Does anyone know if this will work on the Caldwell copy of the Harris?

Thanks, just got my parts from T-Nuts and it all went together like a charm.

Good morning all.

If any of you want the best deal on a cheap way to get this done, just cut T-Nuts out of the equation all together. They just buy the imported components and re-sell them. If you can’t afford a Pod-Loc kit, then why give them the extra money when you can cut them out all together? I mean, isn't the reason for not buying a Pod-Loc kit to save your money?

The washer T-Nuts sells is a standard electronic spacer. Country of origin unknown. It doesn’t support the bipod’s pivot rod and doesn’t shield the threads from dirt but if it suits your needs, you can get one from MSC (part#67715425) for 66 cents instead of paying $1.00 to T-Nuts. That is a 44% savings!!!!

The lever T-Nuts sells is from J.W.Winco. The lever is imported.
J.W.Winco lever

You could get a group buy direct from J.W.Winco and purchase this imported lever for about $4.00. That is a 40% savings over T-Nuts!!!!

All the other T-Nuts levers are from J.W.Winco and can be had at similar savings by going direct.

This is an exact apples to apples comparison of product for way, way less money. The T-Nuts brokered parts compared to my Pod-Loc kit is not apples to apples.

For those of you that use and abuse your Pod-Loc kits, “Thank You for your business”. We appreciate it and work hard to keep improving these kits.

Every component of the Pod-Loc is made in the U.S. They come to my shop in bulk from each manufacturer. The stainless steel parts go through a Chrome Sulphide bath at C.T.I. in Phoenix. They are then assembled with Red Loc-Tite and the threads lubricated by us right here in Forest Hill. They are then inspected and packaged with complete instructions. While I do let dealers handle the sale of these kits so I can concentrate on building rifles, KMW is the one stop place to call if you have a problem or breakage.

This is just a small kit, not a rocket guidance system, but I do take it's evolution and use serious enough to try to do it right just like the other projects at KMW.

Hope this helps. If you want cheap made and cheap price, you are silly to pay a middle man. If you want the original kit with full support from my shop, then look at the Pod-Loc. I will never frown or point a finger at someone shooting on a budget. I just want to make sure they make their purchase decisions after being informed. I hope all of you that purchase the other kit have fun and shoot safe. Maybe we can earn your business later down the road.

For more direct info you can view this page.

http://kmwlrs.com/Pod-Loc%20subpage.htm

Everybody stay safe.
Terry

Just ordered this. Thank you for the link. If ordering from T-nuts, use coupon code AR152010 to get 10% off

I must be the only person in here that is "rich enough" to buy the original PodLoc for $20.

I dunno,....but I wish this thread went bye bye. We NEED to support companies in the community that support shooters.

The gun community is small...and one we cannot afford to have people "stealing a design" from. Cough up the damn $20 people.

And you wonder why people don't get in the gun business

sad to see it when we are too fucking cheap to support a company involved in the long range community.

Go ahead...send all your cash to China....maybe when you realize how big a sucker you were buying cheap...you will learn.

geesh...should he ashamed

$12 is worth the innovation work that they put into it.

Keep buying Made in China crap....when all the manufacturing jobs are gone....most likely many of the members here will be in the unemployment lines.

This is about keeping OUR economy, and OUR society strong...by supporting those in OUR country than are innovative and bring cool products to the market.

I guess the price for selling out our country to some here is $12

Evidently you are not that econically smart.

McMaster Carr, MSC and J.W.Winco all carry imported parts that can be used to assemble a pseudo Pod-Loc kit. T-Nuts and MIDWAY purchase these off the shelf imports, package them and make money off of you.

If you do not go straight to the source for those same parts and get maximum savings, how is that being econimcally smart?

If someone does not purchase a KMW kit because of financial reasons, that is cool, however it will never be because of quality, design, support or warranty deficiencies.
I just think you look silly when you say that you dodge the original product due to cost savings (not comparing apples to apples anyway) and then you run to line up at another vendor that is charging you beyond what you should have to pay for cheap parts.

