the zero anymore. It’s a real problem, but it’s not one that will stop in the near future. Let us tinker. Sooner or later we’ll come up with something you really like. There are things in the works that we think more people will like, so keep that in mind.

Reason 4) Gun laws and legal restrictions determine new sets of requirements for others. I commonly hear “just move” like it’s a simple concept to leave family and friend networks. Our products weren’t specifically built for this purpose, but I absolutely understand the demand for more loading options in several restrictive U.S. states. Going back to the first point, ten round magazine restrictions or fixed magazine restrictions accentuate the cost benefits of stripper clip loading. In the long term, Garand style Enbloc clip loading should take the place of stripper clip loading. It’s a better overall system for fixed magazines.

If you still aren’t convinced, that’s ok. Take a look at our other products and see if there is anything else you’re interested in. Feel free to share what you think.

-Cole F.

P.S. I’d like to leave a big thanks to The Truth About Guns for featuring our blog post and products in their article!