Why is it that a bullpup rifle cost so much more than a similair rifle?

AK $400 bullpup AK $800

AR $900  FS2000 or MSAR $1800

m1a $ 1700  Keltec 308 around $2700 I hear???

So how come the Bull pups are so much more than conventional designed rifles?

is there that much more to them?

Are they harder to produce?

Are Bull pups harder to produce and be reliable and accurate?

Whats the deal?

Just curious

Thats a complicated question.

The AK bullpups are more because the Norinco and Valmet bullpups havn't been imported since the 80s all aftermarked AK bullpup kits suck! There is no kit to make a regular rifle a bullpup that works well so avoid the K-Var and century bullpups, I know from personal experiance they are worthless.

AR15s are made by god knows how many companys MSAR, TPD and SABBR DEFENSE had to design a way to manufacture their AUG rifles, get the equipment, figure out how to minimize wast of materials. These companys can't just call up bushmaster and tell them to send them barrels. The way the AUG barrel atatches requires tollerences that are about 2 times tighter than AR barrels, this is why no one has made them stateside before these companys.

The FN FS2000 is just a whizbang toy that looks cool and costs a lot because it looks cool, they are enferior rifles and not woth the money IMO mine had pitting in the pistolgrip where unburned powder got through the bolt carrier chanel hol over the grip( I dont know why theres a hole there) given time it would have eaten through the grip. Also the charging handle broke.

I don't like M1As much, I had one and then I built an M14 from a forged reciever using GI parts, if you built a GI spec Rack grade rifle it would be $2500, I would not compare a cast reciever M1A with a cast oprod and non chrome lined barrel with parts ordered from taiwan to a rifle that was designed and built entirely in the US and supposidly with new technology (the trigger is supposed to be awsome for a bullpup). That said I will be pissed if they didn/t chrome line the RFB barrel.

Bullpups are not harder to produce or less accurate, they are however rifles that require a company that wants to build them from scratch rather than just ordering a bunch of parts from whoever and puting them together in their shop with their name on them like a lot of AR15 companys do. TPD and MSAR had to spend millions on machines so cut their parts because the tollerences were too tight for any other machine to cut them.

I have had an AUG and an FS2000, I didnt like the trigger on the AUG and the FS2000 was a poorly exicuted design IMHO, I like the Norinco AK bullpups but have read they get really hot and they had no provision for optics so I never picked one up. The only bullpup I am really interested in now is the TAVOR that Charles Daly  is suppoes to start making here, its much more simple and any currently available bullpup, totally ambidextrouse, takes M16 mags, well made and is said to have a good trigger in the semi only versions.

I wish you the best of luck with your bullpup purchases in the future just dont fall into any impulse buys, make sure you research everything you buy well.

For the most part, much much smaller volume than the aforementioned convestional rifles.  you will also note the the convential rifles had their development costs paid for by a government many, many years ago, whereas with most the bullpups a private enitity relatively recently spent the capital to develop the designs.

So pretty much, the overhead of development and the economy of scale comes into play.

Also, I suspect a great deal of the pricing is what the market will bear.

And actually, MSRP of the Keltec is equal or even less than a typical M1A.

Think the two posters above covered everything pretty well.

Great thing about the MSAR is that it is the best selling bullpup in American right now, which means they have such an excellent distribution set-up and demand that they can produce in higher numbers than other companies.  The more rifles you produce the cheaper the per-rifle cost (economy of scale).

If I had crazy Bill Gates money I'd buy every law abiding citizens in America an STG-556. I know the guys at MSAR are looking to arm as many folks with a bullpup as possible.  

I think once the STG-556E4 hits the market with the AR magazines it's going to expand the market.  I mean the best selling and best distributed bullpup rifle with the ability to accept the most popular magazine is going to add hundreds if not thousands to our ranks by the end of the year (even though I"m not an AR mag fan).  

The bullpup is the perfect civilian home defense rifle configuration. No NFA crap, no loss of velocity, and short overall length.  However, most people I see at gunshows still view rifles like the STG-556 as a "Buck Roger's" gun and we have to do our best to show people that although they make look sci-fi  they are in fact a real viable excellent home defense option.

If folks start to see the advantages offered by the bullpup they'll be willing to save up that extra amount or spend that extra bit to get one over a traditional configuration rifle. I'd like to see an STG-556 go for about $1,250 MSRP and then you'd see street prices going for around the $1K mark thanks to competition.

Thanks for the answers.  It was thinking of the same thing.  I want to get a FN PS90 and they are so damn expensive.  The mags are expensive, too.  Come to think of it, the ammo is also very expensive.

remember when $1000 would buy a cool gun...  lol...

Funny thing is at the NRA show everyone acted like the Augs and Aug clones came out of the future...  the design has been around for over 20 years.

Newer is not always beter anyway, I was dissapointed to hear that the P90 reciever cracks with the use of a suppressor due to the back pressure gennerated fom the can

THe FN and AUG items are also imported/contain parts imported from Europe.

The cost to manufacture in Europe is more then the US. Then, there is the bad exchange rate, and the additional cost of importing.

On the Euro civilian market, AUGs are about the same price as a Euro made AR.

Its not so much the bullpups are more expensive, its that our collective wallets have gotten much more thinner!

Certainly inflation has effected the change in price from a Steyr AUG in 1989 and a Steyr AUG today in 2009.

As our dollars become more and more worthless we'll see firearms increase in cost across the board.



Obama may be able to harm the Second Amendment after all without a single statute passed to restrict it through making the dollar so worthless that the cost of purchasing a firearm becomes too high for the average American.

Even still, there is a shit ton of markup and profiteering on weapons. Some blame it on regulatory costs, liability costs, labor etc., but I have been in the machining and stamping trades for 18 years and there is absolutely not $800 in an AR15 or $2600 in a SCAR. It's a matter of what people are willing to pay, and with years worth of people thinking they are Entitled to anything their credit cards would buy, people were willing to pay a lot.

Because.........................mine goes to 11

Fine.  Since no one is going to say it, I'll divulge the great industry secret.  Are you sitting down?
The stocks aren't really machine-made polymer wonders of western technology.  They're really unicorn horn that is hand-carved by virgin elves.  This is an industry secret that most gun owners can't understand or refuse to believe, so don't tell anyone.  It really riles the neanderthals.

mmmmmmmmm.....virgin elves......

The FN FS2000 is made entirely in in Belgium and is proof marked. A lot people complain about the price of this rifle but is the only Bullpup on the market currently produced (besides the PS0) that is all European. That why I bought one over a clone because I missed my AUG A1. Overall a better weapon IMO. No flames please.