Your logic does not shine through.

Everyone have a safe Memorial Day.
Special "Thank You" to all of our brothers and sisters that serve and have served in our military.

Terry

Maybe because Terry doesn't sell them directly, if he did this it would take time away from build's so he would probably have to charge more for the kit. Furthermore as he also said his kit's use USA made parts not cheap chinese crap so there's probably not all that much room to move on these kit's. Me personally I don't see the point in being cheap to save a few bucks, it's not like we're talking a big difference in money. I know Terry's product's are not going to have a issue and should it have a issue a call to Terry and explanation would probably be all that's needed and a replacement part would be on the way to you. If you call T-nuts and say one of their chinese parts broke they are probably going to say something along the lines of "I'm sorry, I'll be glad to sell you another one".

We're talking a few bucks here people, and for that money you are getting a high quality USA made product that the company will stand behind. No brainer.

I think you and others are missing the point of my posts.

I have decided to offer a kit with domestic origins. I do this knowing full well that the final street price will be more expensive than if I used imported components.
Members of this forum have decided that they prefer to purchase a less expensive version of our kit based purely on price even though the kits are not the same.
Now my point was that if they are making their decision solely on how much money they have to pay, then why on earth would they not spend the extra minute to go all the way to the original import source and cut out T-Nuts and MidWay?

If my kit is $20 and the import kits are $12.00, then why would anyone not want the same $12.00 kit for $6.50?

You ask about me dropping the price of my kit and therefore my margin without even flinching, but you take no steps to encourage the same forum audience to cut out the margin of the import parts alltogether.
It makes no sense.

As to the tone of some posts on this thread, I have not conducted myself in a disrespectful manner or been negative toward any other product. I have only come to this site to attempt some balance and bring information that others may not have the complete of this story. If any of my own posts were taken as negative, I apologize. Only facts were posted. Additionally, I never said anyone was wasting their money. In this instance, you get what you pay for and some are OK with a cheap price vs. performance trade off. I'm cool with that also, so I hope you are not referring to my comments as the negative ones.

Everyone have a safe holiday.
PS: Yes, my spelling sucks sometimes when I'm trying to get my fingers on the tiny BlackBerry buttons.


I

I can tell you right away that there have been recent performance issues with our own Pod-Loc kits.
We had about 5000 levers (not the assembly, but just the synthetic lever without internals) made to our specs that came in without the 30% glass fill in the nylon. We had no way of knowing until our breakage rate went from 1 every 3 months to 2 dozen in a 4 week period.

We immediately quit shipping kits to the dealers and started a list for those that experienced failures so that we could ship the newly corrected parts. Public service type announcements were made at several locations including here: http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1718742&page=1

For those of you not wanting to visit another forum, the contents of the announcement are pasted below:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
Good morning all.

I wanted to post this note to give any potential new users and existing users of our Pod-Loc kits a public notice of an issue that we have found with our kits.

I have written and forwarded this letter to our dealer/distributor network to let them know about this issue and to help them be prepared for a hopefully short lived supply problem. I am sharing it with you on this forum so that the facts are in place ahead of any misplaced conclusions that may be forwarded on the internet by well meaning people with too much time on their hands. The body of the letter is quoted here:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
3/19/2009

TO: Purchasing and Marketing Dept.
**All distributors of the KMW Pod-Loc kit

RE: Temporary disruption in supply of new kit orders


First off, I would like to thank you and your establishment for your business and your patience with us as we have grown and evolved the Pod-Loc kit for Harris S Model bipods. While building rifles is our core business, I do take this kit and all other KMW products seriously when it comes to quality and value.

Early development and testing proved that we should use a synthetic lever on this assembly. Metal levers can result in bent or broken Harris bipods if subjected to impacts or snags when moving. We have had very good luck with this strategy in the past with an average of only 1 breakage per 3000 kits sold.

However, in the last 6 months we started to see a large increase in reported breakages. The specified material is 30% glass reinforced nylon but speculation is that there was a large batch of levers shipped to us without that reinforced material. Visually the material looks the same either way. This is not the first quality issue we have seen from this supplier and delivery has always been randomly late.

