Product recalls are never a good thing. It means that someone, somewhere, got a bad gun.

More specifically, though, when we say “bad gun,” we mean the gun did something that could result in a serious injury or even loss of life. Product recalls aren’t spur of the moment decisions, which makes them somewhat alarming for people with the affected guns.

Which is why we tend to take them seriously. Especially for a fairly popular gun like Kel-Tec’s Sub-2000 rifle.

ATTENTION

IMPORTANT SUB-2000 SAFETY RECALL NOTICE

We have recently identified an issue with the heat treatment of certain steel tubes received from a third‐party supplier from which the barrels for a limited number of Kel‐Tec SUB‐2000 rifles were manufactured. This could potentially cause the barrel to rupture when a cartridge is fired and could result in serious personal injury. The safety of our customers is our primary concern, so Kel‐Tec has voluntarily initiated this recall because of the possibility of a barrel rupturing.

This recall only affects a portion of SUB‐2000s that were manufactured in 2017.

All costs associated with the recall of your firearm shall be covered by Kel‐Tec.

To check if your firearm would need to be sent in for barrel replacement enter your serial number into the provided field below. Refer to the image at the bottom of this page to help locate your serial number. In addition, if you would like to view a list of all affected serial numbers, Click Here.

First, let’s give credit to Kel-Tec for stepping up like it did. It’s not a case of a bunch of YouTubers finding a problem and making it an issue until the company couldn’t ignore it anymore — not that something like that’s ever happened.

That said, it is never a good thing for something like this to happen. I’m not sure what Kel-Tec’s quality control process is like, but it needs to be looked at. Yes, these are from third-party vendors, but that’s beside the point. It’s up to any company that builds firearms to make sure the parts are up to snuff. I’m not sure how these got by, but I hope Kel-Tec is looking into this.

The Sub-2000 is a popular pistol-caliber carbine in part because it accepts magazines from various popular 9 mm and .40 handguns. Coupled with the fact that the weapon folds up for light, easy storage, it makes it attractive for people looking for a carbine with magazine commonality with their preferred handgun.

While I don’t have much trigger time with them, I have spoken with a number of owners and almost all like the guns.

Clearly, none of them had the barrel blow up on them. If so, I suspect the story would be different, for obvious reasons.

Kel-Tec says these only impact a small number of rifles, but if you have a Sub-2000, please don’t hesitate to check out your serial number and make sure your’s is good to go.

It’s all fun and games until someone loses a hand.