As someone who has a bullpup and has used it a lot. I think the best option might be a kit like the Triad w/ a Foxtrot Mike upper. The greatest flaw with most bullpups isn’t that they are bullpups but that they can’t reap the benefit of being AR-15 based.
When it comes to a knife fight opinion over the pros-v-cons of bullpups as a private owner, I’m vaguely ambivalent. While I think many points that people bring up are valid, the degree to which they are valid is often massively exaggerated. I have a lot of time with a Tavor, and I like it. While factors like the squishy trigger are true, they aren’t so true that it makes it unusable or anything. My main reoccuring issue with bullpups is that they must be specially configured for left handed shooting (as the Tavor is), while traditionally laid out right handed guns rarely cause isssues.
pulls out pen-knife OK, Buddy, let’s go!
So, I’m ex-infantry, and I swear that, after I discovered they existed, I spent many months in the field wishing I had a bullpup. I realize now that, back at the tender age of idiot, I thought the shorter profile would somehow translate to less weight, but even so; we weren’t issues carbines, and I desperately wanted a more compact weapon.
The first bullpup I bought when I got it was an RFB. In retrospect, if weight was my biggest concern, a 308 was a poor choice, but now that I don’t have to spend most of my time with it carrying it round as dead weight, I love the thing and am an even bigger bullpup fantatic.
The RFB trigger tight and not at all squishy, so it’s possible for designers to make good triggers for bullpups; and downward-ejecting platform like the Kel-Tecs (RFB or RDB 5.56) and P90 eliminate left/right ejection issues. The charging handle would still be on the wrong side with a Kel-Tec, but you’d have that same problem with an AR; and some bulpups have charging handles on both sides (P90, RM277), so there’s literally no switching necessary for left/right. On the P90, RM277, and Kel-Tecs, the fire selector is ambidextrous.
My point is that there are several bullpup options for pick-up-and-go for lefties; even the RM277, which isn’t exactly ideal with the side-switchable but not ambi charging handle, has a side-ejecting port, but it throws casing sharply forward and the reviews I’ve seen say it’s not an issue for lefties.
The Tavor is a beautiful weapon, but maybe just not an ideal choice for left-handed shooters.
What GP said is maybe the biggest issue: the AR platform is so ubiquitous, and with such a long and storied history, that there’s a huge secondary industry in DIY Lego-like custom parts that simply doesn’t exist for any bullpup platform. Maybe no other platform except Glock has so many blingable options.
But I’m still willing to die on the bullpup hill; popularity is not sufficient to prove superiority. The AR platform is like VHS: it isn’t better (than BetaMax), there was just so much more of it.
I just had SF guys give me a trashcan full of short uppers to pick through when I wanted a shorter rifle. QED.
Bullpups have pros and cons, but depending on the application some may valid or not. The most valid advantages they have is for some kind of mechanized or airborne military role where they’d still want terminal ballistics at range.
Otherwise, I see most of the arguments for or against them as essentially a draw against traditional counterparts.
Against the left hand configured Tavor and a stock-ish AR, I feel equally comfortable. Done a few competitions with the Tavor (not many like 2 or 3) and moment to moment it had ups and downs over an AR. I think I did equally poorly with both rifle types.
Front/down ejecting is true, I have played briefly with an F2000. I prefer the Tavor it, but the idea of making ambi ejecting is valid.
In the end, given that I find bullpups roughly a draw with traditional rifles I stick with traditional for the most part because it’s more common. If somebody handed me a good bullpup I wouldn’t reject it.
My time is mostly on the MDRx I’ve found you can effectively shoot bilaterally if you get a weld closer to the stock. Other than that just swap the port over.
IMO the worst thing about bullpups is that they just aren’t ar15s and can’t benefit from the after market. Which isn’t unique to being a bullpup.
