Springfield Armory Kuna

Is this new sub-gun going to be a Scorpion killer?

Just over a month ago I watched a TFBTV video on YouTube about a new gun that Springfield Armory was going to be releasing called the Kuna. James Reeves tried to get as much info on the gun as he could, but the Springfield reps were pretty tight lipped. The sample gun they were looking at was chambered in .40S&W, but they said it was going to be offered in 9mm. I love me a good 9mm sub-gun, so I was excited to see something new in that category.

But when would we actually see it? I have found in the decade plus that I have been attending SHOT Show, manufacturers love to announce new guns, but then we wait a year or three, or more, before we ever see the gun. Based on this history, I was not expecting to see the Kuna until next year at the very earliest. Instead, here we are barely a month later and the Kuna is hitting the shelves here in the US, and I am lucky enough to have one in my grubby, stupidly large hands.

What is it?

The Kuna is a compact, lightweight, 9mm, roller delayed, semi-auto sub-gun built by HS Produkt in Croatia. It is being sold in the US as a pistol and is available with or without a brace. If you choose the braced version, it comes with a Strike Industries side folding brace. The included brace is very solid and the hinge lockup is excellent. However, the styling of the brace is very, well, Strike Industries in appearance, so some people will love it, and others are going to hate it.

The Kuna exactly as it came out of the box

All of the controls on the Kuna are fully ambidextrous, aside from the folding, non-reciprocating charging handle, but it is easily swapped from one side of the gun to the other. The gun comes with two (2) magazines, which is good as they are a proprietary magazine design. Additional mags will set you back approximately $25 each, and they should hopefully hit the shelves by the time the gun is released. If you don’t fancy the grip that comes on it, no sweat as the Kuna takes standard AR grips. That said, the included grip is actually quite nice with good texture and a more vertical angle than I am used to seeing on production guns.

The gun breaks apart into two main pieces; an upper and a lower. The two halves are held together with captive takedown pins, much like an AR. The lower is all polymer and very light weight, but there is a metal chassis in it in which the trigger and hammer are located. The controls are all metal, aside from the safety levers. For those wondering (just like I was) no, the trigger is not AR compatible. Looks wise, it appears more similar in design to the trigger in a CZ Bren 2 than that of an AR.

2A Cops is sponsored by Boise Black Rifle

The upper receiver is a single piece of extruded aluminum that extends from the butt of the gun to the tip of the forend with a full length Picatinny rail on the top. Buried inside that Picatinny rail are folding backup iron sights. The barrel is free floated inside the forend and is mounted in a trunnion at the chamber end that also incorporates the front takedown pin holes.

There is very minimal space on the forend of the Kuna, which is not really surprising considering it only has a 5.5” barrel. In fact, there is so little space that there is not enough room for me to run a handstop (such as a BCM KAG) like I do on just about every gun. They must have known this would be an issue as they shaped the front edge of the lower receiver such that it functions perfectly in the same manner. The lower portion of the forend does have one and a half M-Lok slots, so if you like to run a vertical grip on your SBR’d sub-guns, you should have room for that. The sides of the forend do offer two full M-Lok slots which gave me just enough room to mount a light and keep the tape switch wire out of the way of the ejection port.

Enough about the bits and bobbles already. How does it shoot?

Shooting Impressions

Well, I am happy to say that it shoots very nice. One of my favorite (until now) guns to shoot from personal collection has been my CZ Scorpion. It is my baby, and I have done a lot to that gun over the years. The Kuna is very likely to unseat the Scorpion and replace it as my backpack gun. Due to the roller delayed operation, it shoots noticeably softer than the Scorpion, it is smaller, lighter and more accurate.

The Kuna trigger is not horrible, but it is definitely not great either. Pull weight is good, but trigger travel could be better. It has about ¼” of nearly resistance free take up where you hit a wall. Pull through that wall and you get about 1/3” of creep before let off, and then you get about 1/8” of overtravel. According to my Lyman digital trigger pull gauge, my Kuna averaged a 5lb 2oz trigger pull weight. It is a very serviceable trigger, which I did quickly become accustomed to, but it is nowhere near as nice as a Geissele AR trigger, or the Timney that I put in my Scorpion. (Side note: the Timney Scorpion trigger is freaking amazing!)

On my initial outing with the Kuna, I put 220 rounds through it in bone stock form without any issues. I shot 115 grain Magtech steel case, 124 grain STV Scorpio, 124 grain CCI Blazer brass, and 147 grain Winchester white box hollow points and it chugged right along without a hitch.