While this is not a high tech kit, it is used on many U.S. Military and L.E. rifles as well as friendly countries abroad. Due to the serious scenarios that this simple product can find its way into, I feel that we cannot chance sending out any additional kits that may have flaws leading to unacceptable failures in the field.

Effective immediately, I have put all new Pod-Loc orders on hold and we are destroying all levers sent from our last supply so they cannot accidently get into circulation. I am spending $12,800.00 on a new injection mold to be used at a U.S. supplier in Idaho. The new levers will use the same material as used in Glock frames and similar military grade synthetic items. The new levers will be quickly identifiable with the addition of “KMW” and “made in U.S.A.” lettering molded into the surface.

I have been told that we can expect our first supply of levers in 6-7 weeks. Upon receipt of the new levers, I will shut down all rifle production at KMW to concentrate on filling all Pod-Loc backorders. Estimated time to ship all backorders will be 72 hrs after receipt of the levers. Pricing of the updated kits will not be affected as I will absorb the cost of the new tooling into our other business operations.

I will continue to accept and track any incoming dealer/distributor orders and they will be shipped on a first in, first out order upon resumption of the kits being assembled here.
I very much understand that this will cause inconveniences for you and your customers. Under the circumstances, I feel that this is the only ethical and moral way to handle the issue. I can assure you that it will be inconvenient for KMW as well.

It is my sincere wish that this change in our supply will result in KMW being able to supply a superior product and do so without the delivery issues that we have experienced in the past.
If you would like more information regarding this kit and its history, please visit this web page: http://www.kmwlrs.com/Pod-Loc%20subpage.htm

If you have any additional questions regarding this letter, and the issues addressed, do not hesitate to contact me directly.
We really do appreciate your business and hope that we will come out of this problem with improved quality and delivery. Thanks in advance for your patience and your understanding.

Best regards,
Terry Cross
Owner, KMW
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> End of Letter. .
_
In the mean time, if you have any problems with your Pod-Loc kit, please email me direct ( Terry@kmwlrs.com ) for a replacement. A new lever will be sent at no charge from my remaining stock of parts and should get you back up and running for the time being.

Once the new levers are in house and assembled, we can then offer the new part. I am also redesigning the internals of this kit and integrating the dust shield spacer into the splined insert. All upgrades will be phased in over the next 6 months.

The Pod-Loc kit is made up of 5 components. Each component is made in the U.S. to my specs. All metal parts are stainless steel with Chrome Sulphide bath. Even the metal insert that is molded into the levers is machined stainless. Each component is shipped in bulk to KMW. Every kit is assembled with red LocTite 268 and then the inside of the 10-32 female thread is coated with Anti-Seize thread lubricant. Each kit is packaged with detailed instructions and carefully packed for shipment to the distributor.

The Pod-Loc is the original Harris –S locking kit and is the only one that is made in the U.S.
Thanks in advance for reading this notice. Your business and your patience with us during this growing pain is appreciated.

Everyone have a safe weekend.

Terry
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We have been supporting the users and standing behind our product for the last 12 years. This has been the most expensive error yet but one that will make these kits better in the long run because we have a tighter control of the custom molded levers.

Good Info. I highly recommend T-Nuts. I ordered from them after reading this. The guy was super helpful and shipped my stuff that day. Did two bipods for $22 shipped. I went with the micro as well.

i have a podlok, the midway alpha bravo, and now this tlock stainless/metal version...............well...they all work identically in my use. if someone wants to pay MORE money for the same stuff....go for it, but I'm more fiscally wise than that. I like your stocks Terry, a lot, but the podlock just IS NOT worth that much more money. I honestly could care less if something is made in the US or not...that doesn't mean better quality anymore...usually it means worse. And as for putting money into US workers hands...well, until the US learns that being overpaid and underworked is NOT a sustainable way of life or how to do business, US quality will continue to plummet while cost increases.