2A Cops is sponsored by US Law Shield

Time To Gear It Up

For the next range session, I added a Yankee Hill Machine R9 suppressor and a Sig Sauer Foxtrot MSR compact light. I swapped out the factory pistol grip for a Kung Fu by Die Free Co. and after my Form 1 was approved, I replaced the brace with the new Haga Defense / A3 Industries HDA3 stock that I recently reviewed right here.

With the new hardware installed, I headed back to the range. The Kuna shot fantastic with the can installed. We ran a number of different loads through it, including some 140 grain S&B subsonic ammo. It was quiet and the addition of the can did not have any effect on the ejection pattern or the perceived recoil no matter which load we ran through it. I do need to note though, most of the ammo on this trip was 115 grain Magtech steel case.

A Couple Hiccups Encountered

At about 328 rounds suppressed, I encountered a malfunction - a failure to feed. It occurred when I got down to the last 2 rounds in the magazine. I cleared that malfunction, and as I cleared it, I noticed the follower in the magazine was sticking. I moved on, put in the other full mag and continued shooting, only to encounter the exact same malfunction when I got down to the last 2 rounds in that mag. This repeated several more times before I finally decided to disassemble a mag and see what was going on.

It turns out to be that when firing the gun suppressed, the added back pressure pushed more and more of the burnt powder, carbon and other gunk back into the action, and into the magazines. This is totally normal when running any gun suppressed. To compound this issue, the Magtech steel cased ammo we were using is pretty dirty stuff.

I attempted to clean the mags, both inside and out, with a rag to get the gun back into action, but I did not have any cleaning solvent or good brushes so my efforts were in vain. We packed it up and headed home for the day.

Once home, I spent 20 minutes gutting and cleaning the magazines until they were practically spotless. I examined the design and found that the follower could easily tilt fore and aft a bit in the mag body, which I feel might be part of the problem. When dirty, the follower started to drag on the dirt in the mag body causing it to tilt and lock up. A follower with longer “legs” on it might resist tilting more, and a slightly stronger mag spring could possibly be the cure.

Once cleaned, I reassembled the magazines and they both appeared to be functioning like new again. We will find out for sure if that fixed the issues on the next range outing.

Hiccups Cured

The next trip to the range went without a hitch. We fired another 544 rounds through the gun, with a suppressor on it, without any hint of an issue. We did however avoid any of the Magtech steel cased ammo, instead sticking with either S&B 140 grain subsonic or the Scorpio 124 grain supers.

It would appear that the malfunctions I encountered were a combination of dirty ammo, the suppressor, and potentially those design issues with the magazines that I noted earlier. Whatever the cause, I am glad to report it did not resurface.

On this range outing, we brought along four other 9mm sub-guns to compare to the Kuna. Those consisted of a heavily modified CZ Scorpion Evo3 S1 SBR, a PSA AK-V pistol, an HK SP5 SBR, and a Daniel Defense PCC pistol. Rob (the owner of Boise Black Rifle) and I took turns shooting the Kuna and one of the other guns back to back to get an immediate comparison of the felt recoil. We both agreed that the Kuna had a much lighter recoil impulse than any of the other guns except for the SP5. The HK definitely had the lightest recoil, but the Kuna was not far behind. It is most definitely worth noting that for the price of one SP5, you can almost buy three Kunas.

We wrapped up this third range trip experiencing zero malfunctions. In total, we put 1,243 rounds through the gun over three different trips to the range. Nearly 1,000 of those rounds were fired with a suppressor installed.

Accuracy

In terms of accuracy, the Kuna actually surprised me. It is a very accurate gun. When zeroing the kuna at 40 yards, I had a number of groups with rounds touching. That is something none of my other guns in this category have ever done. Near the end of the testing, I was shooting at my hostage taker steel targets from 40 yards, standing and unsupported, and I was having no trouble hitting the 4” hostage taker swinger. I can’t speak for other samples, but I would put my Kuna’s accuracy on par with any other gun in the category, including those priced far higher.

Final Thoughts

With an MSRP of $1149, the Kuna is priced extremely competitively. Despite that lower price, the Kuna offers more than just about any other gun in that price range. In fact, I like the Kuna so much that it is going to replace my beloved Scorpion as my backpack gun.

The only thing to keep in mind with the Kuna, at least at this point, is do not run dirty ammo through it as it could lead to magazine feeding issues. If you shoot clean ammo through it, you will love this thing. If you are in the market for a 9mm sub-gun, you owe it to yourself to give the Kuna a long, hard look.